Charles Burdett, Loredana Polezzi, eds.  Transnational Italian
Studies (Transnational Modern Languages).  Liverpool  Liverpool
University Press, 2020.  xix + 390 pp.  $49.95 (paper), ISBN
978-1-78962-138-9; $121.96 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-78962-137-2.

Reviewed by Kombola T. Ramadhani Mussa (Cardiff University)
Published on H-Italy (November, 2020)
Commissioned by Matteo Pretelli

Thinking Transnationally: New Challenges in Italian Studies

_Transnational Italian studies_, edited by Charles Burdett and
Loredana Polezzi, is part of the Transnational Modern Languages
Series, whose main aim is to show how modern languages can, on an
academic level as well as on a more practical one, benefit from a
transnational approach able to challenge the generally predominant
national model. Furthermore, the series demonstrates that a
transnational perspective also constitutes at present the most
appropriate lens through which to analyze and understand the changing
world we are living in.

In the introduction, the editors clearly explain the reasons behind
the volume but they also offer a lucid examination of how the field
of Italian studies has developed. When the discipline was first
introduced in British universities, the curriculum was focused on the
study of the Italian language and literature. By adopting a national
and homogeneous vision, reinforced by strict adhesion to the dictates
of the literary canon, Italian studies as an academic field has
contributed to affirming a national tradition predating the
historical formation of the Italian nation. As with other modern
language disciplines, Italian studies has been influenced by the
development of cultural studies. However, this has not changed the
idea that national cultures are separate and predominantly
monolingual. Yet this viewpoint has become clearly inadequate to
offer a thorough understanding of modern-day Italy. A national
perspective which still follows the line of an established canon,
although practically useful, has prevented the recognition of new
voices, social phenomena, and intercultural intersections that can be
profitably examined only through a broader framework. By presenting
Italian studies as a homogeneous academic field, this model has also
obscured its porosity and blocked the understanding of cultures that
are always evolving. A transnational approach, instead, invites us to
look at Italy as a plurilingual and multicultural space where we can
observe different languages, such as regional dialects and minority
languages, and multifarious experiences of mobility. This model makes
looking beyond the national territory indispensable and challenges
the importance of the nation-state as a unique category of inquiry.
In this regard, what has been termed a "transnational turn"--that is,
the shift from a national to a transnational model--represents a
necessary attempt to deal with the complex challenges of modern Italy
and the current world. Seen in this light, Italy constitutes an
exceptionally stimulating laboratory and object of research. In fact,
using Emma Bond's words, to which many contributors of the volume
refer, one may say that "the Italian case is, perhaps, at once
peculiarly trans-national and trans-nationally peculiar: historically
a space characterized by both internal and external transit and
movement, Italy itself can be imagined as a hyphenated, in-between
space created by the multiple crossings that etch its geographical
surfaces and cultural depths."[1]

This engaging book shows the fruitfulness of adopting this approach.
It is divided into four parts: "Language," "Spatiality,"
"Temporality," and "Subjectivity." These are not intended as rigid
divisions, but they identify the central topics each section is
predominantly concerned about. The first focuses on the complexities
of language, multilingualism, and translation as a critical
instrument of cultural analysis. The second section includes
contributions on experiences of places and the importance of
belonging. The third addresses conceptions of temporality within
cultures. Finally, the last section explores the significance of
subjectivity and its intricate interdependence with alterity. 

In the chapter that opens the first section, Loredana Polezzi offers
readers a fascinating overview of the many roles of translation in
different historical periods. By underlining its importance, Polezzi
shows translation to be a fundamental interpretative key to analyzing
cultural processes and understanding the complex Italian fabric.
Asking what national products are translated and what happens when
they are exported, as Polezzi also highlights, makes political
dynamics visible; it reveals how decisions about translation of
particular texts often reflect specific purposes, and influence the
way Italy perceives and narrates itself. Translation is also
discussed in the following chapter, where Andrea Rizzi looks at
fifteenth- and sixteenth-century translators as important cultural
intermediaries who, by traveling throughout Europe, disseminated
knowledge and exchanged ideas while, at the same time, promoting
cultural interactions. Stefania Tufi's essay foregrounds the
Linguistic Landscape (LL) of Italian cities. The contemporary urban
space becomes thus a perfect site for studying Italian
multilingualism and addressing questions related to movements of
people, citizenship, and national belonging. In the chapter that
concludes the first section, Naomi Wells, drawing on her fieldwork
with migrant communities at Centro Zonarelli in Bologna, offers an
analysis of new migration patterns and forms of multilingualism. She
also argues that a methodological approach that combines linguistic
analysis with an ethnographic orientation is particularly apt for
comprehending the multifaceted complexities of modern societies. 

The second section is opened by Nathalie Hester's essay, which offers
two examples of the epic tradition in Baroque Italian travel
literature: the _Viaggi_ (1650-63) by Pietro della Valle and
_L'America_ (1650) by Girolamo Bartolomei. These two different texts
illustrate the roles at a political, religious, and economic level
that the Italian peninsula, which at the time was locally and
regionally fragmented, played in European expansion. Clorinda Donato
then offers an overview, from a transnational angle, of
eighteenth-century Italy's intellectual figures, who by moving across
boundaries exposed and promoted their lifestyles. By highlighting the
value of their collective work, Donato describes the prestige of
Italy as a point of reference and center of cultural exchange. The
third chapter looks at the role of Italian performers who, between
1880 and the beginning of the twentieth century, emigrated from Italy
to the United States. It reveals their impact on the American film
industry, the significance of the interactions between the American
and Italian cinematographic scenes. The chapter also highlights the
special contribution of southern Italians to the consolidation of a
stereotypical idea of Italianness for the American audience. Teresa
Fiore's chapter illustrates how the transnational approach allows us
to rethink Italian studies, bringing to the fore Italian history of
mobility. Through an analysis of different cultural texts, Fiore also
shows that a focus on aspects related to migration (both inward and
outward) and colonialism is pivotal to deepening our understanding of
Italy's past and present. Jennifer Burns's essay ends the section
with an exploration of how migrants and members of minority groups
identify the notion of home. Their mobility is reflected in the fact
that home is seen not just as a physical space but as a continuing
process that can be termed "homing." Burns analyzes the objects and
the practices identified as "home" and explains how narratives of
home and belonging can refer to private and public spaces, but also,
for example, to digital communities.

In the opening chapter of the third section, David Bowe applies a
transnational lens to examine premodern texts written before Italy
became a nation. By focusing on works investigating the self,
authored by Guittone D'Arezzo, Dante Alighieri, and Francesco
Petrarca, Bowe shows how our notion of time and our understanding of
temporalities determine the way we read cultures of the past. Moving
to the sixteenth century, Eugenia Paulicelli discusses the importance
of the language of fashion to the formation of national identity. By
analyzing costume books, regarded as examples of visual culture, and
Baldassare Castiglione's _Book of the Courtier_, Paulicelli explains
how fashion and ways of dressing can be used to understand both the
local and global contexts. Subsequently, Donna Gabaccia examines the
crucial role of translation in enabling migrants who, between 1880
and 1960, moved from Sicily, and specifically the town of Sambuca, to
the United States to be counted and tracked. In this respect
translation is also a source of insight into the nation-building
projects of these two nations as well as their conceptions of
citizenship. In the latter part of this section, Charles Burdett
explains why reflection on the Italian colonial past and the
pervasive influence of its effects and consequences on our present is
necessary if we are to think of Italy and its cultures
transnationally. By analyzing works by writers such as Erminia
Dell'Oro, Nicky Di Paolo, or Gabriella Ghermandi, Burdett's essay
shows how texts on Italian expansionism and its aftermath bring to
the fore the question of time, revealing the interlocking of past,
present, and future. Turning to graphic novels, Barbara Spadaro
examines how Italian comics foreground various forms of memory,
language, and translation. She looks at Zerocalcare's _Kobane
Calling_ (2015) and Takoua Ben Mohamed's work, emphasizing how their
comics can be considered as the result of different cultures and
transnational movements. By combining visual and written elements,
Spadaro also argues, comics enable multimodal processes and represent
an effective tool to narrate the present world. 

In the first chapter of the concluding section, Tristan Kay reflects
on Dante's literary production, revealing that forms of
multilingualism, translation, and mobility characterized the Italian
culture of that time. In their chapter Fabio Camilletti and
Alessandra Diazzi analyze the influence of Freud's understanding of
subjectivity on Italian culture. They discuss the reception of
psychoanalysis, a hybrid form of knowledge, which was imported from
outside and crosses cultures and disciplines. In the essay that
follows_, _Derek Duncan examines Daniele Gaglianone's 2013 film _La
mia_ _classe_,_ _which describes the relationship between an
Italian-language teacher and his students with a migrant background
for whom Italian is not their first language. By examining the film,
Duncan explains that human mobility cannot be adequately comprehended
within national or linguistic borders. In her essay, Monica Jensen
addresses the cultural memory of events that took place during the
2001 G8 Summit held in Genoa. By focusing on Christian Mirra's
graphic novel _Quella notte alla Diaz_ (2010), Carlo Bachschmidt's
documentary _Black Block_ (2011), and Daniele Vicari's film
_Diaz--Don't Clean Up This Blood_ (2012), she argues that the tragic
impact of those events has been crucial in the formation of a
transnational and transgenerational subjectivity. In the last chapter
of the section, Serena Bassi offers an example of how a transnational
approach can be usefully applied to queer studies. In particular she
focuses on the Italian gay movement of the 1970s and on the impact of
its creative and linguistic practices. These not only challenged the
notion of a standard national language but also opposed
heteronormativity.

As underlined by Teresa Fiore in her chapter, the long and
complicated process that unified separate and different regional
areas into one nation probably explains why in the discipline of
Italian studies, as practiced abroad but also in Italy, the national
model has been particularly tenacious and less capable of opening up
to innovative approaches. However, the shift from a national to a
transnational focus seems crucial in conceiving the future of Italian
studies, in thinking how it can make sense of a world where
increasing mobility is strongly counteracted by widespread
nationalist ideologies. The Italian cultural and social contexts can
be deeper and better explored by focusing on "those spaces
pre-occupied by the cultures and politics of past mobility, and [on]
the impact they have (had) on the present" (p. 163). Adopting a
transnational viewpoint enables us to visualize Italian studies
differently, bringing to the fore aspects and connections which are
not immediately related to the idea we have of the Italian nation,
culture, and language. Moreover, the transnational draws attention to
new voices whose works are categorized as noncanonical and marginal,
such as those by Italian migrant writers, in which we can see the
coexistence of forms of multilingualism and self-translation. These
hybrid texts question the notion of national language and of a
monolingual national culture. 

In these crucial times Italian studies finds itself in, it is
necessary to provide flexible but solid critical tools which can be
applied to studying and comprehending dynamics and questions that
cannot be examined within geographic and political borders. Among
these instruments of critical analysis, as argued by Polezzi, we have
to include translation. We are used to thinking of translation merely
as a practical activity and of a translated text as a substitute for
the original one. This conception implies a binary model and a
correspondence between texts in the source and target languages. As a
discipline that brings together mobility and languages, translation
plays a central role in the first section of the volume, but it also
emerges as extremely important in the collection as a whole. Readers
are, for example, often reminded that many important Italian writers
and intellectuals, such as Dante, Ugo Foscolo, and Cesare Pavese,
normally spoke different languages and were expert translators. 

The study of the transnational has usually been associated with
colonial, postcolonial, and migration studies, areas that require
consideration of broader geographical spaces and the interlocking of
different temporalities. In this respect, Burdett elucidates that we
can fully understand modern Italian culture only if we know how
fascism developed. At the same time, in order to comprehend Italian
fascism, we have to address the construction of the Italian Empire.
Furthermore, the present Italian context cannot be thoroughly
explained unless we analyze Italy's colonialism and its legacy. Thus,
for example, a total grasp of phenomena such as the rise of far-right
movements, the spread of racism, and anti-immigrant sentiments
involves engaging with Italy's past and in particular the
consequences of its colonial role.

Some chapters of the book show how the transnational also brings to
the fore new ways of looking at the same things, taking into
consideration aspects which have often been neglected. Thus, it
should not be regarded as a surprise that a transnational model is
effectively used to examine periods and themes, such as the Italian
premodern context, that some might consider completely unsuitable for
this kind of analysis. In his chapter, devoted to Dante, Tristan Kay
demonstrates that some critical strategies and methodological
approaches related to the "transnational turn" can lead to suggestive
and unexpected results even when we study a hypercanonical author. In
fact, on the one hand, Dante is unanimously regarded as the father of
the Italian language; his figure is so deeply connected with Italian
history that his work has often been read according to nationalist
ends. On the other hand, if we closely analyze the environment that
surrounded him, we note how multicultural and plurilingual it was. In
it the diglossic system composed of Latin and Italian vernacular was
enriched by the use of Old French and Occitan. Although employed for
different purposes, all these languages coexisted perfectly. 

The analysis of Dante offered by Kay exemplifies what represents the
most significant challenge faced by Italian studies and, more
generally, the field of modern languages, that is, designing a
framework that makes it possible to combine the national and the
transnational, allowing the coexistence of a focus on the national
with a transnational view. A transnational approach foregrounds the
necessity of transcending a national framework but does not deny its
significance and relevance. As stressed by the editors, it is in fact
important to underline that national and transnational are not to be
regarded as distinct because they "are not exclusive but exist in
tension" (p. 14). Thinking transnationally requires looking beyond
national boundaries and encourages us to take into consideration
wider geographical areas. However, at the same time, a transnational
analysis reveals to us that the global and the local are connected.
More precisely, it emphasizes how global dynamics can be studied by
focusing on a local dimension, drawing our attention to
characteristics that are intrinsic to places such as the Sicilian
town Sambuca, Centro Zonarelli in Bologna, and the classroom
environment respectively in the chapters by Donna Gabacca, Naomi
Wells, and Derek Duncan.

As stated by Maria Corti while discussing orality, when we navigate a
field that is broad and porous like an ocean, where it is extremely
easy to get lost, we need to use the chosen perspective as a compass
from which to observe our object of study. We also have to clearly
establish the critical tools we will use in order to use them in an
operational and effective way.[2] The multiple changes we are
experiencing in the world today and in our lives make it necessary to
rethink what Italian studies represents as an academic field. This
excellent collection shows that, through a transnational lens
allowing us to read the past and the present in more flexible and
mobile ways, we are better equipped to grapple with the complexities
of studying Italian cultures. This volume does not intend to propose
an all-encompassing introduction to transnational Italian studies and
we can note, for example, that digital humanities, an area of
research that is developing and gaining broader importance, is not
taken into examination. The real aim of the volume is to provide a
series of critical strategies and operative methodologies to approach
the field.

In this collection, students and teachers will find pedagogical
suggestions and ideas that can be discussed and developed further in
the classroom. All the chapters in fact offer concrete examples of
how what we define as Italian studies can be rethought
transnationally. Although expressly intended for a student
readership, thanks to the wide range of explored themes and the depth
of analysis, _Transnational Italian Studies_ also offers valuable
insights to any expert in the field.

Notes

[1]. Emma Bond, "Towards a Trans-national Turn in Italian Studies?,"
_Italian Studies_ 69, no. 3 (2014): 415-24; 421.

[2]. Maria Corti, "Nozione e funzioni dell'oralità nel sistema
letterario," in _Oralità e scrittura nel sistema letterario, Atti
del Convegno di Cagliari (14-16 aprile 1980)_, ed. Giovanna Cerina
with Cristina Lavinio and Luisa Mulas (Rome: Bulzoni, 1982), 7.

Citation: Kombola T. Ramadhani Mussa. Review of Burdett, Charles;
Polezzi, Loredana, eds., _Transnational Italian Studies
(Transnational Modern Languages)_. H-Italy, H-Net Reviews. November,
2020.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55926

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