MIGRANT CINEMA AND WRITING IN POST-COLONIAL ITALY: Warwick 24 Feb., 25 Feb., 2 Mar. 2011

The Department of Italian at Warwick is pleased to announce a series of three events on Migrant Cinema and Writing in Post-colonial Italy. These events focus on different aspects of Italian contemporary literature and culture such as migration,post-coloniality, orality, diaspora, ethnicity, multiculturalism, nationhood and subalternity. Writers Ribka Sibhatu and Kaha Mohamed Aden will present at the University of Warwick their literary work as well as the documentaries, in which they tell of the legacy of Italian colonialism and their migratory experience to Italy, respectively from Eritrea and Somalia. The discussion of social and historical themes and questions in post-colonial Italian literature, is helpful in order to determine how the amnesia over the colonial past influences the mis-representation of immigrants to Italy.

Thursday 24th February 2011
Research Symposium: A Post-colonial Italian Discourse?

Organized by the Italian Department in collaboration with the Social Theory Centre, University of Warwick

Ramphal Building - Gillian Rose Room - R3.25
17.30 – 19.00 A Post-colonial Italian Discourse?

Ribka Sibhatu

Respondents:
Neil Lazarus (University of Warwick)
Jennifer Burns (University of Warwick)

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Friday 25th February 2011
Contemporary Rome: Engaging with the Past, Projecting the Future

Department of Italian Studies, University of Warwick
Humanities Building - Room H545

15.00 – 16.00 Film Screening: Simone Brioni’s Aulò (ITA, 2011, 40’)
(Ribka Sibhatu, an Italian writer of Eritrean origins who lives in Rome, tells her story of migration and discusses the history of Italian colonialism. The film is in Italian, without English subtitles.)
16.00 – 16.30 Post-colonial Rome
Discussion with Ribka Sibhatu
16.30 – 17.00 Coffee Break
17.00 – 18.00 Il museo diffuso di Testaccio e il progetto Porticus Aemilia.
Renato Sebastiani, Alessia Contino, Boudewijn Kaiser, Krien
Clevis, Gert-Jan Burgers (Royal Netherlands Institute at Rome)
18.00 – 19.00 Film Screenings: The Postmodern Palimpsest. A series of short documentaries shot in Rome, created by Masters students at the Manchester School of Architecture. This event precedes the conference ‘The Post-modern Palimpsest: Narrating
Contemporary Rome’, which will take place at the University of Warwick the following day.

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Wednesday 2nd March 2011

Challenging Official Historiography: Oral History and Migrant Writing in Italy

Organized by the Italian Department in collaboration with the IAS (Institute of Advanced Studies)

IAS Seminar Room- Milburn House
14.00 – 15.00 Orality and Literacy in the Narratives of Some Italian Migrant Writers.
Kombola Ramadhani Moussa (University of Reading)
15.00 – 16.00 Oral History and Migrant Writing in Italy Videoconference with Alessandro Portelli (Università La Sapienza, Roma)
16.00 – 16.30 Coffee Break
16.30 – 17.30 Film Screening: Simone Brioni’s La quarta via (ITA, 2009, 40’)
(Kaha Mohamed Aden narrates her memories of Mogadishu and reconstructs its story in Pavia, where she currently lives. The film has English subtitles.)Introduced by Elizabeth Ramirez Soto (Department of Film Studies, University of Warwick)
17.30 – 19.30 Fra-intendimenti. Kaha Mohamed Aden presents her collection of short stories Fra-intendimenti (Roma, Nottetempo, 2010) Respondent: Federico Faloppa (University of Reading)

This event is preceded by the interdisciplinary seminar '1968 and the Value of Oral History', which will take place on Wednesday 23 February 2011, 10 am- 6pm. For any questions please contact the organiser Simone Brioni: s.brioni@warwick.ac.uk
Generously supported by the IALT.