Call for Abstracts
Organizers: Costanza Barchiesi, Yale University, [email protected] & Maria Massucco, Stanford University, [email protected]
SIBYLS, SIRENS, CRAZIES AND CRONES: FEMALE FIGURES OF POWER AND THREAT FROM THE ANCIENTS TO TODAY
In Nonostante Platone (1990), Adriana Cavarero plucks women figures from the margins of their age-old stories and repurposes them as the protagonists of an alternative philosophy. This panel seeks to explore the recuperation and reanimation of submerged female voices in Italian and its contiguous literatures through feminist, posthumanist, and reception readings, investigating such figures as Dante’s femmina balba/dolce sirena/antica strega in Purg. XIX or Anna Maria Ortese’s fantastical female iguana in L’iguana. Where have these prophetic, menacing, mad, or healing female figures reemerged, and what purposes have they served in the hands of the artists who reimagine them?
Please send a title, brief abstract (150-200 words), and short bio to Costanza Barchiesi [email protected] and Maria Massucco [email protected] by 24 January 2022.
We propose to organize two thematically linked panels: the first to be held virtually May 13th-15th and the second to be held in person in Bologna, IT, May 29th - June 1st. Please specify in your submission whether you prefer to participate virtually or in person.
