Bando per i premi Lombardo-Gullì 2020

Premio Agostino Lombardo  

Per commemorare la figura del grande studioso scomparso, l’AISNA (Associazione Italiana di Studi Nord-Americani) bandisce il Premio Agostino Lombardo, assegnato alla migliore tesi di laurea di argomento americanistico discussa nel corso dell’anno precedente in un’università italiana.

Il premio consiste in € 500,00 (cinquecento). Al premio in denaro si aggiungono, come da regolamento, l’iscrizione all’AISNA per un anno e la proposta di pubblicazione di un estratto della tesi sulla rivista RSAJournal. L’estratto sarà in ogni caso sottoposto a un processo di peer review.

Possono concorrere al Premio tutte le tesi di Laurea Specialistica o Magistrale discusse nel corso dell’anno solare 2019 su argomenti inerenti alla letteratura, alla storia e alla cultura nord-americana. Ciascun membro dell’Associazione Italiana di Studi Nord-Americani, in regola con il pagamento delle quote associative, potrà proporre non più di una tesi, che dovrà essere accompagnata da una circostanziata relazione a firma del/della proponente. Il/la proponente non deve essere necessariamente stato/a relatore/relatrice della tesi.

La tesi dovrà essere inviata in formato cartaceo ed elettronico. La tesi in formato cartaceo e in unica copia, stampata fronte-retro e rilegata con semplice cartoncino e spirale, va inviata a: Premio Agostino Lombardo, c/o Centro Studi Americani, via Michelangelo Caetani, 32, 00186 Roma. La tesi in formato elettronico (pdf), va inviata invece all’indirizzo della segreteria-aisna@unibg.it. Il/la proponente dovrà inviare la propria relazione in formato elettronico al medesimo indirizzo della segreteria. 

Tutta la documentazione dovrà essere inoltrata entro il 15 luglio 2020. Farà fede la ricezione dei documenti in formato elettronico da parte della segreteria AISNA. 

I lavori relativi al precedente bando 2019, non pervenuti alla commissione a causa di comprovati disguidi di trasmissione/ricezione postale (cartacea e/o elettronica), saranno riammessi a concorrere per il 2020.

Le tesi pervenute saranno esaminate da una Commissione che, dopo aver valutato individualmente gli elaborati, stilerà una graduatoria di merito, designerà il/la vincitore/vincitrice e delibererà l’eventuale assegnazione di menzioni di merito. Il vincitore/la vincitrice del Premio verrà proclamato/a nel corso della prossima Assemblea dell’Associazione.

Premio Caterina Gullì

La famiglia Gullì ha istituito a partire dall’anno 2006 un premio per onorare la figura di Caterina Gullì, americanista prematuramente scomparsa nell’anno 1990, quando era in procinto di terminare la sua tesi di dottorato in Studi Americani presso l’Università degli Studi di Roma 3, nonché un Ph.D. in Letterature Comparate presso la Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ).

Il premio consiste in € 300 (trecento). Al premio in denaro si aggiungono, come da regolamento, una quota di iscrizione all’AISNA per un anno e la proposta di pubblicazione di un estratto della tesi sulla rivista RSAJournal. L’estratto sarà in ogni caso sottoposto a un processo di peer review.

Nell’istituire il premio, la famiglia Gullì delega l’Associazione Italiana di Studi Nord-Americani a scegliere ogni anno, fra le tesi presentate al Premio Agostino Lombardo, una tesi dotata di particolari caratteristiche di innovatività e originalità alla quale assegnare il premio. Tutte le tesi presentate al Premio Agostino Lombardo, pertanto, parteciperanno automaticamente anche al Premio Caterina Gullì.

L’AISNA si riserva di contribuire alle spese di viaggio dei vincitori di entrambi i premi per la sede prevista dell’Assemblea annuale.

Call for Applications – OASIS (Orientale American Studies International School)

The OASIS – Orientale American Studies International School is are now accepting applications for it’s fifth iteration. The school will be held in the Conference Center of University of Naples “L’Orientale” in the isle of Procida, Italy, from May 24 to May 29, 2020.

Confirmed speakers:

  • Jonathan Arac (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
  • Susan Balée (independent scholar)
  • Colleen Glenney Boggs (Dartmouth College, USA)
  • Derrais Carter (University of Arizona)
  • Jane Desmond (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA)
  • Virginia R. Dominguez (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA)
  • Ira Dworkin (Texas A&M University, USA)
  • Brian T. Edwards (Tulane University, USA)
  • Fred Gardaphé (Queens College-CUNY, USA)
  • May Hawas (American University in Cairo, Egypt)
  • Gordon Hutner (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA)
  • Ronald A. Judy (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
  • Donald E. Pease (Dartmouth College, USA)
  • Mounira Soliman (American University in Cairo, Egypt)

Compact seminar: “How to Get Published” held by Gordon Hutner (editor of American Literary History).

We invite applications from doctoral students, recent Ph.D.s, and junior faculty in American Studies, English, Comparative Literature, and related fields.

The fee for the School (covering registration, tuition, housing, breakfast, and lunch) is € 620 for the whole week. Applications will be accepted until March 15, 2020; successful applicants will be notified by March 31. You can find the CFA for PhD students here and the CFA for M.A. students here. For more info please see the school’s website.

We appreciate your help in circulating the news among your students and colleagues!

Call for Contributions – RSAJournal N. 31

Issue #31 (2020) of RSAJournal: Rivista di Studi Americani, the official journal of the Italian Association for North American Studies (Associazione Italiana di Studi Nord-Americani – AISNA) will feature a special issue on the broader impact that the nuclear era has had on the United States. The issue, edited by RSAJournal Assistant Editor, Elisabetta Bini (University of Naples Federico II), Dario Fazzi (Roosevelt Institute for American Studies), and Thomas Bishop (University of Lincoln) is titled American Apocalypse(s): Nuclear Imaginaries and the Reinvention of Modern America and scholars from different academic fields are invited to submit their proposals.

In 1982, while president Ronald Reagan was blessing a 40% increase in America’s nuclear spending, pop-singer Prince released his famous 1999 song. “Everybody’s got a bomb, we could all die any day, oh – But before I let that happen, I’ll dance my life away, oh oh,” the refrain went. By the early 1980s, threats of nuclear annihilation and prophecies of doom had become part and parcel of American popular culture.

The US’s mastery of nuclear power is an entrenched feature of modern America. Throughout the second half of the Twentieth century, nuclear power simultaneously fascinated and repelled US society, by embodying faith in scientific progress and ancestral fears at the same time. It raised fears of a potential nuclear conflict – and therefore of a total annihilation of mankind – and was simultaneously the object of widespread beliefs in the possibility of producing an unlimited, clean and efficient source of energy. This polarizing character enabled the proliferation of different nuclear discourses and narratives. Nuclear power’s outreach was total, and its breadth extended over any field of cultural production. Nuclear power reshuffled the very vocabulary of American politics and society writ large. The power of the atom, its universalism and contested sustainability alike, swayed the mindset and worldviews of generations of Americans.

This special issue aims to explore the multifaceted impact that nuclear power and culture have had and continue to have in the United States, in order to reassess and redraw the contours of an age, the nuclear one, the dark shadows of which still impinge upon us today. All disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches are welcome, and topics may include, but are not limited to:

  • The interactions among different nuclear visions, including philosophical, religious, literary and artistic conceptualizations;
  • Audiovisual representations of American nuclear culture, including literary, cinematographic, comic book, digital, and virtual renderings;
  • Indigenous, intersectional, or transnational encounters with nuclear power and culture;
  • Meta-geographies and material cultures of the nuclear;
  • Gendered and racialized renderings of nuclear culture and politics;
  • The international and global influence of American nuclear culture, and the multiple and complex forms of resistance to it;
  • The politicization of US anti-nuclear movements and their transnational dimensions;
  • Intersections between nuclear culture, and “apocalyptic culture” and “post-apocalyptic culture” writ large;
  • Similarities and differences between nuclear culture and climate fiction and criticism;
  • The relationship between the nuclear age and the Anthropocene.

Please send a 200-word abstract and a short biographical sketch to Elisabetta Bini, Dario Fazzi, and Tom Bishop by December 30. People whose abstracts have been accepted will be notified by January 15. The deadline for full-length articles (40.000 characters, including spaces, notes, and works cited) is April 15, 2020.

“Still White after Arrival?” Conference @ Università di Macerata 19-20 Novembre 2019

Condividiamo la locandina e il programma per il convegno Still White after Arrival? Americanization and Racialization of Early 20th-Century Italian Migrants to the United States  si terrà presso il Dipartimento di Studi umanistici dell’Università di Macerata il 19 e il 20 novembre. Il convegno è sponsorizzato dalla Commissione Fulbright, dall’Ambasciata degli Stati Uniti in Italia e dall’AISNA.

Video Contest per studenti – Ambasciata degli Stati Uniti d’America

Siamo lieti di segnalarvi un’iniziativa dall’Ambasciata degli Stati Uniti d’America in Italia della quale ci auguriamo possiate mettere a parte i vostri studenti.
Si tratta di un video contest dal titolo “Italy-US ties”, rivolto a studenti di Scienze Politiche e Relazioni Internazionali, Scienze della Comunicazione, Economia, Giurisprudenza e Lingue e Letterature Straniere e a tutti coloro che hanno avuto un’importante esperienza di scambio con gli Stati Uniti.
Per partecipare, gli studenti dovranno caricare sul sito https://www.ambasciatausa.it/ItalyUSties un video in italiano di massimo 30 secondi che racconti un’esperienza legata alla cultura americana o il proprio legame con gli Stati Uniti d’America.
In palio, per gli autori dei 10 migliori video, vi è l’opportunità di trascorrere una giornata formativa presso l’Ambasciata degli Stati Uniti d’America a Roma, che gli permetterà di comprendere al meglio il funzionamento della diplomazia americana.
La scadenza prevista per l’invio degli elaborati è fissata per il 3 Novembre 2019.
Maggiori informazioni, unitamente al regolamento completo, sono reperibili sul sito dell’iniziativa.

Call for Proposals – RSAJournal N. 31

We warmly invite you to present a proposal for the special section of the next issue of RSAJournal (#31). The deadline for proposals is October 15, and if you are interested please send us a title, a very brief description (about 10 lines) and at least the name of one section editor.

If by October 15 no proposal reaches us, the special section will focus on “American Apocalypses.”

The call for papers will be published at the end of October on the OJS open access platform and the AISNA website. The deadline for the submission of abstracts will be the end of November, and the section editor(s) will choose the 7/8 most promising ones. Their authors will submit the full articles by March 31, and by April 15 only 5 of them will be selected for publication by the section editor(s) and sent to the peer reviewers – the other ones, if the authors agree, might be published in the “Articles” section, in the same issue or in issue #32. If one of the articles selected for the special section is rejected by the peer reviewers, one of the other submitted articles will be sent to the reviewers.

Professorship (W3) in American Studies, Goethe University Frankfurt

The Faculty of Modern Languages at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main welcomes applications for the following position as civil servant or public employee starting in the fall term 2020/21:

Professorship (W3) in American Studies 

Applicants are expected to represent the field of American studies with a focus on literary and cultural studies in its entire breadth in teaching and research. Desired fields of specialization within literary and cultural studies include aesthetics, literary theory, or media history. We are looking for scholars with an internationally visible research profile that is reflected in publications in leading international presses and journals.

Candidates are expected to contribute to and initiate collaborative research projects within the Faculty of Modern Languages, to take on committee duties, and to participate in academic events organized by fellow members of the faculty. The successful candidate will teach in the B.A. and M.A. programs “American Studies”, the M.A. program “Aesthetics,” and all relevant programs of teacher training. As the position will participate in teacher training, experience in and concepts for teaching academic contents at secondary schools are welcome.

The designated salary for the position is based on ‘W3’ on the German university scale or equivalent. Goethe University is an equal opportunity employer, which implies that applications from women are specifically encouraged. For further information regarding the general conditions for professorship appointments, please see:
www.vakante-professuren.uni-frankfurt.de

Qualified academics with a demonstrably excellent record in teaching and research as well as internationally visible research output are invited to submit their applications accompanied by the usual documents (curriculum vitae, copy of transcripts for all degrees completed, publication list, records of teaching experience, research abroad, and extramural funding) until 26 September 2019 via email to the Dean of the Faculty of Modern Languages, Goethe University: 
service@lingua.uni-frankfurt.de