Conferences

Organiser of an International Conference

‘The Performances of Powers or the Powers of Performance’, funded by CSIG Loughborough University, 21^st and 22^nd November 2008.

This interdisciplinary workshop brought together 25 academic participants from different countries exploring from diverse perspective how the performing arts generate collective identities, serve as a means of societal/political protests and feed into wider nationalist discourses. Panels were organised into three main streams: ‘Performances, the Nation and the State’; ‘Performing Powers’ and ‘Performing Antagonism’. Professor John Street (East Anglia University, UK) and Professor Carlotta Sorba (University of Padua, Italy), delivered key-note speeches.

Selected Conference Papers

·      ‘Reclaiming Diversity: An Exploration of the Political Significance of Protest Music in Turkey’, at the Conference “Protest Music in the Twentieth Century, Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini and University of Granada, Lucca, 15^th – 17^th September 2013. 

http://www.luigiboccherini.org/protest.html

·    ‘I discorsi di cuori migranti in Italia: la rappresentazione dell’amore nei racconti degli scrittori migrant pubblicati da El-Ghibli’, Milan, 15th June 2013.

·   ‘Vestire l’uniforme: Il processo di costruzione dell’eroe in alcune opere risorgimentali’, (Wearing the Uniform: The Process of Construction of the Hero in some Risorgimento Operas) at the 6th SIS Conference, Padova, Venice, 11st -3rd February, 2013.

·   ‘Amore & Leghismo: Perspectives of Italian Writers with Migrant Backgrounds’, PAMLA 2012 Conference, Seattle University, October 19^th-21^st 2012.

·    ‘The Cultural Struggle between Love and Patriotic Duty in Operas from Italian Early Risorgimento’ at the 1st Global Conference Gender & Love, Mansfield College, Oxford, 19th-21st September 2011.

·   ‘The Cultural Struggle of the Risorgimento at La Scala (1814-1848)’ at the International Conference V.I.V.A. Verdi: La Musica dal Risorgimento all’Unita’ d’Italia, Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, Pistoia, 15th -17th September 2011.

·    ‘O mia patria si’ bella e perduta: The Shifting Significance of the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from the Risorgimento to the Berlusconi Period’ at 150 Years of United Italy Conference, American University of Rome, Rome 8th-9th April 2011.

·   Organiser and chair of the panel ‘Che Genere di Nazione? (What Gender/Kind/Genre of Nation?)’ at 5th SIS Conference (Italian Society of Women Historians), Naples, Italy, 28^th -30^th January 2010.

·   ‘Italian Operatic Singers Embodying the Nation: the sacrifice of chastity’, at AAIS Conference, St. Johns University, Manhattan, New York, USA, 7^th -10^th  May 2009.

·   ‘Performing Opera and Nation building: the case of La Scala’ at the conference Beyond the Campus, Cumberland Lodge, UK, 5^th January 2009.

·   ‘Opera and Political Culture: Hegemony and Subversion in Risorgimento Milan’ at the Conference on Popular Culture and World Politics, Bristol University, UK, 11^th-12^th September 2008.

·   ‘Musical Culture and Class in Risorgimento Milan’; discussion paper for the Postgraduate Workshop on ‘Reproductions: Social Class in Theory and in Practice’, Department of Politics, Warwick University, 21st June 2008.

·   ‘Beyond Verdi: Operatic Culture and Construction of the Nation during the Risorgimento’, Society for the Italian Studies 2008 Postgraduate Colloquium, University of Reading, UK, 6^th  June, 2008.

·   Discussant at the roundtable ‘The 2008 Italian general elections’ organised by the Centre for the Study of International Governance, Loughborough University, UK, moderated by Dr. Maurice Fitzgerald, 2008.

·   The Risorgimento Historiography: from the Battlefield to Romanticism’ at the Postgraduate Conference of Italian Studies, Cork University College, Ireland, 1^st March 2008.

·   ‘The Political Role of La Scala during the Risorgimento: Hegemony and Subversion’ presentation at the seminar series of the Department of PIRES, Loughborough University, 30th May, 2007.

·   ‘E non voglio piu’ servir! A Discourse of Rebellion in Italian Opera’, paper presented at the American Association of Italian Studies 2007 Conference, Colorado Springs, USA, 3^rd – 6^th May, 2007.

·   Was Opera in Italy the 19th Century’s Pop Music? Diverse Aspects of Opera in Milan before Italian Unification” at the International Conference of Croatian Musicological Society, Zagreb, Croatia, 24th -25th November, 2006.