Carla Locatelli

Overview

Thematic and methodological approaches converge in the development of my “literary” research in/for today’s globalized world. Contributions from hermeneutics, semiotics, continental philosophy, post-gender and post-colonial theories articulate the directions of my investigations. They are centered on the notion of Literature, not so much as an aesthetic artifact, but as an ineliminable product of human activity (complex communication) and thought. Language has a central role in establishing the conditions of possibility of human communication and textual production (i.e., “literature”).

Communication is at the core of my investigations, reaching the “post-human” domain of human-machine interaction via the study of semiotics models focused on “contact zones”.

Research directions

I want to study and relate (comparative) theoretical approaches to literary studies from Eurocentric and non-Eurocentric perspectives within different hermeneutical traditions. In particular, my current research focuses on Filipino Literature and Literary Studies from Africa, Australia and “minority” literature in the USA and Italy. The theoretical approach to the study of “literature” is informed by semiotic and deconstructive methods of investigation of literary-textual communication. Themes, and protocols of interpretation vary greatly, and I am investigating  if there are points of convergence in different cultures in the 20th and 21st centuries in order to enhance inter-cultural dialogue.

The representation (formal and thematic) of notions of identity, citizenship, sexual preference/orientation are part of the pursued outcomes of my research.

Internal collaborations

Maria Micaela Coppola
Lucia Rodler
Maria Paola Paladino
Sara Dellantonio

Awards

2013 Certificate for Outstanding Contribution  to the  ASEAN- Network  granted by the Minister of Higher Education, Malaysia (YB Dato’ Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin)
2004  Exchange Research Fellowship (Fulbright) - University of California, Santa Cruz.
2002 Senior Fulbright Fellow - University of Notre Dame, Indiana
1990 Invited Visitor (sponsored by the British Council )
Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory - College of Cardiff, University of Wales
1986 Invited member of the British Council to Summer Seminar on modern British Literature
Trinity College, Cambridge University
1983 Invited member for the International Visitor's Program (I.V.P.). of the United States Information Service Lecture/consultation tour of American Universities (including Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Georgetown, University of Washington, Seattle, University of Texas, Austin, University of California at Berkeley, San Diego State).

External collaborations

Gerald Prince, University of Pennsylvania (USA)
Lilly-Rose Tope, University of the Philippines, Diliman
Neil Garcia, University of the Philippines, Diliman
Tang Janming, Shanghai International Studies University (China)
Rana Pongruengphant, Burapha University (Thailand)

Selected publications

Scientific articles and books:

  • "Postfazione" in Gémino H. Abad "Dove le parole non si spezzano/Where Words do not Break", Ensemble Edizioni, Roma, 2015, pp. 157-176. ISBN 978-88-6881-121-1
  • “Confini di genere e genere di confine: genealogie postmoderne” in Educazione sentimentale. Rivista di psicosocioanalisi n. 18, (2012), 21-28.
  • "Sinestesie geometriche: il 'Ritratto di Mable Dodge a Villa Curonia' di Gertrude Stein" in Una sconfinata infatuazione: Firenze e la Toscana nelle metamorfosi della cultura anglo-americana: 1861-1915 Serena Cenni and Francesca Di Blasio, Eds., Firenze : Consiglio regionale della Toscana, 2012, pp. 201-222. ISBN 978-88-89365-14
  • “The Space of Travel Writing and the Filipino Gaze” in Textus, 2, 2012, a cura di Loredana Polezzi e Elio Dipiazza, Carocci, Roma. ISBN 9788843064038.
  • Memory and Desire. Subjective and Cultural Traces, C. Locatelli and Ewa Ziarek, Eds., Monographic Volume of the Italian Association of English Studies (AIA), in the “Textus Series”, TEXTUS, 2, 2009
  • “From a Morality of Translation to an Ethics of Translation: in Step with the Play of Language” in Twentieth-Century Poetic Translation. Literary Cultures in Italian and English, D. Caselli and D. La Penna, Eds., Continuum, London 2008, 165-176.
  • Spazi/o – teoria, rappresentazione, lettura (ed with F. Di Blasio), University of Trento Press, Trento, 2006. (in Italian).
  • (“This work of Analysis and Illumination…”: on Hélène Cixous’ Variations on a Theme”) “ ‘Questo lavoro d’analisi e illuminazione’ in Scritture del Corpo. Hélène Cixous; variazioni su un tema, P. Bono, ed., Luca Sossella Editore, Rome, 2000.
  • (Description and Inscriptions. Politics of Discourse) Descrizioni e i(n)scrizioni: politiche del discorso (ed. With G. Covi), University of Trento Press, Trento, 1998. 
  • Unwording the World. Samuel Beckett's Prose Works after the Nobel Prize, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, Pa., 1990.