Members’ Events

The South Asian literary scene, after the breakthrough of the Indian Anglophone novel, is now in its complex entirety a space of extremely lively and variegated narrative production. After the groundbreaking postcolonial sweep of the 80s and 90s with Rushdie, Roy, Seth, Mistry to set the model, in the third millennium a vast train of authors continue to experiment with a multifarious variety of trends, genres, forms and voices, exploring also the intersections between English and the other regional languages and literatures of the subcontinent. Among the different nation-states comprising South Asia, namely India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Nepal, a new generation of writers chart out a vibrant and energetic literary landscape in which the novelistic and other modes, such as the graphic novel, the autobiography or the diary, question changing notions of authorship and interrogate the role of translation in creating reading communities across national borders. Millennium’s Children intends to explore new possible foreground subjects, styles and genres, so as to contribute to a reflection on the expressive possibilities of narrative prose in English and in translation in the 21st century. What devices does it still offer to the children of the new Millennium, those heirs of 1981 Rushdie’s novel in need of attuning to a particularly challenging contemporary scene? How do these writers delineate new political geographies necessary to locate the position of those who have lost their voice or are in need to speak for the first time? Due to the unmatched variedness of its social composition, the complex network of relations between different castes, religions, ethnic and social groups, the political unrest of the region, and the rapid growth of its economic and technological capabilities, it is no surprise that in South-Asian literature the themes dominant in writing from and about the subcontinent cannot but engage intensely with civic, public, political, historical and at the same time personal, individual, affective issues. In welcoming essays dealing with development and ecological emergencies, persisting casteism and limited access to literacy, internal displacement and diaspora, gender troubles and religious violence together with the exhilarating effects of neo-liberal globalization, modernity’s fast-changing pace in megalopolises and global cities, communication, the media and the economy of call centers and reality shows, we invite scholars to discuss the expansion and specialization of the publishing industry in response to new reading practices. Dalit and tribal literature, women fiction, the novel of the North-East and other border regions, as well as chick-lit, crick-lit, crime, detective and sci-fi fiction will be welcome areas of analysis. With Millennium’s Children we wish to gather scholars actively willing to discuss, to paraphrase once again Salman Rushdie, how newness enters the novel. https://millenniumschildre.wixsite.com/millenniumsc…/cfp-sub

Call for Papers: International Conference Translation as Political Act /La traduction comme acte politique/ La traduzione come atto politico Date: Thu, 9th May – Fri, 10th May 2019 Location: University of Perugia, Italy Organisers: Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche (Università di Perugia) in collaboration with the Genealogies of Knowledge Project (University of Manchester) Invited key note speakers Mona Baker, University of Manchester, UK Nicole Doerr, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Fruela Fernandez, Newcastle University, UK & Universidad Complutense, Spain Lynne Franjié, Université Lille 3, France Guy Rooryck and Lieve Jooken, Ghent University, Belgium Organizing Committee: Diana Bianchi (Università di Perugia, Italia), Jan Buts (University of Manchester, UK), Henry Jones (University of Manchester, UK), Francesca Piselli (Università di Perugia, Italia), Federico Zanettin (Università di Perugia, Italia) Detailed information about the conference and on how to submit abstracts can be found at: http://home.translationaspoliticalact.net/

Workshop proposal Title: “The concept of lightness: new perspectives and applications”. Venue: 52nd Meeting of the SLE (Societas Linguistica Europaea) – Leipzig (21-24 August 2019) Convenors: Roberta Mastrofini, Jodi L. Sandford, Marco Bagli (University of Perugia, Italy) The term lightness was first coined by Jespersen in relation to English verbal constructions formed by “an insignificant verb, to which the marks of person and tense are attached, before the really important idea” (Jespersen, 1954: 117-118). In other words, lightness was first detected as a property of general English predicates (i.e. to make, to have, to give, to take) when found in combination with a nomen actionis (Nickel, 1968) or, following a more recent definition, an eventive deverbal noun (Kiefer & Gross, 1995; Kiefer, 1998), as in the case of to make a call, to give a talk, to take a walk, to have a row. These examples represent a verbal construction in which the predicate is devoid of its literal meaning through a process of “predicate bleaching” (Szabolsci, 1986). As a consequence, the verb turns into a mere syntactic device (sometimes serving as an aspectual element too), while the noun undertakes the main semantic content of the construction (i.e. to make a call means “to call”; to give a talk means “to talk”, and so forth). Since then, the so-called Light Verb Constructions (LVCs) have been a highly debated topic in literature, and have been the object of research in a number of different languages. Nevertheless, many aspects seem to be unsolved. The first question concerns the methodology: using a single level of analysis (morphological vs. syntactic vs. semantic) has shed some light on the properties of the verb or of the noun, but failed in considering the phenomena of interface underlying the construction as a whole. Secondly, the criteria used to determine what is a LVC from what is not are not universally recognized by scholars, or not applicable to all instances of LVCs detected in literature. Moreover, several studies (Gross G., 1981; Cicalese, 1999; Jezek, 2011; Mastrofini, in press) detected lightness in full lexical predicates when found in specific syntagmatic environments. This construction has been named Light Verb Extension (LVE), since it shares semantic and syntactic similarities with traditional LVCs. Like LVCs, LVEs contain a bleached predicate, and the noun carries the semantic content of the pattern. Unlike LVCs, the verb functions as an aspectual device (i.e. to nourish resentment; to launch a project; to run a risk; to break a relationship). Lastly, Simone & Masini (2014) proposes a scale of “nouniness” including designative nouns (i.e. spoon), classifiers (i.e. spoonful), quantifiers (i.e. plenty), qualifiers (i.e. type), approximators (i.e. sort), and light nouns (i.e. act of courtesy, fit of crying, burst of laughter), suggesting the idea that lightness is not only a verbal feature. Our workshop proposal wants to bring together scholars working on lightness from any type of perspective ranging from syntax to semantics, in English, or even better in a cross-linguistic perspective. Diachronic, typological, and corpus-based approaches are welcome. The aim is to find an answer to the following unsolved questions: What is a LVC and what is not? Should we consider “light” only the prototypical instances retrieved by Jespersen or postulate different degrees of lightness in verbal constructions? And, if so, how, and by which parameters is lightness assessed? Would it be plausible to say that any lexical predicate may turn “light” under specific syntagmatic conditions? If so, which ones? Is lightness only a verbal property? Can lightness in LVEs be the result of a metaphorical shift? If so, could a semantic cognitive approach be relevant? How can lightness be considered from a Cognitive Linguistics approach? Is it a matter of conceptual metaphor extension (Lakoff, 1990; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999, 2003)? When did lightness emerge, in a diachronic perspective? Can we apply Prototype Theory to distinguish LVCs from LVEs? If you are interested in this topic, you are encouraged to send us an abstract of max. 300 words by October, 31st, 2018. We will select the most relevant contributions and submit them to SLE convenors by November, 20th. Please do not hesitate to spread the proposal to anybody who might be interested in this research. If you have any questions, or would like to submit a proposal, you can reach us at: Roberta Mastrofini: roberta.mastrofini@unipg.it Jodi L. Sandford: jodi.sandford@unipg.it Marco Bagli: marco.bagli@unipg.it

The International Association for the Study of Scottish Literatures (IASSL) are pleased to announce the launch of the annual Jack Prize, to be awarded annually for the best article on a subject related to Reception or Diaspora in Scottish Literatures (including Scots, English, Gaelic and Latin). The prize is named in honour of Professor Ronald Dyce Sadler Jack D.Litt. FRSE (1941-2016), Professor of Scottish and Mediaeval Literature at the University of Edinburgh from 1987-2004 and director of the Bibliography of Scottish Literature in Translation. Professor Jack’s work on Scottish literature’s Continental and Italian dimensions was groundbreaking. From his The Italian Influence in Scottish Literature (1972) on, he championed a concept of Scottish literature open to the world and engaged in dialogue with it. This prize of £100 or equivalent is named in his memory and awarded in his honour annually. Submissions should be sent to Professor Caroline McCracken-Flesher (University of Wyoming: CMF@uwyo.edu), Convenor of IASSL, by St Andrew’s Day, 30 November 2018. https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/critical/research/researchcentresandnetworks/iassl/thejackprize/

Approaches to Multimodal Digital Environments: from theories to practices (A-MODE) Multimodal digital communication is the main theme of this conference meant to attract multidisciplinary research on a wide range of issues from teaching and learning to analysing multimodal digital data appearing in multiple communication arenas. Drawing on the work related to the European project EU-MADE4LL, European Multimodal and Digital Education for Language Learning, the conference intends to bring together international scholars belonging to various fields of research sharing an interest in exploring recent developments in multimodal digital communication. We wish to tackle the complex arenas of digitality by reflecting on a broad range of multimodal texts, social practices and communities: content management systems, corporate web pages, institutional web pages, blogs, corporate videos, mash up, fanvids, etc … We are keen to address this ever-increasing complexity of digital communication by adopting a broad range of multimodal, semiotic and educational perspectives. Keynote speakers: Marina Bondi, University of Modena, Italy Carey Jewitt, UCL – Institute of Education, London, UK Rodney Jones, University of Reading, UK Gunther Kress and Jeff Bezemer, UCL – Institute of Education, London, UK David Machin, Örebro University, Sweden Theo van Leeuwen, University of Technology, Sidney Detailed information about the conference can be found at http://a-mode.eumade4ll.eu. TITOLO DEL CONVEGNO Approaches to Multimodal Digital Environments: from theories to practices (A-MODE) ORGANIZZATORI Elisabetta Adami (University of Leeds) Ilaria Moschini (Università di Firenze) Sandra Petroni (UNiversità di Roma ‘Tor Vergata) Maria Grazia Sindoni (Università di Messina) DATA 20-22 June 2019 SEDE Rome, University of “Tor Vergata” LINK http://a-mode.eumade4ll.eu.