Cultural Studies from Birmingham to Palermo
17-18 marzo Università degli studi di Palermo
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Members’ Publications
New book: Pharmaceutical Discourse in English and Italian: A Corpus-Based Comparative Study
Nicola Pelizzari, Pharmaceutical Discourse in English and Italian: A Corpus-Based Comparative Study Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 291. ISBN: 1-0364-6224-2 This monograph investigates how language shapes patient understanding in pharmaceutical communication, focusing on patient information leaflets (PILs) in the UK and Italy. Through a corpus-based comparative analysis of over-the-counter and prescription PILs, the book systematically examines key linguistic features – including modality, passive constructions, sentence length, and specialised terminology – and evaluates their potential implications on readability and accessibility. Combining quantitative frequency analysis with close qualitative examination, the study highlights significant cross-linguistic differences in the structure and presentation of medical information. It also explores how national regulatory frameworks influence linguistic choices and how these, in turn, affect patient comprehension. At a methodological level, the book illustrates how corpus-based approaches can be used to investigate complex specialised genres systematically. It also demonstrates how shared communicative aims are realised through different lexico-grammatical configurations across languages and sub-genres, highlighting the interplay between regulatory conventions, medical register, and accessibility concerns. By bringing applied linguistics into dialogue with health communication, the book exposes the communicative tensions between legal compliance and patient-centredness. It argues for more linguistically informed policies and advocates for interdisciplinary collaboration in the production of public-facing medical texts. This work will be of interest to researchers in corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, and medical communication, as well as to professionals involved in pharmaceutical writing, public health, and health policy development.
AIA Interviews Series – Carolina Celeste Granini interviews Daniela Cesiri
AIA INTERVIEWS SERIES January 2026 In this video of the AIA Interviews series, Carolina Celeste Granini speaks with Daniela Cesiri about her latest book, Communicating Food to Children: Linguistic and Socio-Cultural Perspectives. You can find Daniela Cesiri’s book here
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Call for Papers – Narrating Conflict and Human Rights: Literature as Witness, Archive and Agent of Change European Journal of English Studies, volume 31 (2027)
Guest editors: Tomasz Kalaga (Kujawy and Pomorze University in Bydgoszcz), Tiziana Ingravallo (University of Foggia), Loredana Salis (University of Sassari) The realities of conflict, including violations of human rights and the struggle for peace, provide rich thematic material for literary works. Literature can serve as a powerful tool for social change by denouncing injustices, fostering empathy, and engaging with injustices via its negotiation of the concepts of truth, reconciliation, and transitional justice. Writers can challenge official narratives surrounding conflict by giving voice to marginalised perspectives, exposing human rights abuses to a wider audience, and making invisible suffering visible. Literature, as an advocate for social change and human rights, raises awareness of ongoing conflicts and offers alternative understandings of historical events and their consequences. Operating through its innate symbolic quality and the power of telling and retelling myths, it can be approached as a dynamic arena capable of unsettling dominant epistemologies, reconfiguring what could be collectively claimed as justice. As a counter-discourse to official histories, literature has the potential to offer new ways of restoring a sense of humanity and shared responsibility by condemning all forms of imperialism and totalitarianism. This issue will reflect on and explore ways in which conflict can be narrated and the extent to which texts of literature contribute to defending or violating human rights. It also reflects on how language can justify and/or ignore human rights transgressions. The issue takes an interest in articles that investigate the ability of literary texts to interrogate and explore the legacies of political and civil conflict around the world as well as creating and (unwittingly) reinforcing hegemonic narratives. We welcome essays on a wide range of genres, including fiction, poetry, drama, memoir, testimony, speculative and activist writing, as well as works in translation, adaptation, journalism, and visual or digital storytelling. Although articles can address any topic related to literature and human rights, we are keen to receive proposals on five interrelated areas of literary engagement: a) literary depictions of experiences of war, displacement, surveillance, disenfranchisement, or environmental destruction; b) the role of literature in defining and articulating the concept of justice, documenting abuses, bearing witness to trauma, and narrating resistance and reconciliation; c) literary negotiations of power dynamics in conflict settings, including propaganda literature, translation and adaptation of conflict narratives, portrayals of nationalism and resistance movements, and the symbolic language of conflict and resolution; d) the concept of literature as magistra vitae in which historical insight is intertwined with visions of a more just future; e) narrative forms shaped by conflict, including fragmented storytelling and genre innovation, as well as activist literature addressing the intersections of human rights, environmental destruction, and the more-than-human world. Possible topics include (but are not limited to): ● Activist literature: from human rights violations to environmental destruction ● Activist role of literature: models for socio-cultural transformations, inclusive societies, transnational belongings ● Beyond the anthropocentric: rights of species, rivers, forests ● Censorship and dissent: literature as subversion and alternative standpoint ● Entanglements of ecology and power: resource wars, extractivism, forced displacement ● Individual freedom and human dignity vs human rights violations, surveillance, oppression, disenfranchisement ● Journalism, conflict and human rights ● Literature and justice: shaping and reshaping the notion of what is or can be just ● Literary depictions of ecological trauma and conflict: decolonial and indigenous perspectives, ● Literature as an archive of environmental injustice: resistance narratives, testimonies and speculative fiction and non-fiction. ● Magistra vitae: when history and hope rhyme ● Narrating nationalism, nationalists and nationalist causes ● Postcolonial and decolonial perspectives: alternative epistemologies of justice, restitution, and ecological interconnectedness ● Post-traumatic memory ● Propaganda literature ● The language of conflict and conflict resolution: myths and symbols retold ● The role of human rights in research on law and literature ● Translation and adaptation Detailed proposals (up to 1,000 words) for full essays (6,000-8,000 words) as well as a short biography (max. 100 words) should be sent to the editors by 15 January 2026: Tomasz Kalaga (t.kalaga @kpsw. edu. pl), Tiziana Ingravallo (tiziana. ingravallo @unifg. it), and Loredana Salis (lsalis@uniss.it). Selected authors should be able to submit a full-length draft by the end of May 2026, and a final version by mid-September. This issue will be part of volume 31 (2027). All inquiries regarding this issue can be sent to the three guest editors.
New publication: The Bloomsbury Handbook of Anglophone Literature and Migration – Critical and Creative Voices (1946-2016)
edited by Nicoletta Vallorani, Simona Bertacco, William Boelhower Focusing on a significant 70-year period as a climactic phase of displacement, the book investigates the role of literature in producing new modes of representing and understanding migration in a global context. Globally felt and reported as a geographical, sociological, anthropological, and historical phenomenon, migration has produced an unprecedented corpus of literary narratives that demands to be approached through its own set of cross-disciplinary critical approaches. This Handbook explores tales of migration via a systematic study of the large corpus of Anglophone literary texts that have been written by migrant authors and/or on the topic of migration between 1946 and 2016-from the start of the United Nations International Migration Report to the first year in which the number of displaced people reached the level of the Second World War, marking a new phase in global migrations. Given the dominance of English as a world language, often used by writers who are not native speakers, the volume covers Anglophone writing, providing a substantially representative corpus that includes texts from or about Europe, Africa, North and Central America, and the South Asia and Pacific region. Starting from a critical approach that is inherently interdisciplinary, authors consider the notion of the border and how it has changed over time; show how traditional literary genres have morphed and hybridized to become suitable expressive tools for the new stories of migration; reflect on how the movement across borders and countries creates migrant identities that are not only linguistic but invests all aspects of one’s life and worldview; and includes authors’ voices (a small but representative group) to both justify and test the critical approaches proposed. https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/bloomsbury-handbook-of-anglophone-literature-and-migration-9798765103524
Michele Stanco, Shakespeare: uomo di teatro, uomo di lettere, Roma, Carocci, 2025, 194 pp.
Gli studi shakespeariani sono in costante trasformazione. Metodologie di ricerca nuove, quali l’informatica umanistica, e la maggiore facilità di accesso a corpora testuali sempre più ampi hanno profondamente ridisegnato la nostra conoscenza dell’autore. Di qui la necessità di fornire uno strumento di studio aggiornato, che tenga conto delle più recenti acquisizioni relative alla ricostruzione dei testi, alla formazione del canone (con l’annessa questione dei collaborative plays), alla cronologia delle opere. Nel proporre una guida generale, il volume non rinuncia, tuttavia, a confrontarsi con una serie di problemi di carattere più specialistico. Un’ampia sezione ridiscute la vexata quaestio dei generi drammatici, analizzando il “comico” e il “tragico” alla luce delle diverse visioni del mondo ivi sottese. La sezione sulla poesia, a sua volta, rivisita le questioni relative alla cronologia dei Sonnets, e ai legami tra l’opera drammatica e l’opera poetica. Ad arricchire il quadro, il capitolo finale (attraverso un caso di studio su Edward III) riesamina il rapporto dell’autore con la pagina scritta, suggerendo che, oltre che per gli spettatori dell’epoca, Shakespeare scriveva anche per un pubblico di lettori sia presenti che futuri, rivelandosi, al contempo, uomo di teatro e uomo di lettere. Il risultato è un volume completo, di agile consultazione, che non si limita a fornire il necessario materiale informativo, ma offre altresì gli strumenti metodologici utili a cogliere, dall’interno, i fenomeni di volta in volta esplorati. Michele Stanco, Shakespeare: uomo di teatro, uomo di lettere, Roma, Carocci, 2025, 194 pp. Gli studi shakespeariani sono in costante trasformazione. Metodologie di ricerca nuove, quali l’informatica umanistica, e la maggiore facilità di accesso a corpora testuali sempre più ampi hanno profondamente ridisegnato la nostra conoscenza dell’autore. Di qui la necessità di fornire uno strumento di studio aggiornato, che tenga conto delle più recenti acquisizioni relative alla ricostruzione dei testi, alla formazione del canone (con l’annessa questione dei collaborative plays), alla cronologia delle opere. Nel proporre una guida generale, il volume non rinuncia, tuttavia, a confrontarsi con una serie di problemi di carattere più specialistico. Un’ampia sezione ridiscute la vexata quaestio dei generi drammatici, analizzando il “comico” e il “tragico” alla luce delle diverse visioni del mondo ivi sottese. La sezione sulla poesia, a sua volta, rivisita le questioni relative alla cronologia dei Sonnets, e ai legami tra l’opera drammatica e l’opera poetica. Ad arricchire il quadro, il capitolo finale (attraverso un caso di studio su Edward III) riesamina il rapporto dell’autore con la pagina scritta, suggerendo che, oltre che per gli spettatori dell’epoca, Shakespeare scriveva anche per un pubblico di lettori sia presenti che futuri, rivelandosi, al contempo, uomo di teatro e uomo di lettere. Il risultato è un volume completo, di agile consultazione, che non si limita a fornire il necessario materiale informativo, ma offre altresì gli strumenti metodologici utili a cogliere, dall’interno, i fenomeni di volta in volta esplorati.
CALL FOR PAPERS: ContactZone “Unruly Bodies and Astral Corporealities in Science Fiction Cinema and Television Series”, edited by G. Balirano and O. Palusci
We are pleased to share the Call for Papers for a special issue of ContactZone (ISSN: 2723-8881), titled “Unruly Bodies and Astral Corporealities in Science Fiction Cinema and Television Series”, edited by Giuseppe Balirano (University of Naples L’Orientale) and Oriana Palusci. This special issue explores how science fiction films and television series stage non-normative embodiments – both terrestrial and astral – to challenge conventional narratives about gender, sexuality, ability, and monstrosity. Contributions are invited on the ways in which sci-fi narratives construct, critique, and celebrate bodies that resist classification, disturb comfort zones, and gesture toward new forms of being in the universe. Key Dates:– Abstracts (300 words) and bio-note (100 words) due: 30 October 2025– Notification of acceptance: 10 November 2025– Full papers due: 20 January 2026– Publication: May 2026 Full details are available in the attached Call for Papers. Please feel free to circulate this Call for Papers among colleagues and networks who might be interested.
CALL FOR PAPERS: LEA (Lingue e Letterature d’Oriente e d’Occidente) Special Issue on “Transimperial Encounters: Networks of Cultural and Literary Exchange Between India and Europe, 1870-1947”
LEA (Lingue e Letterature d’Oriente e d’Occidente) is pleased to invite submissions for its forthcoming special issue: “Transimperial Encounters: Networks of Cultural and Literary Exchange Between India and Europe, 1870-1947”Edited by Prof. Ujjwal Jana (University of Delhi, India) and Prof. Greta Perletti (University of Trento, Italy) Articles intended for publication (6,000-7,000 words in length), accompanied by an abstract (see stylesheet), should be submitted to the Guest Editors – Prof. Ujjwal Jana (ujana@english.du.ac.in) and Prof. Greta Perletti (greta.perletti@unitn.it) – by 8 June 2026. The complete Call for Papers is available here:https://journals.fupress.net/call-for-paper/transimperial-encounters-networks-of-cultural-and-literary-exchange-between-india-and-europe-1870-1947/
New book: Stefania Cicillini, The Language Factor in English-Medium Instruction (EMI). A Longitudinal Study of Students’ Language Gains, Roma, Carocci, 2025
This volume deals with a crucial, but underestimated, dimension of English-medium instruction (EMI) in higher education, namely the students’ language experience and the improvement in English proficiency, the latter being one of the key motivating factors to opt for EMI. The mixed-method case study presented in this volume is a longitudinal investigation of the participants’ language progress, spanning over two academic years. Although English language outcomes are neither mentioned in the definitions of EMI nor in the courses’ syllabi, indeed, the EMI experience provides a large amount of language input for students, which is both assimilated consciously and partly as a result of incidental language learning. On reviewing previous literature on EMI, this book addresses some key questions such as the impact of EMI on the students’ English skills, the increase of proficiency while focused on subject-oriented activities and in particular whether English improvement is voluntary or incidental. The data retrieved from questionnaires and language tests administered to one-hundred medical students enrolled in an Italian university provide valuable insights into the language factor in EMI, which may be usefully exploited and extended to other higher educational contexts. Stefania Cicillini, The Language Factor in English-Medium Instruction (EMI). A Longitudinal Study of Students’ Language Gains, Roma, Carocci, pp. 208 ISBN: 9788829024292, Pp. 208
New Book: Elena Mattei, The Language of Persuasion on Instagram. A Systemic Functional Approach to Multimodal Tourism Discourse, Routledge, 2025
This book offers a systematic, interdisciplinary investigation into the language of persuasion in contemporary tourism discourse, with a focus on English-language travel boards’ use of Instagram and official websites. Drawing on Corpus Linguistics and Systemic Functional Linguistics, it examines how linguistic and visual resources are strategically deployed to construct idealized representations of destinations and evoke positive emotional responses. Through a multimodal analysis, the volume explores recurring linguistic patterns, the role of platform-specific dissemination, and how discourse constructs power dynamics between destinations and prospective tourists. By combining empirical methods with critical discourse and sociological perspectives, the book sheds light on how emotionally charged, consumer-oriented narratives may reinforce broader socioeconomic inequalities and contribute to unsustainable travel practices. In doing so, it contributes to ongoing debates on digital persuasion and literacy, media framing, and the ideological function of tourism communication, recommending approaches to integrate data-driven, highly persuasive strategies and eco-sensitive narratives. This book will be of interest to scholars and students in discourse analysis, digital communication, tourism studies, marketing, and linguistics, as well as professionals interested in the mechanisms behind strategic, promotional narratives and their potential impact on social and environmental sustainability. Elena Mattei, The Language of Persuasion on Instagram. A Systemic Functional Approach to Multimodal Tourism Discourse. Routledge ISBN 9781032937489 288 Pages 44 B/W Illustrations