Seminars and Events
In this section you will find information on Italy-related academic activities, lectures, seminars etc. at the University of Oxford and elsewhere. If you have details of such events and would like to have them posted on the ISO website, please e-mail us at: italianstudies@area.ox.ac.uk.
If you would like to be added to the ISO mailing list in order to receive notification of Italy-related activities and events, please send an e-mail to italianstudies@area.ox.ac.uk.
ISO's first seminar cycle is entitled: Italy's Changing Shapes.
Past seminars include:
Italy in the making: Discussing the evolution of Italian economy and society from 1796 to the present (20.05.08);
Italy and Communism. The Role of Palmiro Togliatti, Leader of the Italian Communism Party (1926-64) (20.10.08);
Italy and its Racisms (10.04.09);
What freedom, and whose freedom? Berlusconi and the case of La Repubblica's ten questions (21.10.09);
Round Table - Living with the Mafia: Peppino Impastati and I cento passi (11.02.10);
Benedetta Tobagi: Book presentation of Come mi batte forte il tuo cuore (18.06.10);
The Mezzogiorno and Economic Policy in Italy (20.01.11);
Bill Emmott - "The Good Italy vs. The Bad Italy: A Post-Berlusconi Agenda for Levelling the Playing Field" (09.02.11);
John Prideaux - "What's wrong (and right) with Italy?" (15.06.11);
Furio Colombo - "Does the Left have a Future?" (24.06.11);
Beppe Severgnini - Berlusconi Explained for Posterity and Friends in England (29.11.11)
Writing about the Mafias: John Dickie and Federico Varese in Conversation (16.02.12)
Our second seminar series deals with migration issues, and is called Destinazione Italia.
Past seminars include:
Ornela Vorpsi in Conversation (25.11.09);
Everything but Italian: The Representation of Immigrants and Ethnic Minorities in the Italian Press (10.03.10);
Giallo a Milano: Documentary Screening and Discussion with Director Sergio Basso (16.06.10)
Old Italians and New Italians: Emigration, Immigration and Italian Identity (25.10.11)
Letteratura migrante e letteratura di genere. Quali relazioni? (15.11.11)
ISO also co-organizes events with other Oxford-based societies, such the Oxford Union, the Oxford University Italian Society, and TOIA, as well as - for example - with the Sub-Faculty of Italian, Said Business School, Fonderia Oxford and the Axess Programme on Journalism (with whom we run the Media and Politics in Contemporary Italy seminar series).
In this capacity, we have welcomed speakers such as Professor Romano Prodi, H.E. Ambassador Giancarlo Aragona, Roberto Saviano, Beppe Grillo, Paolo Garimberti, Carlo Debenedetti, Lorella Zanardo and Enrico Franceschini (La repubblica).
We co-organize a successful cinema programme, Cinema Paradiso: Italian Cinema Nights (with OUIS), which runs on alternate weeks every term, showing both Italian classics and contemporary films.
We have also co-organized a number of international conferences in Oxford and beyond, which have included:
Technologies for Cultural Heritage: Leonardo and Beyond (01.10.08);
Media and Narrative Representations of Immigration in Contemporary Italy (27.02.09);
Italy as a Migration Crossroad (15.05.09);
Narrating Migration (part of the "Destination Italy" Research Network), 17-18.09.10;
Migrating In and Out of Italy (part of the "Destination Italy" Research Network), 25-26.02.11;
Imagining Italy: Exploring the Role of Representation in Migratory Movements (part of the "Destination Italy" Research Network), 03-04.11;
Destination Italy: Representing Migration in Contemporary Media and Narrative (final conference of the "Destination Italy" Research Network), 13-15.04.12