Literary canons travel across space as well as through time, thus proving to be supra-geographical, rather than simply trans-historical, entities. In this session, Marta Arnaldi will explore this idea by sharing the findings of her forthcoming monograph The Diasporic Canon: American Anthologies of Contemporary Italian Poetry 1945-2015 (Legenda 2022). Here she argues that the theoretical concept of diaspora presents us with a new form of canonicity, one that is built upon, and tests, our common understanding and experience of translation. In this discussion, she hopes to enrich these reflections by way of an open dialogue with the participants. She also intends to ask whether, and to what extent, a synergetic understanding of both diaspora and translation can challenge received ideas of nationality, ethnicity, gender, genre, and authorship, and perhaps even help us surpass them.

Marta Arnaldi is an Extraordinary Junior Research Fellow in Italian at The Queen’s College, Oxford, and the Stipendiary Lecturer in Italian Literature at St Anne’s College, Oxford.

For more information, please see the events page (www.occt.ox.ac.uk/discussion-group-diasporic-canon) or email Erin Nickalls (erin.nickalls@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk).