Crossing Borders / Breaking Boundaries

The Conference of the French and Italian Graduate Student Association at the Ohio State University is an opportunity to converse about research regarding current questions and debates important to the French and Italian academic worlds.

This year’s topic will treat French and Italian use of cross-border ideas and works with a thematic approach as opposed to the traditional chronological approach. Intellectual currents cross national borders via translation and transmission; thus, our goal is to study how France and Italy have made use of cultures beyond the hexagon and the boot as demonstrated in the evolution and development of literary, cultural and cinematic traditions within France and Italy.

Relevant themes and topics may include but are not limited to:

The use of work by an extra-national author
The use of extra-national literary traditions
Impact of a national literature, language or culture
French influences on Italy; Italian influences on France
Cinematic movements toward France & Italy
Colonial & Post-Colonial ideas in the métropole
Extra-national historical phenomena
Politics, economics, & warfare
Transmission of ideas: philosophical, religious, artistic, & scientific
French & Italian reception and use of foreign visual cultures

We welcome creative submissions and proposals for papers in English, French, and Italian. Presentations will be limited to a reading time of 20 minutes (8-10 pages). Abstracts should follow the MLA style and be no more than 250 words, and be submitted in English; they must include a cover letter indicating the title, author’s name, affiliation, address, telephone number, and e-mail address.

Please send abstracts to figsaconf2009@gmail.com by Feb. 10, 2009.