Daily Archives: 4 November 2016

Great Incompletes: Italy’s Unfinished Endeavors – Call For Papers

Great Incompletes: Italy’s Unfinished Endeavors
Columbia University
Department of Italian Graduate Conference
3-4 February, 2017

Keynote speaker: Professor Thomas Harrison (UCLA)

This conference will investigate the question of incompleteness in Italian cultural and social history through an array of theoretical perspectives and case studies. From the unfinished works of Dante to Puccini’s Turandot, from Gramsci’s Quaderni del carcere to the grandi opere of the Salerno-Reggio Calabria, the list of “great incompletes” is as long as it is diverse. What do incomplete projects have in common? How does an unfinished film differ from an unfinished bridge or novel? How can a text be deemed complete? Are our expectations as readers, viewers and witnesses influenced because of this purported unfinished-ness?

The history of Italian art, philosophy and politics is also brimming with works that deploy incompleteness as a deliberate narrative device. Michelangelo’s poetics of non-finito and the aesthetic debate on the possibility/impossibility of reaching perfection in art, reappears in Calvino’s Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore. The openness of Gadda’s Querpasticciaccio brutto de via Merulana challenges the limits of a literary genre, just as Antonioni’s inherently incomplete plots inform his spatial and temporal filmic aesthetics. Many have noticed a connection between unfinished infrastructure projects, clientelism, corruption, and organized crime: the works’ ability to remain perpetually “in progress” is precisely their point.

We welcome papers in English that explore the viability of incompleteness as a theoretical notion across media, its scope as a technique that may or may not solicit a specific hermeneutical strategy, and finally its implications as a political and philosophical concept.

Possible topics may include:

  • Unfinished works and their textual tradition
  • Infrastructural incompleteness and organized crime
  • A poetics of *non-finito*
  • Reaching perfection in art
  • Incompleteness across media
  • Incompleteness as a narrative device
  • Pastiche/Patchworks vs. Incompleteness
  • Hermeneutical strategies facing incompleteness
  • Incomplete plots/spaces/times
  • Incompleteness vs. Failure

Please send a 250-word abstract in English and a brief bio (50-60 words) no later than November 20, 2016  to: graditalian.columbia@gmail.com

Dr Howard Gray, Australian Association for Maritime History, Annual Vaughan Evans Memorial Lecture

“The Life and Times of Frederik de Houtman 1571-1627”, Dr Howard Gray

Date: 18 November, 2016
Time: 6:00-7:00pm
Venue: WA Maritime Museum, Victoria Quay, Fremantle
Bookings: Essential, please call 1300 134 081 or visit museum.wa.gov.au/ticketing/civicrm/event/register?reset=1&id=4765
More info: http://museum.wa.gov.au/museums/maritime/vaughan-evans-memorial-lecture-dr-howard-gray

Join us at the WA Maritime Museum for The Vaughan Evans Memorial Lecture 2016, presented in association with the Australian Association for Maritime History.

Frederik de Houtman and brother Cornelis were despatched by Dutch merchants as spies to Portugal on a mission to uncover the source of lucrative spices from the East Indies. In 1595 they joined the Dutch first fleet, an almost comical expedition if it wasn’t for the tragedy and havoc left in its wake.

During a second expedition Cornelis was murdered and Frederik imprisoned. Their exploits, however, heralded Dutch domination of the East Indies and the establishment of strongholds that lasted two centuries. Frederik was also a significant astronomer and linguist, charting constellations and writing dictionaries. He was also among the first Europeans to encounter the long-sought Southland.