ANDA Seminar 2016. Rethinking Literature in a Globalised World and in a Digital Era
17 June 2016, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Sala Conferenze Ignazio Ambrogio, Via del Valco di San Paolo, 19 – Roma
This new ANDA Seminar took place at Roma Tre University on 17 June 2016. It was entitled “Rethinking Literature in a Globalised World and in a Digital Era” and it was divided into two sessions. The aim of the day was to discuss how new technologies and ‘globalization’ affect literary studies, constantly modifying the definition and borders of literature itself the way we are accustomed to know it.
Simona Corso introduced Peter Boxall’s keynote lecture “A Bridge to Nowhere: Fictions of the Future in the Twenty-First Century Novel”. A rich and stimulating presentation, it explored the relationship between late modernity and late style in the dawning of the third millennium, also, most importantly, the powerful tension between the ideas of “agedness” and “novelty” in contemporary literature, with a particular focus on the work of Zadie Smith. Boxall’s talk generated a lively debate while paving the way for the second session of the seminar. This was chaired by Maria Del Sapio and included Carlo Pagetti’s, Flavio Gregori’s and Maddalena Pennacchia’s reflections on the concept of literary intermediality and the importance of digital resources. Pagetti analysed the TV series “Game of Thrones” according to a literary perspective revealing its multi-layered references to and relationships with literary classics. Flavio Gregori provided a critical assessment of the online annotated version of Tristram Shandy by ECCO (Eighteenth Century Collection Online), while Maddalena Pennacchia depicted the wide network of intermedial resources developed/developing around the figure and novels of Jane Austen, a particularly successful case-study of transmigration via new technologies to date. The general debate showed how great classics “can be continually translated from one medium into another, thus acquiring a plurality of identities” and new meanings.
