Rethinking Models
Featured Collectors and Tradition Bearers from Italian Insular Spaces in the Mid-Nineteenth Century: Women’s Pioneering Role in the Preservation of Folkloric Narratives in Sicily and Sardinia
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Elena Emma Sottilotta
After the Italian Unification in 1861, the centralising forces aimed at creating a sense of national belonging went hand in hand with a growing interest towards local traditions. The power struggle between central and marginal dimensions are evident in the practices surrounding the collection of folklore in the post-Unification period. The emergence of this new field of research, in which comparative, philological and anthropological approaches were converging, celebrated the unity of the Italian nation while simultaneously emphasising its diverse regional and linguistic composition. The fragmented nature of the new-born Italian state engendered a multiplicity of centripetal contributions to the field of folklore studies, which were fueled by a complex mosaic of deeply grounded regional perspectives. Such drives, albeit emerging throughout the Italian peninsula, were particularly prolific in Southern Italy and in the Italian islands. This paper is primarily concerned with the recognition of women’s contribution to folklore studies, with an emphasis on collectors and traditions bearers from peripheral contexts in Sicily and Sardinia. These female folklorists challenged the prejudices of the time, which precluded women from public exposure; some of them managed to impose themselves on the folkloric scene, despite orbiting around a world dominated chiefly by male scholars. By focusing on the preservation of popular traditions in the two Mediterranean islands from a gender perspective, this study aims to highlight women’s pioneering role in the perpetuation of local folkloric narratives, which were charged with a strong cultural and political resonance at this historical juncture.
Silver, Gold, and Copper in the American Imaginary View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Teresa Longo
This paper explores the legacies of American mining. I approach the topic through the analysis and interpretation of select works of art (literary and visual) about silver, gold, and copper. "America" in this paper refers to both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The artifacts central to my analysis thus include work by artists from Mexico (Diego Rivera 1986-1957), Chile (Patricio Guzman 1941- ) and the U.S. (C. Pam Zhang 1990- ). Combined, their creative output reflects the story of American mining from the mid-twentieth century to the present day. With an emphasis on the role the arts play in defining, critiquing and re-imagining America, my study reveals how closely the stories and legacies of mining in America are linked to the history of immigration, the myth of prosperity, and the destruction of the landscape. Given the centrality of these same concerns today, my paper concludes with recommendations about the role the arts might play in re-imagining and re-constructing the world we inhabit now.
Transforming Expertise: How “Knowledge in the Making” Can Revitalize Humanities Education View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Rolf Norgaard
This paper explores how unduly narrow definitions of expertise have undermined efforts to revitalize humanities education, and likewise offers a remedy--one that comes from an unexpected quarter. Traditional views define expertise as mastery of domain content. Knowledge lies, as it were, in an archive. However, new interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) education, engaging the arts and writing, can point us to recovering a complementary understanding of expertise, one that has forgotten roots in our own humanistic traditions. If we assume that adding the arts implies but one more dimension to the traditional Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, we have thoroughly underestimated the transformative potential of STEAM. STEAM’s transformative power lies in helping us reframe the very notion of expertise. STEAM education can point the way to a revitalized humanities education. It gives voice to a tacit rhetorical education that underlies and makes possible disciplinary mastery in ways that highlight design thinking and the rhetorical arts of invention. Were we to embrace a complimentary form of expertise—knowledge in the making—we could also recoup an often forgotten, rhetorically-inspired dimension of humanities education itself: the generative role of craft (techne) and practical wisdom (phronesis) in knowledge making. The archive can also become a maker space, inviting design thinking. An enriched notion of expertise as “knowledge in the making” has implications for how the humanities see themselves and their place in the university and society, and likewise presents opportunities to rethink curricular design and pedagogy.
