Foscolo Professore. La Ricezione Giornalistica, Le Reazioni Accademiche E La Fortuna Editoriale Dell’orazione Inaugurale

During his brief teaching experience at the University of Pavia (1809), Ugo Foscolo gave his famous inaugural speech entitled Dell’origine e dell’ufficio della letteratura. The consequences of this speech on the Italian literary and academic environment, as well as on his own life, were considerable. This contribution proposes an overall recognition of three main journalistic reviews published in major national newspapers once Foscolo’s lecture was publicly read and printed. The first and most noted was written by Francesco Pezzi, editor of Corriere Milanese: this article is provocative and aggressive: it accuses Foscolo of plagiarism and of being incapable of autonomously elaborating any kind of theoretical or literary argument. The second is less famous but probably even more critical of Foscolo’s recent work. It was published in Giornale Enciclopedico di Firenze by an anonymous reviewer. The third piece, also anonymous and published in Giornale Bibliografico Universale, deserves attention for at least two reasons: firstly, it clearly gives an opposite evaluation, positive and encouraging about the Orazione Inauguale; secondly, a mistake is contained in the date reported on the frontispiece. It is reasonable to consider this material element a significant component of this piece’s little fortune

“Certe volte, io mi vergogno di essere siciliano”: spunti per una (ri)lettura postcoloniale de Il benefattore di Luigi Capuana

Luigi Capuana’s short novel Il benefattore (1901) can be considered as a semi-forgotten work by the prolific Sicilian writer, who for over half a century has been canonized as a ‘minor’ verista by critics, but is now being re-discovered from new methodological perspectives and new areas of his creative production. This essay posits itself within a new and constantly increasing line of Capuana criticism, and it does so by applying postcolonial theory, which is a comparatively recent methodology within Italian Studies and an original approach within Capuana Studies. Through the prism of postcolonial theory, the essay analyses Il benefattore, which can still be regarded as a comparatively ‘new’ text from a critical perspective, despite having been published in 1901. After contextualising Il benefattore, the article develops in two sections. The first section is methodological and works as a theoretical framework, in which the impact on, and the benefits of, a postcolonial theory-driven methodology in Capuana Studies are discussed. The second section, through close-reading of the text, sheds light on key thematic and narratological patterns which can be interpreted through concepts belonging to postcolonial theory, such as the notion of ‘in-betweenness’ and that of ‘mimicry/antimimicry’. The analysis of Il benefattore shows how Capuana’s characterisation, in his fictional works representing Sicily, is constructed not only through representing gender and/or class dynamics (as maintained by historical-philological criticism of (Neo)Marxist leanings) but more specifically through postcolonial dynamics that reflect the hybrid ethno-geo-socio-cultural location of his texts.Keywords: internal colonialism, post-Unification Italy, Luigi Capuana, re-reading the canon, Postcolonial Italian Studie

Analysis of a pick and place task in autistic children through an inertial measurement unit

Autism is associated with a wide and complex array of neurobehavioral symptoms. The most known of these are the difficulties in understanding and responding appropriately to others but there also are other problems concerning to biological motion and motor controls. This study investigates some features of a pick -and-place movement execution of children with autism through the realization of an appropriate clinical protocol and a new sensorized toy. The sensorized toy was a simple plywood cube with an embedded inertial sensor. The clinical protocol consisted in the child playing a game with the cube while inertial sensor recorded data related to the child's movements. During the game, the sensorized cube as moved by the child between two boxes. Different groups of participants were included in the study in order to analyse the differences in motor patterns between healthy adults, 3 and 5 years old healthy children, 4-6 years old autistic children. The profile of acceleration and jerk time series obtained during the execution of the game were analized and the differences between each group were computed. Results show that autistic children have more difficulties in concentrating into the execution of the game and that they move with atypical kinematics, supporting the idea that movement disturbances may play a part in the phenomenon of autism

Chapter Postcolonial Italian Studies: Rhizomatic Notes from the South

This essay draws on the first (of two) edited volumes of ISSA dedicated to “Postcolonialismi Italiani ieri e oggi appunti (sudafricani) per una (ri)concettualizzazione ‘rizomatica’ dei postcolonial Italian studies” (Virga, Zuccala 2018) and on some of the new concepts introduced therein. The essay tackles in a more thorough fashion and from a broader perspective some of the methodological and terminological issues raised – albeit in a necessarily cursory manner (and in Italian) – in Virga and Zuccala 2018. The essay starts by geographically positioning writers in the context of global academia and claiming an epistemological consequence of their geographical position. It then gives an overview of the field of postcolonial Italian studies in order to explain how the concept of rhizome, when applied meta-critically to the whole field, might provide a useful starting point for a paradigmatic reconceptualization of postcolonial Italian studies

When it comes to gender inequality in academia, we know more than what can be measured

In academia gender bias is often figured in terms of research productivity and differentials surrounding the academic work of men and women. Alesia Zuccala and Gemma Derrick posit that this outlook inherently ignores a wider set of variables impacting women, and that attempts to achieve cultural change in academia can only be realised, by acknowledging variables that are ultimately difficult to quantify