Food, Migration, Diversity and Survival

The Many Flavors of the Short Story

Welcome to Calabria

The 16th International Conference on the Short Story in English will take place from June 23-26, 2021 at the University of Calabria, Rende, Italy with the theme: “Food, Migration, Diversity and Survival: The Many Flavors of the Short Story.

In This Land Is Our Land: An Immigrant’s Manifesto (2019), Suketu Mehta states that wherever there are immigrants, there are stories to give voice to their feelings of displacement and belonging through memory and acts of resilience. Their lives are indeed floating narratives that become a powerful symbol of the fluidity and vulnerability of our contemporary world. In an age where the added value of cultural diversity is being questioned (again) by the resurgence of nationalistic populism and threatened by the construction of concrete and mental walls, storytelling becomes the creative space where boundaries can be blurred and the universal core of the human experience illuminated. Being one of the most diverse expressions of material culture, food pervasively contributes to define such human experience and to reveal the tensions between local traditions and global phenomena.

The 16th International Conference on the Short Story in English brings writers of many nationalities to Calabria, a region in Southern Italy that lies between two seas, the Tyrrhenian and the Ionian, and stretches into the Mediterranean like a pier toward Africa. From its shores thousands of migrants left for a better life and on its shores hundreds of migrants are now landing in search of a brighter future. A land of contrasts and contradictions, Calabria has indeed many “flavors” and is truly culturally diverse. In this scenario, fiction writers in English, or authors who have been translated into English, together with scholars of the short story, will join in reading sessions, roundtable discussions and panels, paper presentations, and a special session in Cosenza with literary moments and a food tour of the historical center.

Drawing a parallelism between writing and cookery, the Conference aims at highlighting the variety of combinations through which the “ingredients” of the Short Story can be mixed together in order to create diverse literary recipes whose flavors represent the manifold shapes and structures of the Short Story, its plurality of voices and perspectives, its capacity to migrate and adapt to new cultural contexts and stylistic forms and to be remediated across other artistic languages. Thanks to its fluidity and porosity, the Short Story successfully navigates beyond literary boundaries and turns diversity into a unique and distinctive feature. Workshops will be offered on June 22nd, the day before the opening of the Conference. Workshops are open to the public as well as conference participants. Conference participants who take workshops should plan on arriving in Cosenza no later than June 21st. Please view the list of workshops on the website, listed separately.

SPONSORS

Conference Officials

Maurice A. Lee

Conference Director

    Dean, College of Liberal Arts
    University of Central Arkansas

    Mirko Casagranda

    Conference Co-Director

      Associate Professor of English
      University of Calabria

      Licia Canton

      Conference Advisor

        Chief Editor and Author
        Accenti Magazine, Montreal, Canada

        Jay Ruud

        Program Coordinator

          Professor of English
          University of Central Arkansas

          Clark Blaise

          Chairman of Board

            Society for the Study of the Short Story (SSSS)

            Organizing Committee:

            • Mirko Casagranda, Department of Humanities, Co-Director (English Language | Translation Studies)
            • Carmen Argondizzo (ESP and EFL | Applied Linguistics)
            • Lorena Carbonara (Language Studies | Translation Studies)
            • Anna Maria De Bartolo (ESP and EFL | Applied Linguistics)
            • Margherita Ganeri (Italian Diaspora Studies | Italian Literature)
            • Richard Kidder (American Studies | American Literature)
            • Liis Kollamagi (Language Studies | Translation Studies)
            • C. Bruna Mancini (English Literature | Cultural Studies)
            • Renata Oggero (Language Studies | Translation Studies)
            • Stefania Paone (History of Art | Medieval Art)
            • Salvatore Proietti (American Studies | American Literature)
            • Carla Tempestoso (English Literature | Cultural Studies)
            • Annafrancesca Naccarato (French Studies | Translation Studies)
            • Emanuela Jossa (Latin American Literature | Chicano Studies)

            Secretariat:
            Sonia Gencarelli

            Contact

            Contact Info

            (+39) 0984 4911
            info.shortstorycalabria2020@gmail.com
            Università della Calabria
            via Pietro Bucci
            87036 Arcavacata
            di Rende, Cs
            Italia

            This 2021 Conference has been Cancelled.

            The next conference will be in Singapore in June of 2022.

            For more information, please contact the Director, Dr. Maurice A. Lee at mauricel@uca.edu

            Thank you, and we apologize for any inconvenience.