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The Centre for Diaspora & Transnational Studies (University of Toronto) presents Alessandro Portelli, Professor of American literature (University of Rome, La Sapienza), as part of the CDTS Guest Lecture Series 2019-20.
The lecture presents the current state of a 10-year field work and archival project dedicated to the music of immigrants in Rome. While still a country of emigration, Italy has also become a country of immigrants, and the music that is heard in the streets, the subways, the churches and temples in Rome now comes from Ecuador, Kurdistan, Senegal, Rumania, Ukraine, and more than 25 other countries. While it retains tracts of the cultures of origin, this new urban multicultural folk music has wings as well as roots, and evolves with the impact of the immigration experience, the dialogue with Italian culture, as well as the contact with other migrant traditions and cultures. It also changes our concept of folklore, given the different relationships that the various immigrant cultures entertain between folk and popular music. The lecture will be illustrated with musical examples.
Alessandro Portelli has taught American Literature at the Universities of Siena and Rome from 1974 to 2012. From 2004 to 2008 he served as Rome’s Mayor’s advisor on historical memory; in 2005-6 he was a member of Rome’s city council. He is the founder and chairman of the Circolo Gianni Bosio, an independent organization for the study and promotion of people’s cultures, folk music and oral history. He has served as visiting professor, research fellow and in other capacities at several universities worldwide, including Manchester, Aberdeen, Columbia, University of Kentucky, Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. In 2013, we was awarded an honorary degree from the University of La Plata.
His work has been translated in several languages, including Spanish, Catalan, Finnish, Portuguese (two collections of his essays have appeared in Brazil and in Portugal). He has published in many academic journals intellectually and writes regularly for il manifesto daily in Rome, produces radio programs and has edited a number of records based on his field recordings of Italian folk music. His current project is a collection of music and life stories from immigrants to Italy from different parts of the world (We Are Not Gping Back. Migrant Music of Resistance, Memory and Pride, 2016).
Tuesday, March 10 | 4:00pm to 5:30pm
Jackman Humanities Building
170 St George St. | Room: JHB100
THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
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