Pre-Occupied Spaces: Presentations and Reviews

front book cover of Teresa Fiore's book, Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy's Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies

‌‌Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies is the title of a 2017 book by Dr. Teresa Fiore (Inserra Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies at Montclair State University), published by Fordham University Press in the Critical Studies in Italian America series. It was awarded the 2017 AAIS Book Prize, received an Honorable Mention at the 2018 MLA Marraro Prize, was voted Runner Up Winner for the 2019 Edinburgh Gadda Prize and was nominated for the 2018 Bridge Book Award.

The book was published in Italian by Le Monnier/Mondadori Educational in 2021. For information about the Italian edition and presentations in Italy, see dedicated webpage in Italian and in English.

By linking Italy’s long history of emigration to all continents in the world, contemporary transnational migrations directed toward it, as well as the country’s colonial legacies, Fiore’s book poses Italy as a unique laboratory to rethink national belonging at large in our era of massive demographic mobility as well as to re-design the discipline of Italian Studies within a mobility-based and translingual vision. Through an interdisciplinary cultural approach, the book finds traces of globalization in a past that may hold interesting lessons about inclusiveness for the present.

Fiore rethinks Italy’s formation and development on a transnational map including Egypt, Argentina, France, Ethiopia and the U.S. through the cultural analysis of travel, living, and workspaces as depicted in literary, filmic, and musical texts (Crialese’s Golden Door, Lakhous’ Clash of Civilization Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio, Cavanna’s Les Ritals, Ghermandi’s “The Story of Woizero Bekelech and Signor Antonio,” and Rodari’s short stories, among others). By demonstrating how immigration in Italy today is preoccupied by its past emigration and colonialism, the book stresses commonalities and dispels preoccupations.

View the book's Table of Contents

 

Prizes, Presentations and Reviews

  • Review by Loredana Polezzi in Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture 10:1 (April 2019): 153-5.
  • Review by Joseph Viscomi (“Spaces and Migrations”) in H-net Reviews in the Humanities and Social Sciences(Feb. 2019): 1-3.
  • Review by David Aliano in Journal of Modern Italian Studies 24:1 (Feb. 2019): 198-200.
  • Review by Caterina Romeo in Italian American Review (Winter 2019): 143-146.
  • Review by Alessandra Mattei in Oblio: Osservatorio bibliografico della letteratura italiana otto-novecentesca VIII. 32 (Winter 2018): 287-8.
  • Review by Loredana Polezzi in Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture 10:1 (April 2019): 153-5.
  • Review by Melissa Coburn in Annali di Italianistica 36 (2018): 465-7.
  • Review by Giovanna Bellesia in gender/sexuality/italy 5 (2018): 281-3.
  • Review by Cristina Lombardi-Diop in Forum Italicum 51:3 (Fall 2017): 863-66.
  • Review  by Cristina Lombardi-Diop in Altreitalie 55 (July-Dec. 2017): 147-50 – (Italian translation of the Forum Italicum review)
  1. “The Space Between: Analyzing Modern and Past Italian Immigration/Emigration.” – Nov. 2, 2019   A panel presentation at IDEA Festival in Boston in connection to I AM BOOKS )
  2. “Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies” – Oct. 21, 2019  6pm Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC
  3. “A Nation in Motion: Rethinking Italy through its Migration” – May 13, 2019 7pm Montclair Public Library Adult School Lecture
  4. “Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies” – Thur. May 9, 2019 6pm Calandra Italian American Institute, NY.
  5. “Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies” – April 25-26, 2019 Miami University, OH – the visit includes a public presentation (April 25 4:30pm) as part of the Irvin Lectures Series and an in-class talk about “Contemporary Migration from Italy to the U.S.,” sponsored by the Department of French and Italian/College of Arts and Sciences.
  6. “Italy in the Transnational Space of Migration and Colonial Routes” – Feb. 13-16, 2019 Ohio State University – Scholar-in-Residence visit includes public lecture, in-class talks, meetings with graduate students, presentation to the community as part the Migration, Mobility, and Immobility project of the Global Arts & Humanities Discovery Theme (GAHDT): see full program.
  7. “Spazi pre-occupati: Una rimapattura dell’Italia tra migrazioni transnazionali ed esperienze coloniali” – Thur. Jan. 10, 2019 Università di Palermo, Italy (Edificio 12, Aula Seminari, Polo Universitario viale delle Scienze). Photo with University of Palermo faculty.
  8. “Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies” – Tue Nov. 13, 2018 6pm  Columbia University (Hamilton Hall Room 407)
  9. “Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies” – Wed. Oct. 24, 2018  2:30pm Fordham University (568 Faber Hall, Rose Hill campus, The Bronx)
  10. “Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies” – Mon. Oct. 22, 2018  7-9pm University of San Diego (Mother Rosalie Hill Hall, Warren Auditorium)
  11. “Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies” – Thur. Oct. 18, 2018  5pm University of Southern California (VKC 260) Los Angeles
  12. “Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies” – Mon. Sept. 24, 2018 6pm  Duke University (Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room 153) (see flyer)- included in the broader InTransit initiative
  13. “Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies: A Conversation and Reading” – Thur. May 24, 2018  6pm – NYU Casa Italian Zerilli-Marimò. See video 5/24.
  14. “Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies” – Tue. April 10, 2018 5pm – Santa Clara University, CA (sponsored by the Italian Studies Program in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures and the Dr. Victor and Julia Botto Vari Italian Studies Initiative) See video 4/10.
  15. “Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies” – Thur. April 5, 2018 12noon – University of California Santa Barbara (sponsored by the Department of Black Studies).
  16. “Inhabiting Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations in the Mediterranean and the Americas”– Wed. April 4, 2018 2pm – California State University Long Beach (sponsored by the Graziadio Center for Italian Studies as part of the Comparative Migrations Lecture Series).
  17. “Pre-occupied Spaces: Remapping Italian Transnational Migrations and Culture in Europe, Africa and the Americas”– Mon. April 2, 2018 4pm – San Diego State University, CA (sponsored by the Italian Program in the European Studies Dept. as part of the European Studies Lecture Series). See video 4/2.
  18. “Pre-occupied Spaces: Remapping Italian Transnational Migrations in the Mediterranean and the Americas” – Tue. January 30, 2018, 4:45pm – Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, PA (sponsored by the Department of Italian Studies and the programs in International Studies and Africana Studies and the Miller Humanities Fund).
  19. “Pre-Occupied Spaces. Remapping Italy’s Transnational Migrations and Colonial Legacies” by Teresa Fiore (Fordham UP 2017)
    Panel with the author and Montclair State colleagues Nancy Carnevale (History), Stephen Ruszczyk (Sociology) and  Tony Spanakos (Political Science and Law) – Mon. Dec. 11, 2017 6:30pm Montclair State University, NJ