Conversations about the timeless work of Grazia Deledda - FULL PROGRAM

  • November 30th, 6:30 pm
    NYU – Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò
    24 W 12th St, New York, NY 10011

    Conversations around the timeless work of Grazia Deledda (in English)

    Sardegna, land of myth and space of absolute existence. Grazia’s World between conflicting codes and concrete universals.
    Dino Manca, Professor of Linguistics and Italian Philology, Department of Humanistic and Social Science - University of Sassari

    Grazia Deledda in America: the myth reborn. From memory of the past to the challenge of a new book.
    Angela Guiso, Essayist, Literary Critic, Columnist

    Ivy
    (“Edera” by Grazia Deledda translated by Martha Witt and Mary Ann Frese Witt)
    Excerpt read by Delissa Reynolds

    Translating Deledda.
    Martha Witt, Author, Professor of creative writing at William Paterson University.
    Mary Ann Frese Witt, Professor Emerita North Carolina State University

    Around the dinner table with Grazia
    (“A tavola con Grazia- cibo e cucina nell’opera di Grazia Deledda” di Neria de Giovanni - tradotto da Simonetta Milli Konewko)
    Excerpt read by Delissa Reynolds.

    Knowledge, Crisis, Resolution: Grazia Deledda, a well-rounded learning experience.
    Simonetta Milli Konewko, Associate Professor and Director of the Italian Program Department of Global Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

    Q&A moderated by NYU Casa Italiana Director Stefano Albertini

  • December 1st, 11:00 am
    Italian Cultural Institute
    686 Park Ave, New York, NY 10021
    (in Italian)

    • Introduction by journalist and writer Anthony Muroni, Artistic Director of the Institutional Committee for the 150th anniversary of Grazia Deledda

    Seeds of the future in the timeless work of Grazia Deledda
    An event dedicated to the teachers and students of the Middle and High Schools of La Scuola d'Italia Guglielmo Marconi and italophone students.

    Matteo Porru, author of novels, essays, and short stories, screenwriter, and playwright. Named by Italian journalists as one of the 25 most promising people in the world under 25 years of age. Among his awards is the 2019 Campiello Prize for Young Writers.

    Ilaria Muggianu Scano, essayist, journalist, playwright, television scriptwriter, and Deledda’s expert. She writes the regular column Class Readings, focussing on secondary and university education, for the daily La Nuova Sardegna.

    Moderator: Stefania Puxeddu, bilingual educator and teacher, founder of InItaliano - Bilinguismo a New York.

    At the end of the round table, teachers and students will be invited to interact with the Alexa skill “Words of Grazia,” a service that allows participants to hear reading selections and discover the settings of Grazia Deledda’s novels through voice messages accessible globally.

  • December 1st, 5:30 pm
    Italian Cultural Institute
    686 Park Ave, New York, NY 10021
    (in English)

    • Institutional Greetings by Prof. Fabio Finotti, Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in New York, and Min. Plen. Fabrizio Di Michele, Consul General of Italy in New York.

      Introduction by journalist and writer Anthony Muroni, Artistic Director of the Institutional Committee for the 150th anniversary of Grazia Deledda

    Conversations around the timeless work of Grazia Deledda (in English)

    Neither Fairy nor Witch. The welfare of Grazia Deledda. A sociosemiotic journey into the functional eroticism of the Queen of the Mediterranean.
    Ilaria Muggianu Scano, essayist, journalist, playwright, and television scriptwriter.

    Freely chosen. Women in the work of Grazia Deledda.
    Duilio Caocci, Lecturer and researcher of Italian and Sardinian Literature, Department of Humanistic Studies, University of Cagliari.

    Il Paese del Vento: Deledda’s commentary on a woman’s upbringing and political subtext.
    Chiara Fabbian, Clinical Professor and Director of the Italian Program Department of Hispanic and Italian Studies, the University of Illinois at Chicago

    From Island to Continent and never back again.
    Sonita Sarker, Chair of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and English Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota

    Q&A moderated by Leide Porcu, psychotherapist/psychoanalyst. Comites New York

    7:30 pm Screening

    Grazia Deledda the revolutionary
    (2021, documentary 53’ – Italian with English subtitles)
    by Cecilia Mangini and Paolo Pisanelli.
    Production ISRE Sardegna in association with OfficinaVisioni

    A cinematic journey that brings to life the world of Sardinian writer and ethnographer Grazia Deledda through unpublished documents and manuscripts. Grazia Deledda was a revolutionary. She went beyond the confines of male-dominated culture and followed her creative path as an artist and woman.

November 30 – December 1, 2022, a two-day conference dedicated to the work and legacy of Grazia Deledda, the first and only Italian woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature (1926).
A collaboration between NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò and the Istituto Italiana di Cultura, New York, this jubilant celebration of the 150th birthday of Grazia Deledda with the support of the Consulate General of Italy in New York.
Kicking off on November 30 at 6:30 p.m. at Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò - NYU (24 W 12th St, New York, NY 10011), the first seminar session will be dedicated to Deledda’s legacy in the United States.
On December 1 at 5:30 p.m. at the Italian Cultural Institute (686 Park Ave, New York, NY 10021), the second day’s seminar will consider the innovative and revolutionary figure of Deledda as our contemporary, concluding with a screening of the documentary film Grazia Deledda, La Rivoluzionaria (in Italian with English subtitles), by Cecilia Mangini and Paolo Pisanelli.
On the morning of December 1 at 11 a.m. at the Italian Cultural Institute, a unique program will be dedicated to secondary school instructors and students, featuring Alexa, “Parole di Grazia,” with audio segments revealing the life of Grazia Deledda and the settings of her novels, including taped readings of selections from her work.
The Institutional Committee programmed the NY seminars for the 150th Anniversary of Grazia Deledda (Province of Nuoro, Municipality of Nuoro, MAN Museum, UniNuoro, and the Fondazione Banco di Sardegna).
“I’ve developed these conversations with my eye on the future,” explains  Valeria Orani, the New York-based curator of the seminars. “Dialogue between Italian scholars and leading North American researchers on Grazia Deledda reveals how Deledda overcame the restrictions of male chauvinism. Her self-expression as artist and woman is deeply rooted in Sardinian culture, where the role of women has always been recognized.”
For Anthony Muroni, the Committee’s Artistic Director, “It is especially important that the city of New York, with its history of freedom, defense of civil rights, and attention to the role of women in society, should participate in this homage to an author who lifted restrictions on women and set out before anyone else on the road of self-determination, as rendered in the lives of the protagonists of her novels.” Muroni’s words are echoed by Constantino Tidu, Chief Administrator of the Province of Nuoro and head of the Institutional Committee, who adds, “The New York seminars are particularly important for presenting the figure and work of Deledda to a sophisticated and sensitive North American readership.”

SAVE THE DATE! 

Visit the official website of the Global project and the New York program in Italian at www.150graziadeledda.it

Speakers’ Bio

Download the press kit (press release, program, images)

do you need more info? write us an email: deleddanyc@gmail.com