Re-storying Mediterranean Worlds: New Narratives from Italian Cultures to Global Citizenship

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This book invites readers to think of Mediterranean cultures as interconnected worlds, seen in light of how they evolve, disappear, are reborn and perpetually transform. This perspective intends to build bridges between the Northern and Southern coasts of the sea in order to broaden and deepen our understanding of current evolutions in Mediterranean worlds, at the cultural, literary, artistic and geopolitical levels. As Paul Valry suggested, we can consider this plural space from the perspective of the intense cultural, economic and human exchanges which have always characterized the Mare Nostrum. We can also consider Mediterranean worlds within an open enactive process, deeply exploring their evolution between nature and culture, examining the natural environment and the transforming relationships between humans and non-humans. The writers and researchers in Re-storying Mediterranean Worlds call for a dialog between the two coasts in order to connect what has been broken. In this volume, they highlight an intercultural and creolized conscience, traversing the Mediterranean worlds including Italian, French and Tunisian cultures, but also migrations from, to and within the region and transcending any idea of communitarian withdrawal. These essays express the urgent need to shift from an understanding of migration as suffering to the notion that mobility is an unalienable right, building foundations for a new idea of global citizenship.

Reviews

The Mediterranean has always been the sea of all possibilities and all dramas. This volume is presented 'as a ship navigating the waters of the Mediterranean', offering stopovers along the coasts most of which are located in France, Tunisia and above all in Italy, which is at the epicenter of this re-storying of Mediterranean worlds. During this navigation, we learn more about the planet, of which this sea at the crossroads of three continents is one of the most accomplished syntheses, and about the dimensions of our humanity. A great book, definitely. * Bertrand Westphal, Professor of Comparative Literature, University of Limoges, France, and co-editor of Francophone Literature as World Literature (Bloomsbury, 2020) *
The Mediterraneanis not only a place on maps. It is a category, indicating crossings, hybridizations, the multiple Souths of people and natures that lands and seas connect as well as divide. With its rich ensemble of voices and motives, Re-storying Mediterranean Worlds: New Narratives from Italian Cultures to Global Citizenshipexplores the cultural and political layers of this category, transforming the Mediterranean into an open frontier for global encounters and visions. * Serenella Iovino, Professor of Italian Studies and Environmental Humanities, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA *
The most recent rhetoric on the Mediterranean has tended to define it as a porous barrier to be reinforced as a means of exclusion. In contrast, the present collection untangles, refocuses and retells the intricate confluence of stories and histories that commonly touch all its shores. * Pasquale Verdicchio, Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature, University of California San Diego, USA *
Challenging Eurocentrism from within its borders, scholars of different disciplines, generations and national belonging investigate the Mediterranean as a site of resistance, while privileging its margins and internal fractures. In addition to the specificity of each case study, Re-storying Mediterranean Worlds invites us to theorize societies and cultures beyond national borders and to rethink both the North vs South and East and West divide. It also reminds us that de-centring and re-centring the observers gaze are necessary practices in our approach to the world. * Gigliola Sulis, Associate Professor of Italian, University of Leeds, UK, and Senior Editor of The Italianist *

Author Bio

Angela Biancofiore is Professor of Italian Studies at Paul Valry University-Montpellier, France. She has published several books on Italian studies and Mediterranean literature and arts, including Pasolini, Palermo, Palumbo (2003), awarded with the 2006 international G. Sormani prize, and Soyons le changement Nouvelles tendances dans la littrature italienne contemporaine. Une anthologie (2016). Clment Barniaudy is Associate Professor of Geography at University of Montpellier, France, and a member of the research center LIRDEF (Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de recherche en Didactique, Education et Formation). He co-founded the center for Theories and Practices of Care, and co-led the research project, "Econarrative: Ecological Narratives as a factor of Resilience and Caring" (2020).