Igiaba Scego at Duke

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Author Meets Translator: A Conversation with Igiaba Scego

March 14, 2024 / / 0 Comments

In the Winter of 2022, after Igiaba Scego’s sojourn at Duke that fall semester as a visiting scholar, we sat down for an interview that eventually was published by Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender, and the Black International. During the conversation, we talked about the work of Italian writers whose familial origins lie in the “elsewhere” of Italy’s colonial empire. In the extensive discussion,  I asked questions that invited Igiaba to consider the fraught nomenclature affixed to different generations of Italian writers; in doing so, we grappled with the layered identities that her writings uncover. In this conversation, Igiaba offers the beautiful, complex, destroyed, and disappeared cities of her imagination and everyday world. It was an honor to think alongside her.

The interview is here: Author Meets Translator: Igiaba Scego and Barbara Ofosu-Somuah. 

Reclaiming Identity through Art

December 11, 2022 / / 0 Comments

As an undergraduate student studying Romance Studies concentrating in Portuguese and Spanish, I was able to engage with the content of Being Black in Venice in a more meaningful way. In class, we discuss race, class, and family in contemporary literature, how these literatures relate to migration, generations, and history, and debate translation’s role and accuracy, or lack thereof, in conveying these messages. Even though the event focused more on the visual arts, the themes of class were still evident to me, especially the discussions we have had about the legacy of Italian colonialism and the impact of nationalist myths. The Miracle of the Cross at the Bridge of San Lorenzo reminded me of The Four Moors Fountain, that we had discussed in class as a colonial relic and was mentioned in Scego’s The Color Line.

(Bandini & Tacca, 1626)

The discussion turned to the irony behind the marginalization of Black figures in art: their obvious presence, yet their presumed insignificance due to their placement in the marginal spaces of the art. Black figures in these works are presented as fixtures of daily life, an argument that is emphasized later in the discussion when traditional Venetian candleholders and doorknobs were displayed and evaluated. These works, while offensive, can still be found in Italian homes, and are synonymous to the American lawn jockeys that remain in many American households to this day.

The event closed with a discussion about works being done to re-memorialize history, a large overarching theme of our course. A desire to deconstruct national myths to expose the fatal colonial lies that allow much of the -isms to prevail in our modern societies. The event and our class agree that the silence imposed on communities and carried throughout the generations to be the cause for much of the continuance of these falsities. We have discussed in great length the importance of literary truth through the novels we have read in class, discussing how literature can be used as a tool to tell history and contextualize it. Literature provides a space for cultural reckoning, evading the clinical-ness associated with non-fiction, while leveraging historical contexts to help an audience arrive to a desired argument. During the event, the work of artists like Kiluanji Kia Henda were presented to demonstrate the current state of the colonial deconstruction movement in Europe amongst second-generation African immigrant populations. Artists like Henda strive to decolonize the beloved Italian art cannons that much of the nationalist sentiments of Italy were built on. They understand that the silent presence of Black figures within these cannons allows for stories to be written over their lives, bolstering the harmful rhetoric that marginalizes them.

Not to be cliché, by every single class has been an eye-opening experience for me. The majority of the discussions that I have been exposed to on race and colonialism have been focused on the United States and England, respectively. To see these legacies at work in other spaces, and how ignorance at the micro-level bolster institutional atrocities, has educated me as not only a student, but as a global citizen.

Igiaba Scego’s Visit to UNC

December 1, 2022 / / 0 Comments

My name is Tony. I’m a third year PhD student at UNC in the Department of American Studies. My journey back into Italian and into Igiaba Scego’s “Race, Class, and Family in Contemporary Literature”  class has been an interesting one. I majored in Italian in undergrad but didn’t use it and ultimately lost most of the language that I learned. However, the culture remained a consistent interest over the years. I’m currently interested in studying cultural products from or dealing with African Americans and how Afro/Black Italians use them for their own purposes by replication, repurposing, or recreation. It was an incredible opportunity to learn from and with an incredible author and person at Duke.

I remember walking into the lecture room at Chapel Hill and being thrilled to be able to hear Igiaba Scego speak for the first time outside of our classroom at Duke, especially since this was taking place at UNC. I majored in Romance Languages there, specifically Italian, in undergrad. I really enjoyed my classes and the people I met. However, I never had a chance to think about Blackness in Italy until my senior year in a film class focusing on migration. Of course, the films we watched that dealt with Blackness were only those as migrants, coming to Europe from the continent of Africa and those that settled working in exploitative conditions. But that was the first time I thought about Black people in the country.

Over time I learned more about the possibilities of Blackness in an Italian studies curriculum and the department at UNC made efforts in diversifying the content taught and explored in the field. That’s why I was ready to hear Igiaba speak on campus. As always though, I recognized right away that there were only a handful of visible people of color in the audience. This has been typical in my experience at UNC and Duke where places try to racially diversify spaces, but I wonder if the efforts have been enough or if there are other ways places should be trying to outreach. Alas, I wasn’t going to let that distract me from the content of the talk.

As the talk began, she was introduced and immediately her work or, maybe even, her identity were placed into specific genres. It was said she writes migrant literature, women’s literature, and more. She, the individual, does what she cans to avoid labels in her life. One piece that I think was left out of the introduction that I always heard Igiaba say when describing herself and her work was that she is Italian and writes Italian literature. No hyphens, no added words, no caveats. An Italian that writes Italian literature. Sure, there are times that she may add something to include her Somali-ness, but it seems that society must add that identity in order to understand a possible claim to Italian-ness.

That somewhat showed up again in the questions and answers when someone mentioned her writing for others or the unvoiced. She claimed that she was writing to understand life. Parts of her life, perspectives, and situations. She doesn’t necessarily see herself as being a voice for the people, but for her own self. At the same time though, she makes it clear that there is a separation of self from characters in the stories she writes. That the two are not equivalent, even though people try to claim it as such.

I am grateful for this experience at UNC. It was a wonderful opportunity for the communities to learn about Italy and Blackness (as separate entities but also encompassing identities), the impact of colonialism, and the transnational networks of understanding beyond just the Black Atlantic.

Urban History Matters

November 22, 2022 / / 0 Comments

I’m Yinqi, a master’s student in humanities, and I come from China. I’m drawn to the class because I want to know more about Italian literature and because I hadn’t paid particular attention to the aspect of race in Italian literature, which I’m curious about.

 

From Igiaba Scego’s class, I’ve learned a wide range of things that never occurred to me about Italy. I am blown away by the precariousness of citizenship, which I discovered in Igiaba’s short story “Sausages” and from the event “What is Citizenship?” One might turn 18 and no longer be a citizen of the country which one always identifies as their home country – I cannot find the words to contain my shock, but how could this happen?

 

Above all, throughout the month, I am most grateful for Igiaba Scego’s vivid introduction to Rome. I’ve just visited Rome this summer. Where I stayed was near Piazza Navona. Almost every day I walked for half an hour, across the city and passing all the historic sites, to the Termini to dine in Chinese restaurants. (I feel that Italy has the best Chinese restaurants in Europe, but that’s beside the point.) I had the vague impression that the urban and ethnic landscape around the Termini is different from that around Piazza Navona, but I never reflected on that. I never asked why the Chinese restaurants are around the Termini – and I am grateful that Igiaba, in her introduction, mentions the Chinese immigrant community as well. From Igiaba’s class, I’ve learned, for the first time, the contemporary urban history of Rome, especially around the Termini – the part of Rome’s history that is not in its glorious past and not in the audio guides. It is Rome in its presence, which I missed when visiting as a tourist. For instance, I’m familiar with the name of Piazza dei Cinquecento (probably from the bus), but I know nothing about it until Igiaba talks about how it is actually Rome’s memorial to its 500 fallen colonial soldiers. With this discussion in mind, I find it easier to relate to the plots and characters (as well as their complex feelings for Rome) in Igiaba’s writings (Adua and The Color Line) for I now understand more of the historical significance of the names of places. For instance, rereading the plot of a seagull tearing Adua’s turban (which I interpret as a shackle of some sort) right in Piazza dei Cinquecento, I am now clearer about its significance. And while reading the very first scene of The Color Line, I now understand how it maps onto history and why it is important to introduce it as the context and the texture of Rome’s urban history. After this class, I feel the imperative to visit Rome again with all this knowledge in mind.

 

Among everything that we’ve read and watched in Igiaba’s class, I am most touched by the documentary Emicida: AmarElo – It’s All for Yesterday. When Emicida explains to the camera why he chooses São Paulo’s Theatro Municipal as the venue of his concert, he talks about the gentrification and ghettoization of the city that keeps black communities from entering the theatre, the venue of what is often conceived as “high art”. It seems that, in literally every place of the world, gentrification and ghettoization go on and on under the name of modernization. The government is always talking about how to make the city a better place, but the people it is addressing are only the ones that would benefit from the intensifying inequality. Here in this documentary, Emicida’s wish to bring his people into this venue to be comfortable with and proud of themselves strongly resonates with me. And this wish finds echoes in the other things we’ve been talking about in class, for instance, the street boys’ desire to affirm their identity, belonging, and history in the city when they do graffiti on the archaic walls. In a sense, this quest for identity and combat against invisibility brings our discussions of race, sexuality, and gender together. And here, life and literature again map onto each other.

In Pictures: Being Black in Venice

October 19, 2022 / / 0 Comments

“Being Black in Venice”

A Conversation with Shaul Bassi and Igiaba Scego

October 18th 5:00-7:00 p.m.

Where: FHI Ahmadieh Family Lecture Hall, Bay 4, Smith Warehouse

Shaul Bassi is is Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies and Centre for Environmental Humanities at Ca’ Foscari, the University of Venice. He is the director of the Center for Humanities and Social Change at Ca’ Foscari. His research focuses on English literature, Shakespeare, postcolonial literature, otherness, and Jewish Venetians. He is author of numerous books, including Shakespeare’s Italy and Italy’s Shakespeare: Place, “Race” Politics (2016), and editor of even more, including Experiences of freedom in postcolonial literatures and cultures. He has also written on environmental issues, especially as experienced in Venice.

In Pictures: Sara Serpa’s “Encounters and Collisions”

October 17, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Music by Sara Serpa

Words by Igiaba Scego 

(from La mia casa è dove sono – My Home Is Where I Am – translated by Aaron Robertson)

Sara Serpa presents her new work “Encounters and Collisions”, a commission by Chamber Music America, drawing inspiration from Igiaba Scego’s My Home is Where I Am, a memoir that reflects on identity, migrations and conflicts, and post-colonial relationships between Africa and Europe.

In Pictures: Igiaba Scego in Conversation with Sara Serpa

October 14, 2022 / / 0 Comments

On October 14th,  Italian author Igiaba Scego was in conversation with Portuguese musician Sara Serpa about the creative process of transforming artworks, from visual to literary and literary to musical. Sara Serpa’s musical piece “Encounters and Collisions,” was performed on October 15th at 7:00 p.m. in the Nelson Music Room, inspired by Igiaba Scego’s memoir La mia casa è dove sono (My Home is Where I am).

Igiaba Scego Events

October 5, 2022 / / 0 Comments

The important Italian author, Igiaba Scego, is currently a visiting scholar in Romance Studies at Duke University. Igiaba Scego has a recent article on Rome in the New York Times. She is the author of multiple Italian stories and novels, including several that have been translated into English: Beyond Babylon, Adua, and The Color Line. She has edited and appeared in numerous collections of refugee literature, African literature, migrant literature, women’s writing, and Afro-Italian writing, reflecting her Somali roots. She holds a PhD in education on postcolonial subjects. Below are upcoming events connected to her and her work. We hope you can join us!

 

“What is citizenship?” October 6th 4:00-6:00 p.m. 

Where: FHI Ahmadieh Family Lecture Hall, Bay 4, Smith Warehouse

Mia Fuller (UC Berkeley), Shai Ginsburg (Duke), Igiaba Scego (Author and Visiting Scholar, Duke)

Global Jewish Modernism’s “What is…” Dialogue Series: Each dialogue involves the examination of one term and its representation and use in diverse geographical and historical contexts, both within Jewish Studies and outside of it. Each conversation involves at least two scholars, one from Duke and one from another institution.

“Transforming Arts” October 14th, 12:00-1:30 p.m.

Where: The Pink Parlor in East Duke Building on East Campus

Preceded by light refreshments at 11:30 a.m.

Join us for a conversation between the Italian author Igiaba Scego and Portuguese musician Sara Serpa about the creative process of transforming artworks, from visual to literary and literary to musical. Sara Serpa’s musical piece “Encounters and Collisions,” which will be performed on October 15th at 7:00 p.m. in the Nelson Music Room, is inspired by Igiaba Scego’s memoir La mia casa è dove sono (My Home is Where I am). Igiaba Scego’s novel The Color Line, which was just published in English translation, portrays the journey of Lafanu Brown, a character inspired by the African American visual artists Sarah Parker Redmond and Edmonia Lewis. What challenges and opportunities do these adaptations across media present?

“Encounters and Collisions” October 15th, 7:00-8:30 p.m. 

Where: Nelson Music Room, 1304 Campus Drive, East Campus

Sara Serpa presents her new work “Encounters and Collisions”, a commission by Chamber Music America, drawing inspiration from Igiaba Scego’s My Home is Where I Am, a memoir that reflects on identity, migrations and conflicts, and post-colonial relationships between Africa and Europe.

Program Notes

“Being Black in Venice” October 18th 5:00-7:00 p.m.

A Conversation with Shaul Bassi and Igiaba Scego 

Where: FHI Ahmadieh Family Lecture Hall, Bay 4, Smith Warehouse

More information.

 

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