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Dr Loredana Polezzi

Loredana Polezzi Profile Photo

Reader
Academic Director, Warwick Venice Centre (2010-15)

Academic Lead, Connecting Cultures Global Research Priority (2011-15)

Monash-Warwick Associate Professor, School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University, Australia

Tel: +44 (0) 2476 523253
Email: L dot Polezzi at warwick dot ac dot uk
H4.12
Humanities Building, University Road
University of Warwick
Coventry CV4 7AL

About

Loredana Polezzi studied Modern Languages at the University of Venice and then at the University of Siena, where she obtained her first degree in 1987. She later completed an MA in Italian Studies (Applied Linguistics) and a Phd in Translation Studies at the University of Warwick. In the early nineties she taught at the University of Birmingham, before returning to Warwick, where she is currently Reader in Italian Studies. She was Director of the Humanities Research Centre in 1999-2000 and 2001-2002. Between December 2010 and July 215 she was Academic Director of the Warwick Venice Centre and from 2011 to 2015 she also acted as Academic Lead of the university-wide 'Connecting Cultures' Global Research Priority programme.

Research interests

Her research focuses on the history of travel writing and the connection between geographical and social mobility on the one hand and, on the other, the theories and practices of translation. She has written widely on travel to Italy, as well as on contemporary Italian travel writing. Her monograph Translating Travel: Contemporary Italian Travel Writing in English Translation (Aldershot & Brookfield: Ashgate, 2001) is devoted to the critical debate concerning Italian travel literature and to the effects of translation on the reception of twentieth-century Italian travelogues. Her interests in translation, travel and mobility are also reflected in the special issue of The Translator devoted to ‘Translation, Travel, Migration’ (Autumn 2006), which she guest-edited, and in two co-edited issues of the journals Studies in Travel Writing and Textus, both published in 2012 and devoted to the literature of travel. Together with Rita Wilson (Monash University) she is the editor of the leading international journal The Translator. She is currently working on a monograph examinig representations of Africa produced by Italian travellers during the colonial and post-colonial period. A series of articles on this topic have already appeared in journals such as Modern Italy, Italian Studies, Anglistica, Romance Studies. She is also co-editor, with Jennifer Burns, of Borderlines: Migrazioni e identità nel Novecento (Isernia: Cosmo Iannone Editore, 2003) and, with Charlotte Ross, of In Corpore: Bodies in Post-Unification Italy (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson, 2007).

Synergies between Dr Polezzi’s research on the literature of Italian colonial and economic emigration and Jennifer Burns’s research on immigration literature have led to a number of research and teaching initiatives. Burns and Polezzi organized a conference at Warwick in 2002, entitled ‘Borderlines’, which brought together scholars from around the world to discuss the impact of emigration, internal migration and immigration, as expressed in literary texts and cinema, on the notion of Italian national identity. Papers from this conference were subsequently published in the bilingual volume Borderlines.

Burns and Polezzi received funding under the AHRC's ‘Diasporas, Migration and Identities’ programme for a series of workshops and a two-day colloquium on the topic of ‘Mobility and Identity Formation: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the “Italian case”’ (2006-2007). These events took the specific case of Italy and its multiple histories of migration outwards, inwards and within, and placed it in the context of concepts and studies of migration in other national contexts and in other disciplines, such as English, French and German Studies, Sociology, Law, Film and Theatre Studies.

Drs Burns and Polezzi are currently acting as co-invetigators in the project 'Transnationalizing Modern Languages: Mobility, Identity and Translation in Modern Italian Cultures' which was awarded 1.8 million by the AHRC under the 'Translating Cultures' theme. The project looks at the Italian communities established in the UK, the US, Australia, South America, Africa and at the migrant communities of contemporary Italy. It focuses on the cultural associations that each community has formed, their cultural production and their translation strategies. From the insights it develops into transnational Italian cultures, the project will forge a new framework for the discipline of Modern Languages as a whole, one which puts the interaction of languages and cultures at its core.

Teaching and supervision

PhD students supervised

Valentina Abbatelli, 'For Adults and for Children: Translating Anglo-American Literature under Italian Fascism'

Giorgia Alu' (with the Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies), ‘Beyond the Observation of the 'Traveller': The Other and the Self in the Writings of Anglo-Sicilian Women (1848-1910).’ (Completed)

Monia Andreucci, ‘The Translation of Contemporary Multilingual Italian Writing into English.’

Serena Bassi, ‘Imagining Today’s Italy through Translation: An Analysis of Italian Contemporary Literature in English Translation in the British Publishing Market.’ (Completed)

Giorgia Carta (co-supervision with English), ‘The Other Half of the Story: the Interaction between Original and Translated Literature for Children in Italy.’ (Completed)

Matthew Coneys (with Simon Gilson), ‘Mandeville in Italy: The Imagination of the Far East in Italian Versions of the Travels.’

Tiziana Giordano (with the Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies), ‘Re-thinking the Links between Fiction and Historiography: A Comparative Study of Contemporary British and Italian Women's Writing.’ (Completed)

Linde Luijnenburg (with Jennifer Burns), 'Hidden Postcolonial Traces in Italian Cinema. Representations of the Black Other in the commedia all’italiana.'

Mariarita Martino (with Jennifer Burns), ‘An Analysis of Scopophilia in an Intersemiotic Context: Four Italian Case Studies.’ (Completed)

Daria Mizza, ‘Instructional Technology, L2 Writing Theory, and IFL: A Case-study Conducted in a British University among Tutors and Students.’ (Completed)

Goffredo Polizzi (with Rita Wilson, Monash University), 'Re-imagining the Italian South: Subjectivity and Migration in Contemporary Literature and Cinema.' Read an interview with Goffredo Polizzi on the Monash Warwick Joint PhD

Tiziana Serafini (with Ann Caesar), ‘Dagli anni di piombo agli anni di carta: rappresentazioni sociali e autobiografiche dei brigatisti rossi.’ (Completed)

Caterina Sinibaldi, ‘Between Censorship and Propaganda: The Translation and Rewriting of Children's Literature during Fascism.’ (Completed)

Paola Toninato (with the Centre for Translation and Comparative Cultural Studies), ‘The Rise of Written Literature among the Roma: A Study of the Role of Writing in the Current Re-definition of Romani Identity with Specific Reference to the Italian Case.’ (Completed)

Filippo Trentin, ‘Rome 1945-1975: An Archeology of Modernity.’ (Completed)

Annunziata Videtta (with Jennifer Burns), ‘Re-visioning Representations of Italian Migrant Women in Textual Renditions of the Italian Presence in Britain.’ (Completed)

Administrative roles

  • Academic Director, Warwick Venice Centre
  • Academic Lead, Connecting Cultures Global Research Priority

Selected publications

  • L. Polezzi, 'Description, Appropriation, Transformation: Fascist Rhetoric and Colonial Nature', Modern Italy, special issue on ‘Fascism and Nature’, 19:3 (2014), 287-303
  • L. Polezzi, ‘A Double Taste of India: The Parallel Travels of Alberto Moravia and Pier Paolo Pasolini’, in India and the World: Postcolonialism, Translation and Indian Literature. Essays in Honour of Professor Harish Trivedi, ed. by Ruth Vanita (New Delhi: Pencraft International, 2014)
  • L. Polezzi,‘Of Migrants and Working Men: How Pietro di Donato’s Christ in Concrete Travelled between the US and Italy through Translation’, in Perspectives on Literature and Translation: Creation, Circulation, Reception, ed. by B. Nelson and B. Maher (London: Routledge, 2013), pp. 161-77
  • L. Polezzi and E. Di Piazza (eds), Textus, special issue on ‘Travel Writing and the Shape of the World’, XXV: 2 (May-December 2012)
  • L. Polezzi and S. Ouditt (eds), Studies in Travel Writing, special issue on ‘Travel Writing and Italy’, 16:2 (June 2012)
  • L. Polezzi and C. Ross (eds), In Corpore: Bodies in Post-Unification Italy (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson, 2007)
  • L. Polezzi (ed.), The Translator, special issue on 'Translation, Travel, Migration', 12:2 (Autumn 2006)
  • J. Burns and L. Polezzi (eds), Borderlines: Migrazioni e identita' nel Novecento (Isernia: Cosmo Iannone Editore, 2003)
  • L. Polezzi, Translating Travel: Contemporary Italian Travel Writing in English Translation, Studies in European Cultural Transition, 12 (Aldershot & Brookfield: Ashgate, 2001)

Editorships and Board Memberships

  • Co-editor, The Translator (2014-)
  • Co-editor, Warwick Humanities Studies (book series, Ashgate, 2000-2004)
  • Co-editor, Tuttitalia (1997-2000)
  • Member of editorial board: The Translator (2012-2014), Translation Studies; Arts and Humanities in Higher Education (2002-2010); Anthem Studies in Travel (book series).

Qualifications

  • Dott.Ling.Lett. (Siena)
  • MA, PhD (Warwick)

Transnationalizing Modern Languages AHRC project Logo

The Translator

Vol. 21:1, 2015

Vol. 20:1, 2014: Special issue on 'Theories and methodologies of translation history'

Vol. 20:2, 2014

Vol. 20:3, 214: Special issue 'Law in translation'


Call for papers:

Translating Pain: An International Forum on Language, Text and Suffering, 10-12 August 2015

Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

 

 

"Linguistic and Cultural Interchange: Policies and Practices" One-day workshop organized by the Transnationalizing Modern Languages (TML) project


TML Summer School, Venice, September 2015: Details and application procedure



Incroci di civilta' 2015 literary festival, Venice: Ana Luisa Amaral, introduced by Loredana Polezzi


The Shylock Project: Shakespeare in Venice, Summer School, 2015


Special issue of El Ghibli in memory of Julio Monteiro Martins

Ricordi: Loredana Polezzi


iMean4, Warwick, 9-11 April 2015 Pre-conference workshop: 'Language Mobility/Language's Mobility


Cultural Literacy in Europe

First International Conference

London 16-18 April 2015

Report: for CNRS (p. 23)


'The Rights of Translation': panel at the American Comparative Literature Association


Monash Warwick Joint PhD: read an interview with the first successfull candidate, Goffredo Polizzi


Archive Material:


Research Seminar: 'Between Modernity and Archaism: Fascism, Colonialism and African Landscapes', Genova, March 2015



AHRC Research Award: Transnationalizing Modern Languages


On the Borders of Writing and Translating, April 2013


Literature, Travel, Translation, September 2011