Author's Roundtable I: Roberto Dainotto's Europe (in Theory)
Thursday, September 18, 2008
posted under
Author's Roundtable
,
Dainotto
,
Europe (In Theory)
by Unit for Criticism
Written by Lauren Goodlad, Interim Director, Unit for Criticism
On Monday September 15th the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory held the first of three Author's Roundtables: a discussion by Roberto Dainotto, professor of Romance Studies at Duke University, of his recent book Europe (in Theory) (Duke UP, 2007). The event also featured three respondents: Elena Delgado (Spanish), Manuel Rota (Italian), and Carl Lehnen (English).
Dainotto begins his book by situating himself as a Southerner—an Italian—addressing the moment of European Union. In offering up the genealogical backstory of this European apotheosis the book does not simply transpose the logic of Orientalism to a latitudinal axis; it also tells a complicated story about internal otherness within Europe, describing the various ways in which Southernness—both like and unlike Orientalism—becomes aligned with historicity and particularity in a Eurocentric imaginary dominated by, but also unsatisfied with, its prevailing Northern polarity.
We have invited two guest bloggers—Katia Curbelo (ICR/Cultural Studies/Italian and Spanish) and Amauri Serrano (Italian, MSLI) to write on the roundtable and have also posted the responses by Manuel Rota and Carl Lehnen as well as a final reply from Roberto Dainotto.
On Monday September 15th the Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory held the first of three Author's Roundtables: a discussion by Roberto Dainotto, professor of Romance Studies at Duke University, of his recent book Europe (in Theory) (Duke UP, 2007). The event also featured three respondents: Elena Delgado (Spanish), Manuel Rota (Italian), and Carl Lehnen (English).
Dainotto begins his book by situating himself as a Southerner—an Italian—addressing the moment of European Union. In offering up the genealogical backstory of this European apotheosis the book does not simply transpose the logic of Orientalism to a latitudinal axis; it also tells a complicated story about internal otherness within Europe, describing the various ways in which Southernness—both like and unlike Orientalism—becomes aligned with historicity and particularity in a Eurocentric imaginary dominated by, but also unsatisfied with, its prevailing Northern polarity.
We have invited two guest bloggers—Katia Curbelo (ICR/Cultural Studies/Italian and Spanish) and Amauri Serrano (Italian, MSLI) to write on the roundtable and have also posted the responses by Manuel Rota and Carl Lehnen as well as a final reply from Roberto Dainotto.
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