Papers by Elena Anna Spagnuolo
Rewriting the Transnational Dimension of Italian Migration to Wales in the Time of Covid-19 , 2022
This article investigates how Covid-19 has rewritten the transnational connotation of recent Ital... more This article investigates how Covid-19 has rewritten the transnational connotation of recent Italian migration to Wales, reshaping issues of home, belonging, inclusion and participation. On the one hand, examination of the relationship with the host country analyses whether and how the early phase of the pandemic impacted on Italians' social integration and sense of embeddedness in Welsh society. On the other, focus is on the relationship with the origin country, aiming to detect whether the crisis strengthened feelings of nostalgia and desire to 'return home'. To this end, four main fields are considered: social relations, cultural practices, sources of information and travel patterns. Addressing these fields, discussion assesses the practices and strategies that Italian migrants in Wales engaged with, in order to maintain a connection with Italy despite the limitations and challenges posed by Covid-19.
SIMONETTA AGNELLO HORNBY’S COUNTER-NARRATIVES: WRITING STORIES OF SICILIAN WOMEN TO QUESTION TRADITIONAL MODELS OF FEMININITY , 2020
Simonetta Agnello Hornby is a contemporary Sicilian author. Her literary career started in 2002, ... more Simonetta Agnello Hornby is a contemporary Sicilian author. Her literary career started in 2002, when La mennulara was published. Since then, she has published many literary works, which have been translated into several languages. Her narratives display two main features. Firstly, they constitute 'Sicilian novels'. They are mainly set in Sicily and present Sicilian words scattered around the Italian text. Moreover, as the main characters are often women, these novels show a strong gender perspective. Hence, both gender and place emerge as the two features defining Simonetta Agnello Hornby's narrative. She explores the link between gender and place, as she describes the female condition in Sicily, aiming to counteract patriarchal views and to subvert traditional roles. Taking this link as a starting point, the present paper illustrates what kind of woman emerges in her books, and how this specific idea of womanhood is shaped by her experience as a migrant and as a solicitor. I contend that the latter is essential to her career as a writer. Both professions comply with the purpose of speaking out against women's oppression. This common goal is the fil rouge between the novels that I analyse in this paper: La mennulara, La zia marchesa (2004) and Caffè amaro (2016). Furthermore, I consider her experience as a migrant woman, examining how her concept of femininity was informed by both Sicilian and English socio-cultural systems. Through offering insights into her personal and professional life, I illustrate what it means to be a woman at the crossroads between two different societies.
Genealogy
This paper examines how migration redefines family narratives and dynamics. Through a parallel be... more This paper examines how migration redefines family narratives and dynamics. Through a parallel between the mother and the mother tongue, I unravel the emotional, linguistic, social, and ideological connotations of the mother–daughter relationship, which I define as a ‘condensed narrative about origin and identity’. This definition refers to the fact that the daughter’s biological, affective, linguistic, and socio-cultural identity grounds in the mother. The mother–daughter tie also has a gendered dimension, which opens up interesting gateways into the female condition. Taking this assumption as a starting point, I examine how migration, impacting on the mother–daughter relationship, can redefine gender roles and challenge models of femininity, which are culturally, socially, geographically, and linguistically embedded. I investigate this aspect from a linguistic perspective, through a reading of a corpus of narratives written by four Italian-Canadian writers. The movement from Italy...
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Papers by Elena Anna Spagnuolo