Dear Members and Friends,

It is with a deep sadness that I announce that we are cancelling our Annual Conference in Sorrento at the beginning of June 2020. The CAIS Executive and I discussed it at length and, given the current health crisis around the globe, we decided not to go through with the plans to hold our June conference at the Sant’Anna Institute. We are all worried by the health emergency in Italy and by the appearance of COVID-19 in Canada and in other countries.

Making this decision was not easy. We regret missing the opportunity for intellectual exchanges at the conference. I am deeply grateful to our partners at the Sant’Anna Institute for their patience, generosity and understanding. I thank the President of Sant’Anna, Cristiana Panicco, and the organizers, Olga Stinga, Marco Marino and Domenico Palumbo for their continuing support. We had great plans for this conference, and we are sure that we will be able to visit them again in Sorrento, either as professors participating in their study abroad program, or as participants in their future conferences.

I also wish to thank the CAIS Conference Organizing Committee that kept working through these uncertain times: Andrea Penso, Aurora Cominetti, Julie Fox-Horton and Roberta Iannacito-Provenzano.

Since a week or so ago we opened the registration, if you already registered in the conference you will be reimbursed. To request a refund, please send an email to our Treasurer, Roberta Cauchi Santoro, who will process the refunds.

As far as the research you already did for your presentation, the Director of Quaderni d’Italianistica, Sandra Parmegiani, has an important message for our participants:

"We invite delegates who were going to present their research in Sorrento to consider submitting their articles to Quaderni d’italianistica for peer review and publication in the Canadian Association for Italian Studies official journal. If you decide to do so, please follow the editorial policies of Quaderni. The annual conference represents an opportunity for the editorial team to spend time with colleagues from all over the world and to discuss their current and future research. We deeply regret to miss this opportunity for mutual enrichment in 2020." – Sandra Parmegiani

My mandate as President of CAIS will end in June; it has beena great pleasure and an honor to serve. This year we did not manage to elect a Vice-President but I am very grateful to Roberta Iannacito-Provenzano for accepting the responsibility that the position of President of CAIS requires. Since we will not hold an AGM this year, the Executive is at the moment discussing how to formally handle the transition. I will be in touch in June to announce our decisions, and to say goodbye to all of you.

To end on a hopeful note, I am pleased to announce that our next conference will be held at York University in Toronto (date TBA), and that the organizer will be our new President, Roberta Iannacito-Provenzano.

I wish everyone a smooth end of the semester, an easy transition to online teaching, and good health.

Sincerely,

Cristina Perissinotto

President, Canadian Association for Italian Studies