To submit a proposal of your own, refer to the Call for Papers for instructions.

Contents:

• Italian Abroad: Between Language and Community (Simone Casini, Salvatore Bancheri)
• Educational experiences and proposals promoting plurilingualism, multilingualism and multimodality (Giuliana Salvato)
• Biografie, ecfrasi e retoriche della costruzione dell’artista tra Cinquecento e Seicento (Marco Verde)
• Teaching Italian as a Second Language in Host-Community Contexts: Working with Vulnerable and Plurilingual Learners (Paolo Nitti)
• Teaching Italian as a Second/Foreign Language in Plurilingual Contexts: Learner Diversity and Educational Challenges (Paolo Nitti, Carmela Scala, Giulio Facchetti)

Italian Abroad: Between Language and Community
Simone Casini, Salvatore Bancheri

The panel is open to paper proposals that bring into dialogue the community dimension of Italian emigration with its social, economic, and linguistic implications, from the earliest migratory experiences to the contemporary configurations of Italian and Italian-descendant communities abroad.

A first thematic area is devoted to the historical analysis of Italian emigrant communities, with particular attention to processes of settlement, working conditions, forms of vulnerability, and dynamics of internal solidarity. Within this perspective, the panel welcomes contributions that address the relationship between community and labor, including experiences of risk and precarity, such as workplace accidents and deaths within Italian communities in major urban centers. Such analyses make it possible to understand how community structures have shaped social and economic integration, as well as the linguistic practices of emigrants.

A second thematic area focuses on the role of the community today, in a context marked by global mobility, multilingualism, and the redefinition of ties with the country of origin. From this perspective, the panel invites contributions that reflect on the potential of Italian communities abroad as active agents in the promotion and enhancement of the Italian language outside the national context, through analyses of linguistic practices, forms of community engagement, relationships with cultural and educational institutions, and strategies capable of moving beyond a purely nostalgic or heritage-based conception of the language.

Overall, the panel aims to provide an interdisciplinary space for discussion on how the community dimension has historically shaped the social, economic, and linguistic experiences of Italian emigration, and on how it may today represent a key resource for rethinking the future of Italian in the world.

L’italiano all’estero: tra lingua e comunità
Il panel è aperto a proposte di intervento che mettano in dialogo la dimensione comunitaria dell’emigrazione italiana con le sue implicazioni sociali, economiche e linguistiche, a partire dalle prime esperienze migratorie fino alle configurazioni contemporanee delle comunità italiane e italodiscendenti all’estero.

Un primo ambito tematico è dedicato all’analisi storica delle comunità italiane emigrate, con particolare attenzione ai processi di insediamento, alle condizioni di lavoro, alle forme di vulnerabilità e alle dinamiche di solidarietà interna. In questa prospettiva rientrano contributi che affrontino il rapporto tra comunità e lavoro, incluse le esperienze di rischio e precarietà, come gli incidenti e le morti sul lavoro all’interno delle comunità italiane nei grandi centri urbani. Tali analisi consentono di comprendere come le strutture comunitarie abbiano influito sull’integrazione sociale ed economica e sulle pratiche linguistiche degli emigrati.

Un secondo ambito si concentra sul ruolo della comunità oggi, in un contesto segnato dalla mobilità globale, dal plurilinguismo e dalla ridefinizione dei legami con il paese d’origine. In questa prospettiva, il panel accoglie contributi che riflettano sul potenziale delle comunità italiane all’estero come attori attivi nella valorizzazione della lingua italiana fuori dal contesto nazionale, analizzando pratiche linguistiche, forme di community engagement, relazioni con le istituzioni culturali ed educative, e strategie capaci di superare una concezione puramente nostalgica o patrimoniale della lingua.

Nel suo insieme, il panel intende offrire uno spazio di confronto interdisciplinare su come la dimensione comunitaria abbia storicamente modellato le esperienze sociali, economiche e linguistiche dell’emigrazione italiana e su come, oggi, essa possa rappresentare una risorsa centrale per ripensare il futuro dell’italiano nel mondo.

Closing Date for Receiving Proposals for this Session: January 20, 2026

ORGANIZERS
Simone Casini
University of Tuscia
simone.casini@unitus.it

Salvatore Bancheri
University of Toronto Mississauga
salvatore.bancheri@utoronto.ca

Educational experiences and proposals promoting plurilingualism, multilingualism and multimodality
Giuliana Salvato

University educational settings are increasingly multicultural and multilingual counting a diverse population of students and instructors. The complexity of the language scenario at these institutions has triggered a surge of studies focused on the understanding of the linguistic dynamics at play in university. English is often the main language of communication, where it accompanies both local languages and the variety of students’ first languages. This situation makes the boundaries between languages soft and flexible because, as the literature on plurilingualism and translanguaging advocates, communication between people with different backgrounds is typically not linear and can include a variety of languages. 

To accomplish their educational mission, universities require knowledge, skills and attitudes that can enable successful communication with their multilingual and multicultural participants. It is commonly believed that good teachers make use of multiple resources and modalities to create meaning and to help students learn. Scholars argue, for example, that there is a value in raising awareness of the visual channel of communication and in physical embodiments because they contribute to the creation of meaning and they can help succeed more effectively in the pedagogical aims. 

This session aims to create a space for critical reflection and exchange among scholars who would like to reformulate language education through interpretations of theories that promote plurilingualism, multilingualism and multimodality in teaching and learning practices, where Italian is the target language or is one of the languages being considered. 

Please submit a 200-300 word abstract and include the following information:

• Title of the presentation
• Description of the topic and its relevance to the theme (200 words maximum)
• Brief biography of the presenter(s) which includes your full name, current affiliation and email address

Closing Date for Receiving Proposals for this Session: January 31st 2026 

ORGANIZER
Giuliana Salvato
University of Windsor, ON, Canada
gsalvato@uwindsor.ca

Biografie, ecfrasi e retoriche della costruzione dell’artista tra Cinquecento e Seicento
Marco Verde

Il panel intende interrogare le modalità attraverso cui, tra XVI e XVII secolo, la parola letteraria concorre alla configurazione dell’artista come figura storica, culturale e simbolica. Nell’età che vede affermarsi e trasformarsi il paradigma biografico vasariano, l’elaborazione teorica delle arti del disegno e la progressiva istituzionalizzazione delle pratiche artistiche, testi di natura diversa – vite, trattati, epistolari, encomi, narrazioni aneddotiche, descrizioni ecfrastiche – volgono un ruolo decisivo nella definizione dell’identità, dell’autorità e della legittimazione dell’artefice.

L’obiettivo del panel è analizzare tali materiali non solo come repertori documentari, ma come dispositivi retorici e narrativi capaci di modellare, trasmettere e talora normare l’immagine dell’artista. Si intende così mettere a fuoco un insieme di processi – linguistici, discorsivi, istituzionali – attraverso cui la scrittura costruisce genealogie, consolidamenti di scuola, mitologie individuali e modelli di professionalità, contribuendo in modo determinante alla storia culturale dell’arte tra Rinascimento maturo ed età barocca.

Saranno particolarmente apprezzati contributi relativi a:

• Forme, funzioni e metamorfosi del genere biografico dall’eredità vasariana alle rielaborazioni seicentesche.
• Ecfrasi poetiche, narrative e storiografiche come luoghi di interpretazione dell’opera e di delineazione del profilo dell’artefice.
• Topoi, strategie encomiastiche e meccanismi aneddotici nella costruzione esemplare della “vita” dell’artista.
• Retoriche della virtù, dell’ingegno, dell’invenzione e dell’imitazione nel discorso letterario e teorico.
• Ruolo delle accademie, delle corti, delle reti intellettuali e della trattatistica nella normazione della figura artistica.
• Processi di canonizzazione, selezione e riscrittura del profilo dell’artista nella cultura critica del Seicento.
• Dinamiche di ricezione e di autorappresentazione tra testo e immagine, e loro incidenza sulla memoria culturale.

Si invitano studiose e studiosi a inviare una proposta di intervento (max 300 parole), corredata da una breve nota bio-bibliografica.

Closing Date for Receiving Proposals for this Session:  February 13, 2026

ORGANIZER
Marco Verde
Universität Zürich
marco.verde@uzh.ch

Teaching Italian as a Second Language in Host-Community Contexts: Working with Vulnerable and Plurilingual Learners
Paolo Nitti

The session focuses on Italian SL courses offered in reception contexts to asylum seekers and refugees, characterized by pronounced biographical, linguistic, and educational heterogeneity. Learners often present highly fragmented schooling, interrupted literacy trajectories in the first language, traumatic migration experiences, and precarious living conditions, which shape both their opportunities for language learning and their modes of participation in classroom interaction. The abstracts are expected to examine how such vulnerability intersects with linguistic repertoires and expectations towards the host society, influencing motivation, attendance patterns, and the development of basic communicative abilities in Italian. Particular attention may be devoted to learners’ narratives about migration and settlement, to the role of mediation in multilingual classrooms, and to the negotiation of classroom practices that must simultaneously guarantee a safe space, respond to institutional requirements, and respect individual pace and emotional readiness.

We invite presentations reporting both experimental and descriptive research based on qualitative and/or quantitative data, such as classroom observation, language biographies, and interviews, as well as corpus-based or test-based studies. The overall aim is to highlight the pedagogical and ethical challenges that emerge when teaching Italian SL to asylum seekers in highly vulnerable conditions and to outline principles for designing responsive educational pathways that recognize vulnerability not as a deficit, but as a central parameter in planning and evaluating language education in reception contexts.

​The languages in which abstracts can be submitted are English and Italian. Please send an abstract of 150 words, biographical information and technical requirements to Paolo Nitti (paolo.nitti@uninsubria.it). The deadline for submission is 15th February 2026.

Closing Date for Receiving Proposals for this Session: 15th February 2026

ORGANIZER
Paolo Nitti
Università degli Studi dell’Insubria
paolo.nitti@uninsubria.it