Itala Vivan
Itala VIVAN Professor of Cultural and Postcolonial Studies, formerly at the School of Political Science of the State University of Milano, Italy. She obtained her Italian degree from the University of Milano and then did her postgraduate work for a PhD in Comparative Studies at Rutgers University, New Jersey, on a Fulbright Scholarship (1961-64).
She has taught English and American Studies, and then Postcolonial Studies, at American (Rutgers and then Columbia) and Italian universities (Bari, Verona, Udine and finally Milano). She has also been Cultural Attache with the Italian Cultural Institute in London in (1971-75).
Her first book, Caccia alle streghe nell’America Puritana (Witch Hunting in Puritan America, 1972) analized dissent and deviance in a colonial society and culture. Among her later publications, there are the books Interpreti rituali. Il romanzo dell’Africa Nera (Ritual Interpreters. The Novel from Black Africa, 1978) and Tessere per un mosaico africano. Cinque scrittori neri dall’esilio (Tesserae for an African Mosaic. Five Black Writers from Exile, 1984), two studies of postcolonial fiction and African society; The Flawed Diamond. Essays on Olive Schreiner, 1991, on the South African writer and feminist; Nadine Gordimer and Wole Soyinka, both in 1995, two monographic studies on the Nobel writers from Africa; in 1996 Il Nuovo Sudafrica dalle strettoie dell’apartheid alle complessità della democrazia (New South Africa from the Strictures of Apartheid to the Complexities of Democracy); in 1998 Alf Kumalo, fotografo sudafricano/Alf Kumalo, South African Photographer (a bilingual photographic book). Each of these two latest books received an important award in Italy.
In 2005 she edited Corpi liberati in cerca di storia, di storie. Il Nuovo Sudafrica dieci anni dopo l’apartheid (Liberated Bodies in Search of History, of Stories: New South Africa Ten Years after Apartheid), and in 2012, together with L. De Michelis, C. Gualtieri and R. Pedretti, Prisma Sudafrica. La nazione arcobaleno a vent’anni dalla liberazione, 1990-2010 (Prism South Africa. The Rainbow Nation Twenty Years after Liberation). With these two books she rounded up her long experience of researcher in South Africa from the apartheid years through the transition to democracy and finally in the post apartheid situation.
She has published widely in the field of postcolonial studies analyzing the relationships between literature and society in subsaharan Africa and the emergence of new, creolized literary expressions in the West and elsewhere. In more recent years she has observed the growth of a new literature written in Italian by authors of African origin or descent (see her essays “L’Italia postcoloniale: I nuovi scrittori venuti dall’Africa”, 2011 – Postcolonial Italy: the New Writers from Africa—and “From AfricaMix to Babylonia: The African Voice Writing Italian”, 2012). She has also edited Dalla Englishness alla Britishness 1950-200. Discorsi culturali in trasformazione dal canone imperiale alle storie dell’oggi (From Englishness to Britishness 1950-2000. Cultural Discourses in Transformation from the Imperial Canon to Contemporary Stories, 2008, with C. Gualtieri), and Dalla Lambretta allo skateboard. Teorie e storia delle sottoculture giovanili britanniche, 1950-2000 (From the Lambretta to the Skateboard. Theories and History of British Youth Subcultures, 2009, with R.Pedretti).
From 1987 to 1995 she has been general editor of a series of African and Caribbean fiction called ‘Il lato dell’ombra’ that left a mark in Italian cultural history; after that, she has been acting as a consultant for several Italian publishers and has promoted the publication of relevant postcolonial works. From 1981 to 2007 she has been a member of the research group “Laboratoire de Recherche sur l’Imaginaire Américain”, based in Paris and including scholars from various countries. The cooperation with this équipe led to the production of a number of essays on American iconology and cultural practices.
A long lasting interest in visual arts and practices has suggested her a constant attention to cinema and photography and, more recently, to the cultural relevance of museums in contemporary societies. In this particular field, Itala Vivan has written several essays, such as “Il bicentenario britannico del 2007 e i magazzini della memoria postcoloniale”, 2008 (The 2007 British Bicentennial [of the Abolition of the Slave Trade] and the Storerooms of Postcolonial Memory); “Oltre i confini della narrazione: oggetti che raccontano in un romanzo e in un museo”, 2012 (Beyond the Borders of Narration: Objects Telling Stories in a Novel and a Museum); “(Ri)costruire la memoria nel Sudafrica postapartheid: musei culturali e siti celebrativi”, 2012 (Re-constructing Memory in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Cultural Museums and Sites of Celebration); “What Museum for Africa?”, 2013.