This article interrogates the epistemic and ethical limits of repair for engagements with colonial archives and museum collections. Focusing on the dispersed and poorly documented collections of the Italian explorer Luigi Robecchi Bricchetti (1855-1926), alongside what we know of the life of Mabruc, an African child Bricchetti brought to Italy in 1903, it examines how the violence of colonial structures produced enduring gaps, silences, and dislocations in the documentation available to scholars working today. Drawing on Melanie Klein's theory of object relations, and how her thought has been reread through postcolonial frames, the essay questions the impulse to reconstruct coherent narratives from incomplete materials, arguing that such reparative efforts risk obscuring the precise reasons for their incompleteness. Instead, it advocates for methodological approaches that foreground rupture, opacity, and non-resolution, embracing fragmentation as analytically productive. By privileging contiguity, mobility, and relational networks over attempts to form linear biographies, the article proposes alternative ways of reading "bad" objects and partially conserved life stories. Ultimately, it calls for scholarly practices that resist the easy pull of narrative closure and open out to more creative and ethically attuned engagements with colonial pasts in the present.
The article investigates the role of photographs in rearticulating family dynamics in Marilena Umuhoza Delli's Negretta. Baci razzisti (2020) and Pizza Mussolini (2023). The two books narrate the story of Marilena, a young Italian-Rwandan woman, and, in the case of Pizza Mussolini, also of her half-sister Luna. Marilena discovers the existence of Luna through a photograph that her father, Giuseppe, a former missionary priest, has kept hidden. Luna, the daughter of Giuseppe and a Malawian woman, uses photographs to find out more about her father, whom she has only met once. Through the examination of these photos, specifically of their referent, their materiality, their placing, and their social lives, the article explores the ways in which photographs, as ekphrastic presences in the texts, prompt the protagonists to listen to them and to the story they tell. This practice of listening will eventually compel the protagonists to intervene, questioning the knowledge of their family and redefining their role within it.
This article examines the previously overlooked significance of Antonio Gramsci's theorization of cosmopolitanism, proper to Italy's nation formation, for the critical discourse on the Italian nation and diaspora. It argues that Gramsci's perspective on Italian cosmopolitanism allows us to better understand the complex relationships between the two categories in both historiographical and theoretical terms and illuminate their definitions, shortcomings, and potentials. The essay approaches Gramsci's shift from the cosmopolitanism of intellectuals to the modern cosmopolitanism of Italian emigrant workers and their organic intellectuals as a response to the liberal and fascist transnational nationalism that considered the Italian diaspora as an extension of the nation and Italian emigrants as agents of imperialist expansion. By contrast, Gramsci suggests that, given the failed nationalization of the masses, a distinct, cosmopolitan national consciousness of the Italian people can be formed in diaspora. Through the diasporic dimension, Gramsci reconceptualizes the Italian nation as cosmopolitan, constituting a different transnational formation beyond the nation-state, and reclaims modern cosmopolitanism as an alternative Italian national project. Gramsci's account of cosmopolitanism and his notion of a cosmopolitan nation not only anticipate foundational works in Italian diaspora studies but, most importantly, constitute a crucial conceptual contribution to the field on its own terms.
This introduction proposes a framework for a transfeminist queer approach to translation grounded in affect theory and activist practice. Challenging the idea that the "affective turn" is new, the authors situate affect within longstanding feminist critiques of Western rationalism and argue that emotions and relationality have always been central to feminist knowledge production. By combining theoretical reflection with insights from translation practice, including collaborative translations of queer and feminist authors, this introduction examines how translation functions as an affective, social, and political activity. The methodology is primarily conceptual and reflective, informed by translation practice, analysis of transfeminist networks in Italy, and engagement with existing scholarship in feminist, queer, and translation studies. The introduction argues that affect operates as a generative force that shapes translators' motivations, linguistic choices, collective formations, and the creation of queer archives. At the same time, it highlights the material conditions of translation, emphasizing precarious labor and the exploitation of activist commitment within neoliberal publishing markets. The authors conclude that transfeminist queer translation is an ethical and relational practice of care and resistance.
In this essay, we use our experience as coauthors of the Italian translation of Jos & eacute; Esteban Mu & ntilde;oz's Cruising Utopia to theorize and perform the (re)making of futures enabled by queer texts and their worlds in times of trouble. In 2019, marking the tenth anniversary of the text's first publication, we shared a sense of the need to translate Mu & ntilde;oz's work. The intellectual and affective landscapes conjured by his writing provide pedagogical practices and tools for refusing the injunction to separate, trade in mastery, or celebrate individuality over constitutive vulnerability, marking certain subjects as the "others" of the norm, a process which constitutes the dead end of affect. Much of the work of translation occurred during the COVID-19 crisis. We retrace this process, recalling how we navigated academic burnout, economic precariousness, diagnosed depression, and the loss of mentors and friends. Under these conditions, our daily online translation sessions became spaces of intimacy and care, and translating a practice of attention to the other. Through memorializing interruptions, blockages, and loss in this essay, we also aim to capture Mu & ntilde;oz's poetic, performative, political, and emotional registers. Guided by how translation can form (queer) relations and knowledges and how it illuminates networks of care and connection during crises, we reflect on our affective landscape in translating Cruising Utopia. In this essay, by memorializing loss while scavenging for hope, we cruise the im-possible, rendering the act of translation itself a utopian and collective endeavour.
Questions of language and translation arise in relation to discussions of transness in Roberta Torre's film Le favolose (Torre 2022) and Porpora Marcasciano's book Tra le rose e le viole (Marcasciano et al. [2002] 2020b). Both works place transness in parallel with the supernatural, describing trans women as favolose, which, although translated as "fabulous," is etymologically derived from favola, meaning "fairytale." The women portrayed in both works reveal nuanced personal understandings of gender, and I examine whether these linguistic deviations from the gender binary are related to questions of translation and language, culture, or the period in which they take place. Marcasciano's work stages an Italian-specific trans narrative, yet to be translated into English; Torre's film, however, allows Marcasciano and her peers to be understood by international audiences thanks to its English-subtitled release. When gender binaries are fractured, it makes sense to question the boundary between the real and the unreal in order to place ideas of queer space in conversation with theories of the supernatural. Eliza Steinbock describes a transgender character's filmic reveal as being a "violent moment of physical disclosure" (2019, 5). Le favolose works back from this to allow a trans-centered narrative to escape the finality of death via the creation of queer utopian spaces. The queer spaces in Torre's film revolve primarily around the closet, and the centrality of clothing in trans women's lives is highlighted in both texts. Closets form a sort of affective archive, recording the stories and emotions of the women who wore the clothes within them. The merging of documentary and fantasy in Le favolose and the creation of an alternative archive, as Ann Cvetkovich (2003) states, allow for the creation of history from absences and discussions of gender in relation to life, death, and anything outside these confines.
Con questo contributo intendiamo approfondire il ruolo che il concetto di affetto ha ricoperto nelle nostre traduzioni di Un'altra cena rovinata (2023) e Il manuale della femminista guastafeste (2024) di Sara Ahmed, studiosa indipendente anglo-australiana che lavora sulle intersezioni tra femminismi, lesbofemminismi, studi critici sulla razza, teorie queer e teorie degli affetti. L'interesse per il pensiero di Sara Ahmed, che negli ultimi due o tre anni si & egrave; intensificato nel pubblico in generale - e ancor di pi & ugrave; in ambito femminista - risale a qualche anno fa. Fu l'attivista e studiosa transfemminista italiana Liana Borghi a far conoscere Ahmed in Italia attraverso l'organizzazione, tra il 2007 e il 2008, di un ciclo di seminari a Villa Fiorelli (Prato) dedicati al tema dell'affetto - a cui la stessa Ahmed aveva partecipato. La fascinazione per il suo pensiero prende le mosse, dunque, dalla teoria degli affetti, a cui la studiosa stava lavorando in quegli anni (si veda il libro The Cultural Politics of Emotion). Una fascinazione, questa, che ha colpito anche noi, e che ci ha portato a collaborare alla traduzione del Manifesto guastafeste, contenuto all'interno del libro Vivere una vita femminista, e che avevamo tradotto in italiano con il collettivo Les Bitches (Ahmed 2020). Il tema dell'affetto, tuttavia, non rappresenta solo un argomento caro alla studiosa ma investe anche la sua scrittura e il suo modo di fare ricerca. Ecco che, dunque, nel tradurre una selezione dei suoi testi, ci siamo chieste pi & ugrave; volte come sintonizzarci affettivamente con la scrittura di Ahmed e come riprodurre il suono della sua lingua, una lingua molto affettiva e corporea. Ci & ograve; che ci ha motivate (e che ci ha facilitato) in questo percorso sono state nostre esperienze affettive, simili a quelle descritte da Ahmed: un'esperienza di denuncia all'interno dell'universit & agrave; inglese (Michela) e l'esperienza quotidiana di essere percepita come guastafeste per il proprio attivismo transfemminista e antispecista (feminoska). I testi contenuti nell'antologia e nel manuale della femminista guastafeste ci hanno messo nella condizione di rivivere e rielaborare in modo catartico gli affetti negativi legati alle esperienze narrate di frustrazione per il silenziamento di cui sono vittime coloro che denunciano e che rovinano la festa dell'eteropatriarcato, rielaborazioni che Ahmed ci esorta a fare con maestria filologica. Nel tradurre Ahmed abbiano dunque tentato di mettere in atto degli sblocchi, di tessere nuove reti affettive, sulla scia degli studi sulla traduzione attivista e transfemminista, mettendole in relazione con il lavoro di altre traduttrici dei suoi libri, di modo che possano funzionare come fili elettrici su cui far scorrere e circolare nuove energie affettive.
This article focuses on Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts (2015) and its Italian translation by Francesca Crescentini (2016). In the first section, we follow the metaphor of Argo from Nelson back to texts by Barthes, Wittgenstein, and Sedgwick. Here, the concept of Argo is observed from a personal perspective, focusing on the subject's potential to resignify words by repeating them. In the second section, we focus on the feelings of comfort and discomfort as they are analysed by Ahmed (2014) to further scrutinize questions of change in the social space and in relation to issues of normativity and antinormativity. We follow Love in reading The Argonauts as a story of a hard-earned comfort, asking how this comfort changes when the book is translated. The repetition and resignification of the text in the Italian version is contextualized in the wider frame of anti-gender propaganda, considering the specific force held by some of its proponents, such as the Vatican and Giorgia Meloni, in the italophone context. In the third section, we follow the word "gender" as our Argo, enquiring on its mutations once uttered in a different context. Finally, this article explores the implications of Argo for a possible theory of translation.
Gender-inclusive language and gender-neutral markers have inspired heated debate in Italy in recent years. Curiously, the literary world, except for translated works, seems excluded from this conversation. Investigating the semiautobiographical work of Jonathan Bazzi - which includes social media, semiautobiographical novels, and their translations by Alice Whitmore - gives crucial insight into how gender nonconforming identity develops within Italian culture through different media and in English translation. Bazzi is a young writer with an extensive online activity centered around HIV journey storytelling and queer activism. Febbre (2019) was their literary debut and was considered for the prestigious Strega prize. Drawing on an analysis of Bazzi's social media activity and their novels Febbre (2019) and Corpi minori (2022), together with the translation Fever (2022), I will show how the author explores their nonbinary identity through linguistic creativity in social media and the use of abject tropes traditionally connected to LGBTQ+ representation in their literary work. The translation of these works into English changes the meaning of these semiautobiographical novels, situating them in a less affectively charged context, where gender-neutral language is commonly used.
L'intervento intende portare alla luce e discutere alcuni limiti ed effetti paradossali della cosiddetta "traduzione militante" per com'& egrave; intrapresa oggi in Italia. Bench & eacute; cruciale per immettere nel lavoro traduttologico soggetti politici e relative posture o metodologie spesso assenti quando non deliberatamente esclusi dall'ambito della traduzione professionale, se analizzata da un punto di vista di classe la traduzione militante si dimostra una pratica altamente problematica: obliterando la dimensione squisitamente e primariamente professionale della traduzione, ossia il suo essere un lavoro a tutti gli effetti inserito in una complessa rete di rapporti di forza capitalisti, la traduzione militante contribuisce a fomentare e cementare prassi di sfruttamento, subordinazione e precarizzazione economica a danno di un'intera categoria di lavoratrici e lavoratori, nascondendole sotto il manto dell'impegno politico volontaristico nel lavoro culturale.Attingendo dal mio stesso attivismo in Strade, il sindacato italiano dei traduttori e delle traduttrici editoriali, analizzer & ograve; questi "effetti paradossali" della traduzione militante odierna e la sua connivenza spesso inconsapevole con molte pratiche editoriali inique. Tra queste pratiche-proprie in realt & agrave; dell'intero settore (del lavoro) culturale-vi & egrave; lo sfruttamento di quella che chiamer & ograve; l'affettivit & agrave; tipica di questo genere di traduzione: la mobilitazione delle identificazioni, dei desideri, dei progetti e degli "investimenti" di natura politica e/o politico-personale che informano la traduzione militante per sua natura, ma che nell'attuale panorama del mercato traduttivo sono diventati una (redditizia) leva per estrarre lavoro gratuito o mal retribuito, ridurre o azzerare le tutele socio-professionali, e persino infrangere o aggirare sistematicamente le leggi sul lavoro autoriale.Come via di uscita al paradosso di una traduzione militante che nel privilegiare l'aspetto politico del lavoro traduttivo spesso ne mina i principali diritti economici e professionali, argomenter & ograve; che & egrave; necessario rimettere al centro anche (e soprattutto) di questo tipo di traduzione la traduttrice come lavoratrice tout court e il suo essere oggi pi & ugrave; che mai soggetta a, e pertanto necessariamente soggetta di, una lotta di classe collettiva-una lotta che dovrebbe mobilitare, come forma di militanza nella militanza, un'ulteriore, cruciale affezione politica: l'"investimento" nella giustizia retributiva, contrattuale e lavorativa, ossia economica.In tal senso, ri/portare la classe nella riflessione e nella prassi della traduzione militante non ne amplierebbe soltanto il portato politico teorico sopperendo a un vuoto di coscienza ed elaborazione, ma la emanciperebbe anche dalla complicit & agrave; materiale con un'industria culturale che troppo spesso fa della militanza e dell'affettivit & agrave; politiche della traduttrice un alibi per perpetuare condizioni di lavoro insostenibili e inaccettabili.
