Thursday, February 8, 2024 3pm to 4:30pm
About this Event
305 23RD ST E, Austin, Texas 78712
https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/frenchitalian/events/calvino-s-animals-anthropocene-stories-with-dr-serenella-iovinoCalvino's Animals: Anthropocene Stories
Dr. Serenella Iovino
From The Path to the Nest of Spiders to Palomar, Italo Calvino never stopped telling stories about animals. But what do a colony of Argentine ants in the Ligurian Riviera, an albino gorilla in the Barcelona zoo, a hen in a Turin workshop, rebellious cats in an industrial city, and a runaway rabbit from the clutches of vivisectors all have in common? The answer is simple: they are all animals that tell us about ourselves, humans, and how our species has become so impactful on Earth as to determine a new geological age: the Anthropocene.
Following Calvino's footsteps through the stories of these five seemingly improbable protagonists, Serenella Iovino talks about a time where animals are both threatening and threatened, and above all, they are not entirely "other" because we are also animals, creatures in a world that challenges the balances, even political ones, in a challenging co-evolutionary journey.
In the wake of Calvino's centenary, Serenella will present these themes based on her latest book, Gli animali di Calvino: Storie dall'Antropocene (2nd ed. Treccani, 2023; 1st ed. Italo Calvino's Animals: Anthropocene Stories, 1st ed. Cambridge UP, 2021), which was recently awarded the 2023 Italian National Award for Scientific Outreach in the Humanities category.
Serenella Iovino is Professor of Italian Studies and Environmental Humanities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is author and editor of twelve volumes and over 150 essays and articles. Her most recent publications are Gli animali di Calvino: Storie dell’Antropocene (Treccani, 2023, 1st ed. Italo Calvino's Animals: Anthropocene Stories, Cambridge UP, 2021) and Paesaggio civile: Storie di ambiente, cultura e resistenza (Il Saggiatore, 2022, 1st ed. Ecocriticism and Italy: Ecology, Resistance, and Liberation, Bloomsbury, 2016, winner of the MLA Prize and AAIS Book Prize). A philosopher by training and a public intellectual, she is a columnist of the Italian newspaper la Repubblica.
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