Michela Baldo | University of Birmingham (original) (raw)

CV by Michela Baldo

Research paper thumbnail of LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

CfP Special issue of Italian Culture by Michela Baldo

Research paper thumbnail of Affect Theories and/in Translation: Trans-feminist Performances, Practices, Entanglements

Italian Culture, 2025

Although queer and feminist translation studies have started exploring more and more the notion o... more Although queer and feminist translation studies have started exploring more and more the notion of affect, studies on translation and affect are still scarce. This special issue of Italian Culture is thus going to contribute to the scholarship on transfeminist queer studies, studies on affect and/in translation with reference to the Italian sociocultural context in innovative and challenging ways, expanding on what has (not) been done in the field of cross-country collaborations in these areas. Specifically, it furthers a conversation around queer gender studies, affect studies and the theories, practices, and politics of translation. We seek contributions that address (but are not limited to) the following themes:
- affect and the theory and politics of translating the queer/queer(ing) translation;
- queer translation as embodied and affective practice;
- queer archives, affect, and translation;
- affect studies and translation as queer transfeminist activism;
- queer translation, affect and performance studies;
- queer translation, affect, and race studies;
- translation, affect, and transgender studies;
- queer translation, affect, and disability studies

Authored Books by Michela Baldo

Research paper thumbnail of Italian-Canadian Narratives of Return.  Analysing Cultural Translation in Diasporic Writing

This book examines the concept of translation as a return to origins and as restitution of lost n... more This book examines the concept of translation as a return to origins and as restitution of lost narratives, and is based on the idea of diaspora as a term that depicts the longing to return home and the imaginary reconstructions and reconstitutions of home by migrants and translators. The author analyses a corpus made up of novels and a memoir by Italian-Canadian writers Mary Melfi, Nino Ricci and Frank Paci, examining the theme of return both within the writing itself and also in the discourse surrounding the translations of these works into Italian. These ‘reconstructions’ are analysed through the lens of translation, and more specifically through the notion of written code-switching, understood here as a fictional tool which symbolizes the translational movements between different points of view. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of translation and interpreting, migration studies, and Italian and diasporic writing.

Edited Books and Journal Issues by Michela Baldo

Research paper thumbnail of Baldo, Michela and Marianna Deganutti (2024) ‘Code-switching as a narratological resource’, special issue of Forum for Modern language Studies 1.

Forum for Modern Languages, 2024

This Special Issue understands code-switching as a key narratological tool available to writers t... more This Special Issue understands code-switching as a key narratological tool available to writers to build their narratives. It includes seven contributions based on the literary production of writers who employed code-switching in their works. These authors belong to diverse literary traditions and contexts, spanning key classic authors (such as Leo Tolstoy, Kafka and Joyce); borderland authors (Chicano literature); self-translators (Nancy Huston); migrant, post-migrant, exilic and postcolonial writers (Junot Díaz, Ágota Kristóf and Monica Meneghetti). These writers employ different languages in their works: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Italian dialects, Russian, Bulgarian and other Slavic tongues, Filipino, Waray and, in the case of Joyce, the seventy languages detected in his last work, Finnegans Wake. The differences that exist among the writers considered in this Special Issue help us to demonstrate that the fictionality of the code-switching practice concerns world literature as a whole, regardless of writers’ specificities. The contributors employ a variety of key theoretical perspectives such as sociolinguistics applied to code-switching, analysis of language biographies and metalanguage, postcolonial studies, trauma studies, food studies and queer temporalities. However, the narratological lens unites all the contributions and, in some cases, even the narratological approach alone outlines productive new ways in which to understand code-switches.

Research paper thumbnail of Translating the Queer Popular

Perspectives, 2023

This special issue focuses on the translation of queer popular culture. While much of the existin... more This special issue focuses on the translation of queer popular culture. While much of the existing work on LGBTIQA + translation (e.g., Baer, Citation2021; Baer & Kaindl, Citation2017; Epstein & Gillett, Citation2017; Gramling & Dutta, Citation2016; Harvey, Citation2003) focuses typically on literary translation, with some work on autobiography, or has a more activist focus (e.g., Baldo et al., Citation2021), by analysing popular culture, the articles in this issue can explore more well-known texts that have greater circulation around the world, as well as exploring the shifts in LGBTIQA + representation that have been taking place in the last two decades.

Research paper thumbnail of Translation and LGBT+/Queer activism

TIS, 2021

This special issue focuses on the relationships between LGBT+ and queer activism and translation.... more This special issue focuses on the relationships between LGBT+ and queer activism and translation. It has been a long time in the making: we started working on it in 2018, in what seems like a different world. The coronavirus pandemic of 2020-21 looms large over the editing of this volume, as well as the growing effects of global heating such as 2020's wildfires in California and New South Wales, and other events such as the Black Lives Matter protests that took place in the summer of 2020, the women's protests against the ban on abortion in Poland in November 2020 and January 2021, and the legalization of abortion in Argentina in December 2020, the result of five years of mass protest marches by the Latin American grassroots feminist movement Ni Una Menos (Not one woman less) that fights against gender-based violence. None of these events is specifically LGBT+ related (although lesbians, trans* people and transvestites came to the Ni Una Menos marches following the 2017 International Women's Strike; Gago 2020), but all have had effects on LGBT+ and

Research paper thumbnail of Gender/sexuality/Italy, issue 3, themed section: gender and language

Research paper thumbnail of Subtitling and Intercultural Communication. European Languages and Beyond

This volume, which officially launches the series of books InterLinguistica, brings together essa... more This volume, which officially launches the series of books InterLinguistica, brings together essays that explore the links between subtitling and intercultural communication in different audiovisual genres (cinema, TV, DVD and web), covering a wide range of European and non European languages. The need to investigate further the contact between subtitling and intercultural communication stems from the fact that subtitles are not merely instruments of representation of cultural differences but also potential tools for deconstructing cultural stereotypes and developing intercultural competence. The book is divided into three sections. The first one (Subtitling and Inter-cultures) provides the analysis of case studies concerning the representation of cultural diversity and proposes to contrast the risks of ethnocentrism with the use of more creative forms of subtitling. The second section (Subtitling and Foreign Language Learning in Europe and beyond) explores the different ways in which subtitles can be used both in Foreign Language Teaching and in Translation classes, while the third part (Subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing and new technological frontiers) examines subtitles for special audiences and the use of new technologies (online software or respeaking software), addressing the question of subtitling quality. The volume therefore represents a challenge: the beginning of a dialogue between Translation Studies and Intercultural Communication capable of offering fruitful insights into the realm of human communication.

Research paper thumbnail of Il Re Nudo. Per un archivio drag king in Italia

IL RE NUDO, per un archivio drag king in Italia – ovvero un archivio fotografico, storico e criti... more IL RE NUDO, per un archivio drag king in Italia – ovvero un archivio fotografico, storico e critico sul fenomeno del drag king in Italia, con le voci e i volti delle protagonist@ del mondo queer.
a cura di Michela Baldo, Rachele Borghi, Olivia Fiorilli

Il drag kinging e ogni forma di “maschilità femminile” hanno da sempre suscitato l’ostilità della società (etero)normata. Ma se storicamente il drag ha svelato il racconto di costruzione del maschile, oggi è necessario interrogarsi sul fatto che un certo grado di fluidità di genere è non solo autorizzato, ma talvolta discretamente incentivato, e la flessibilità, in tutte le sue declinazioni, è ormai il paradigma dominante.

Le foto, i disegni, i racconti e le analisi s’incontrano fra queste pagine per dare visibilità al fenomeno e avvio alla riflessione su di esso.

Translations by Michela Baldo

Research paper thumbnail of Il manuale della femminista guastafeste

Fandango, 2024

A quante di voi è capitato, sedute a tavola con la propria famiglia, di sentire l’impulso irrefre... more A quante di voi è capitato, sedute a tavola con la propria famiglia, di sentire l’impulso irrefrenabile di rispondere a una frase offensiva, spesso sessista, di averlo fatto e di essere passata per quella che rovinava l’atmosfera, la solita guastafeste, o ancora peggio, la solita femminista guastafeste?

Sara Ahmed parte da qui, da questa rottura, per raccontare come ci sia un momento in cui ci si trasforma nella persona indesiderata che “uccide la gioia”, suona la nota stonata, sottolinea le disuguaglianze e le storture.

Il manuale della femminista guastafeste ci dimostra come essere una guastafeste possa aiutarci a navigare nel mondo e come “rovinare la festa” possa essere un progetto radicale che crea il mondo.

Con un’analisi acuta della letteratura, del cinema e delle maggiori (e non solo) opere femministe e attingendo alle proprie esperienze come studiosa e attivista femminista queer razzializzata, Ahmed rivela e raccoglie le preziose lezioni di chi è arrivata prima di lei, recuperando e unendosi a una genealogia di guastafeste nere e razzializzate, scrittrici come Alice Walker, bell hooks, Audre Lourde, Angela Davis e Claudia Rankine.

Le idee di Ahmed sulla violenza, il silenzio, l’emozione, il razzismo, il femminismo bianco e la bianchezza, la denuncia, la diversità e l’istituzione hanno formato il pensiero femminista intersezionale contemporaneo, ponendo al centro l’importanza di fare domande e il potere di alzare gli occhi al cielo senza timore.

Un libro che amplia il concetto stesso di femminismo, solidarietà e resistenza oltre i confini e le sovrastrutture.

Sara Ahmed intesse un arazzo e un archivio del collettivo e della comunità femminista guastafeste, dopo aver letto il quale nessun pranzo di famiglia sarà più un terreno neutrale e nessuna battaglia sarà più individuale.

Traduzione di Michela Baldo e feminoska

Research paper thumbnail of Un'altra cena rovinata. Saggi scelti

Fandango, 2023

Conoscere il pensiero intersezionale di Sara Ahmed significa entrare in un mondo dove il sessismo... more Conoscere il pensiero intersezionale di Sara Ahmed significa entrare in un mondo dove il sessismo, il colonialismo, il razzismo e la violenza di genere vengono analizzati e decostruiti per garantire a tutte e tutti gli strumenti adeguati per riconoscerli e superarli. Con questa antologia sarà possibile avere un compendio delle sue opere più importanti, una piccola avanguardia per introdurre in Italia la sua filosofia ribelle e libertaria e per non ritrovarci più le “sole femministe al tavolo”.

Traduzione di feminoska e Michela Baldo.
https://www.fandangolibri.it/prodotto/unaltra-cena-rovinata/

Research paper thumbnail of Sappho Singing (documentary by Tzeli Hadjidimitriou)

Sappho Singing. A woman's love and legacy across millennia in a timeless Lesbian landscape. For t... more Sappho Singing. A woman's love and legacy across millennia in a timeless Lesbian landscape.
For the first time, the lyric poet Sappho is presented as a modern woman whose opinions about equality and art still matter 2,600 years after her death. This time round she turns up in her birthplace, the remote village of Eressos on the Greek island of Lesvos and moves among its modern-day inhabitants. The stunning coastal landscapes, provide the backdrop for this unique lesbian-made production. Charmingly, a close harmony trio in twenty-first century guise sings traditional songs, recalling these lost loves. Sappho is reminded that the girls she once loved have gone, but when she moves to the nearby beach resort in summer she discovers scores of women ready to party and she takes full advantage.
Sappho's poems resonate down the ages in this humorous and touching film about love and legacy, based on a 2010 play by the acclaimed veteran writer Maureen Duffy.

Translation of the documentary into Italian by Michela Baldo

Research paper thumbnail of Le norme Traviate. Saggi sul genere e sulla sessualità nel cinema e nella televisione italiana (by Sergio Rigoletto)

Mimesis, 2020

"Questo volume esamina alcuni momenti chiave della storia del cinema e della televisione italiana... more "Questo volume esamina alcuni momenti chiave della storia del cinema e della televisione italiana, svelando alcune delle norme che danno forma a un immaginario collettivo e a delle categorie di identificazione per il grande pubblico. Il volume propone di “traviare” queste norme, rendendo visibile il loro potere normalizzante e le esclusioni da esse prodotte. A partire dalle commedie del miracolo economico fino a film più recenti quali Le fate ignoranti e Chiamami col tuo nome, viene tracciato un filo rosso che delinea convenzioni di genere, modelli narrativi e posizionamenti spettatoriali che tendono a naturalizzare una delle norme più invisibili dell’immaginario collettivo: l’eterosessualità. La disamina pone altresì l’attenzione su degli scenari di resistenza alla norma eterosessuale e ai modelli prescrittivi di genere a essa legati. Alcuni di questi scenari hanno dei precisi contorni identitari, in parte legati ai regimi rappresentativi delle soggettività LGBT contemporanee. Altri mettono in discussione questi contorni identitari, invitandoci ad allargare il campo di espressione di genere e a considerare pratiche del corpo e del desiderio alternative.'

Translation by Michela Baldo. Revision and rewriting by Sergio Rigoletto.

Research paper thumbnail of Queer theories. An Introduction: From Mario Mieli to the Antisocial Turn (by Lorenzo Bernini)

Routledge, 2020

""This is a short and accessible introduction to the complex and evolving debates around queer th... more ""This is a short and accessible introduction to the complex and evolving debates around queer theories, advocating for their critical role in academia and society. The book traces the roots of queer theories and argues that Foucault owed an important debt to other European authors including the feminist and homosexual liberation movements of the 1960–1970s and the anticolonial movements of the 1950s.

Going beyond a simple introduction to queer theories, this book situates them firmly in a European and Italian context to offer a crucial set of arguments in defence of LGBTQI+ rights, in defence of the freedom of teaching and research, and in defence of a radical idea of democracy. The narrative of the book is divided into three short chapters which can be read independently or in sequence. The first chapter argues that queer theories are rooted in the critical philosophical tradition, the second presents a critique of heterosexism and the binary inherent to the gender-sex-sexual orientation system, and the third chapter sketches a history of the queer debate. The book offers a useful typology of queer theories by sorting them into three basic paradigms: Freudo-Marxism, radical constructivism, and antisocial and affective theories, clarifying the complexities of the nature of the debates for undergraduates.

The book is both accessible and original, and is suitable for both specialist researchers and undergraduate students new to queer studies. It will be essential reading for those studying philosophy, sexuality studies and gender studies."

Translation into English by Michela Baldo and Elena Basile

Books & Book Projects by Michela Baldo

Research paper thumbnail of The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism (2020)

by Rebecca Ruth Gould, Sarah Irving, Eylaf Bader Eddin, Moses Kilolo, Aria Fani, omid mehrgan, Brahim El Guabli, Sahar Fathi, Mehrdad Rahimi-Moghaddam, Manuel Yang, Michela Baldo, Bidisha Pal, and Partha Bhattacharjee

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism provides an accessible, diverse, and in many r... more The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism provides an accessible, diverse, and in many respects ground-breaking overview of literary, cultural, and political translation across a range of activist contexts. This volume brings together case studies and histories of oppressed and marginalised peoples from more than twenty different languages, ranging across Africa, Asia, the Americas, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Part One considers the theoretical foundations of translation and activism. Part Two examines the figure of the interpreter as an activist. Part Three examines the figure of the translator as an activist. Part Four is comprised of autobiographical reflections by translators and writers who bear witness to the stories of oppressed peoples. Part Five engages with translation and activism from a range of legal perspectives focusing on human rights. Part Six introduces a range of case studies of translations into vernacular languages. Part Seven situates translation and activism in the context of migration, with particular attention to refugee experience. Part Eight examines the role of translators in shaping revolution. As the first extended collection to introduce translation and activism from a systematically global perspective, this handbook will serve as a useful guide to translators, writers, scholars, and activists seeking to better understand the agency of language in bringing about political change.

Reviews by Michela Baldo

Research paper thumbnail of Il genitivo del ricordo. Recensione de Le figlie di Saffo

Il Tascabile, 2024

Recensione de Le figlie di Saffo di Selby Wynn Schwartz

Articles and chapters in books by Michela Baldo

Research paper thumbnail of Translating Transfeminist Activism: The Case of STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries)

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Sexuality, 2024

This chapter examines the translation into Italian of S.T.A.R, Transvestite Action Revolutionarie... more This chapter examines the translation into Italian of S.T.A.R, Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, a transfeminist zine published in the US in 2013, made from a collection of documents, interviews, speeches and essays regarding radical transgender activists Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, who were members of the eponymous political collective and who took part in the Stonewall riots. The zine was first translated into Italian in 2020 as an ebook, and then in 2021 in print. The discussion focuses on what prompted the Italian translations, the way in which these were carried out and their performative aspect, that is, their impact on the Italian transfemininst movements. Regarding what prompted the translations, these were motivated by the desire to look at the Anglo-American hegemonic narratives about Stonewall through decolonial lenses, by linking them to the LGBTQ+ Latin American movements, and by pointing at the need to do more research on the less known Italian LGBTQ+ history. Concerning the performative aspect of the translations instead, this can be found in the way the translations stress how the life experiences of Silvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, and they work of mutual aid, are relevant to, and inspirational, for the current Italian transfeminist movements.

Research paper thumbnail of Code-switching as a linguistic and metalinguistic narrative resource: Translational and affective assemblages

Forum for Modern Language Studies, 2024

This Special Issue understands code-switching as a key narratological tool available to writers t... more This Special Issue understands code-switching as a key narratological tool available to writers to build their narratives. It includes seven contributions based on the literary production of writers who employed code-switching in their works. These authors belong to diverse literary traditions and contexts, spanning key classic authors (such as Leo Tolstoy, Kafka and Joyce); borderland authors (Chicano literature); self-translators (Nancy Huston); migrant, post-migrant, exilic and postcolonial writers (Junot Díaz, Ágota Kristóf and Monica Meneghetti). These writers employ different languages in their works: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Italian dialects, Russian, Bulgarian and other Slavic tongues, Filipino, Waray and, in the case of Joyce, the seventy languages detected in his last work, Finnegans Wake. The differences that exist among the writers considered in this Special Issue help us to demonstrate that the fictionality of the code-switching practice concerns world literature as a whole, regardless of writers’ specificities. The contributors employ a variety of key theoretical perspectives such as sociolinguistics applied to code-switching, analysis of language biographies and metalanguage, postcolonial studies, trauma studies, food studies and queer temporalities. However, the narratological lens unites all the contributions and, in some cases, even the narratological approach alone outlines productive new ways in which to understand code-switches.

Research paper thumbnail of Code-switching, queering food and narrative construction in Monica Meneghetti’s memoir What the Mouth Wants

Forum for Modern Language Studies, 2024

This article examines the extent to which the Italian-Canadian queer writer Monica Meneghetti, in... more This article examines the extent to which the Italian-Canadian queer writer Monica Meneghetti, in her memoir What the Mouth Wants, challenges and disrupts heteronormative notions of gender and sexuality through the code-switching of food terms in Italian or in a Northern Italian dialect. Code-switching is used primarily to evoke memories of Meneghetti's late mother through the author's favourite dishes, and of the homophobia (or rather biphobia) directed at her by her father, with whom she used to make fresh pasta and cook Italian meals. The memories and flashbacks, interspersed with present-day accounts of the preparation of Italian childhood meals with her polyamorous family, allow the memoir's protagonist to build a new sense of family: a queer Italian-Canadian family. Drawing on feminist and queer food studies, the article reveals that Meneghetti uses codeswitching to signal point of view and to construct the memoir's characters and plot, as code-switched food items are also linked to the notion of memory and to what it means to write the memoir.

Research paper thumbnail of Baldo, Michela and Terrore Femme (2024) “Dirsi e farsi femme. Introduzione al Manifesto della femme squalo e alla fanzine Fems Aqui.

” DWF , “Lesbiche.3 Amare” , 2024

Research paper thumbnail of LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

Research paper thumbnail of Affect Theories and/in Translation: Trans-feminist Performances, Practices, Entanglements

Italian Culture, 2025

Although queer and feminist translation studies have started exploring more and more the notion o... more Although queer and feminist translation studies have started exploring more and more the notion of affect, studies on translation and affect are still scarce. This special issue of Italian Culture is thus going to contribute to the scholarship on transfeminist queer studies, studies on affect and/in translation with reference to the Italian sociocultural context in innovative and challenging ways, expanding on what has (not) been done in the field of cross-country collaborations in these areas. Specifically, it furthers a conversation around queer gender studies, affect studies and the theories, practices, and politics of translation. We seek contributions that address (but are not limited to) the following themes:
- affect and the theory and politics of translating the queer/queer(ing) translation;
- queer translation as embodied and affective practice;
- queer archives, affect, and translation;
- affect studies and translation as queer transfeminist activism;
- queer translation, affect and performance studies;
- queer translation, affect, and race studies;
- translation, affect, and transgender studies;
- queer translation, affect, and disability studies

Research paper thumbnail of Italian-Canadian Narratives of Return.  Analysing Cultural Translation in Diasporic Writing

This book examines the concept of translation as a return to origins and as restitution of lost n... more This book examines the concept of translation as a return to origins and as restitution of lost narratives, and is based on the idea of diaspora as a term that depicts the longing to return home and the imaginary reconstructions and reconstitutions of home by migrants and translators. The author analyses a corpus made up of novels and a memoir by Italian-Canadian writers Mary Melfi, Nino Ricci and Frank Paci, examining the theme of return both within the writing itself and also in the discourse surrounding the translations of these works into Italian. These ‘reconstructions’ are analysed through the lens of translation, and more specifically through the notion of written code-switching, understood here as a fictional tool which symbolizes the translational movements between different points of view. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of translation and interpreting, migration studies, and Italian and diasporic writing.

Research paper thumbnail of Baldo, Michela and Marianna Deganutti (2024) ‘Code-switching as a narratological resource’, special issue of Forum for Modern language Studies 1.

Forum for Modern Languages, 2024

This Special Issue understands code-switching as a key narratological tool available to writers t... more This Special Issue understands code-switching as a key narratological tool available to writers to build their narratives. It includes seven contributions based on the literary production of writers who employed code-switching in their works. These authors belong to diverse literary traditions and contexts, spanning key classic authors (such as Leo Tolstoy, Kafka and Joyce); borderland authors (Chicano literature); self-translators (Nancy Huston); migrant, post-migrant, exilic and postcolonial writers (Junot Díaz, Ágota Kristóf and Monica Meneghetti). These writers employ different languages in their works: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Italian dialects, Russian, Bulgarian and other Slavic tongues, Filipino, Waray and, in the case of Joyce, the seventy languages detected in his last work, Finnegans Wake. The differences that exist among the writers considered in this Special Issue help us to demonstrate that the fictionality of the code-switching practice concerns world literature as a whole, regardless of writers’ specificities. The contributors employ a variety of key theoretical perspectives such as sociolinguistics applied to code-switching, analysis of language biographies and metalanguage, postcolonial studies, trauma studies, food studies and queer temporalities. However, the narratological lens unites all the contributions and, in some cases, even the narratological approach alone outlines productive new ways in which to understand code-switches.

Research paper thumbnail of Translating the Queer Popular

Perspectives, 2023

This special issue focuses on the translation of queer popular culture. While much of the existin... more This special issue focuses on the translation of queer popular culture. While much of the existing work on LGBTIQA + translation (e.g., Baer, Citation2021; Baer & Kaindl, Citation2017; Epstein & Gillett, Citation2017; Gramling & Dutta, Citation2016; Harvey, Citation2003) focuses typically on literary translation, with some work on autobiography, or has a more activist focus (e.g., Baldo et al., Citation2021), by analysing popular culture, the articles in this issue can explore more well-known texts that have greater circulation around the world, as well as exploring the shifts in LGBTIQA + representation that have been taking place in the last two decades.

Research paper thumbnail of Translation and LGBT+/Queer activism

TIS, 2021

This special issue focuses on the relationships between LGBT+ and queer activism and translation.... more This special issue focuses on the relationships between LGBT+ and queer activism and translation. It has been a long time in the making: we started working on it in 2018, in what seems like a different world. The coronavirus pandemic of 2020-21 looms large over the editing of this volume, as well as the growing effects of global heating such as 2020's wildfires in California and New South Wales, and other events such as the Black Lives Matter protests that took place in the summer of 2020, the women's protests against the ban on abortion in Poland in November 2020 and January 2021, and the legalization of abortion in Argentina in December 2020, the result of five years of mass protest marches by the Latin American grassroots feminist movement Ni Una Menos (Not one woman less) that fights against gender-based violence. None of these events is specifically LGBT+ related (although lesbians, trans* people and transvestites came to the Ni Una Menos marches following the 2017 International Women's Strike; Gago 2020), but all have had effects on LGBT+ and

Research paper thumbnail of Gender/sexuality/Italy, issue 3, themed section: gender and language

Research paper thumbnail of Subtitling and Intercultural Communication. European Languages and Beyond

This volume, which officially launches the series of books InterLinguistica, brings together essa... more This volume, which officially launches the series of books InterLinguistica, brings together essays that explore the links between subtitling and intercultural communication in different audiovisual genres (cinema, TV, DVD and web), covering a wide range of European and non European languages. The need to investigate further the contact between subtitling and intercultural communication stems from the fact that subtitles are not merely instruments of representation of cultural differences but also potential tools for deconstructing cultural stereotypes and developing intercultural competence. The book is divided into three sections. The first one (Subtitling and Inter-cultures) provides the analysis of case studies concerning the representation of cultural diversity and proposes to contrast the risks of ethnocentrism with the use of more creative forms of subtitling. The second section (Subtitling and Foreign Language Learning in Europe and beyond) explores the different ways in which subtitles can be used both in Foreign Language Teaching and in Translation classes, while the third part (Subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing and new technological frontiers) examines subtitles for special audiences and the use of new technologies (online software or respeaking software), addressing the question of subtitling quality. The volume therefore represents a challenge: the beginning of a dialogue between Translation Studies and Intercultural Communication capable of offering fruitful insights into the realm of human communication.

Research paper thumbnail of Il Re Nudo. Per un archivio drag king in Italia

IL RE NUDO, per un archivio drag king in Italia – ovvero un archivio fotografico, storico e criti... more IL RE NUDO, per un archivio drag king in Italia – ovvero un archivio fotografico, storico e critico sul fenomeno del drag king in Italia, con le voci e i volti delle protagonist@ del mondo queer.
a cura di Michela Baldo, Rachele Borghi, Olivia Fiorilli

Il drag kinging e ogni forma di “maschilità femminile” hanno da sempre suscitato l’ostilità della società (etero)normata. Ma se storicamente il drag ha svelato il racconto di costruzione del maschile, oggi è necessario interrogarsi sul fatto che un certo grado di fluidità di genere è non solo autorizzato, ma talvolta discretamente incentivato, e la flessibilità, in tutte le sue declinazioni, è ormai il paradigma dominante.

Le foto, i disegni, i racconti e le analisi s’incontrano fra queste pagine per dare visibilità al fenomeno e avvio alla riflessione su di esso.

Research paper thumbnail of Il manuale della femminista guastafeste

Fandango, 2024

A quante di voi è capitato, sedute a tavola con la propria famiglia, di sentire l’impulso irrefre... more A quante di voi è capitato, sedute a tavola con la propria famiglia, di sentire l’impulso irrefrenabile di rispondere a una frase offensiva, spesso sessista, di averlo fatto e di essere passata per quella che rovinava l’atmosfera, la solita guastafeste, o ancora peggio, la solita femminista guastafeste?

Sara Ahmed parte da qui, da questa rottura, per raccontare come ci sia un momento in cui ci si trasforma nella persona indesiderata che “uccide la gioia”, suona la nota stonata, sottolinea le disuguaglianze e le storture.

Il manuale della femminista guastafeste ci dimostra come essere una guastafeste possa aiutarci a navigare nel mondo e come “rovinare la festa” possa essere un progetto radicale che crea il mondo.

Con un’analisi acuta della letteratura, del cinema e delle maggiori (e non solo) opere femministe e attingendo alle proprie esperienze come studiosa e attivista femminista queer razzializzata, Ahmed rivela e raccoglie le preziose lezioni di chi è arrivata prima di lei, recuperando e unendosi a una genealogia di guastafeste nere e razzializzate, scrittrici come Alice Walker, bell hooks, Audre Lourde, Angela Davis e Claudia Rankine.

Le idee di Ahmed sulla violenza, il silenzio, l’emozione, il razzismo, il femminismo bianco e la bianchezza, la denuncia, la diversità e l’istituzione hanno formato il pensiero femminista intersezionale contemporaneo, ponendo al centro l’importanza di fare domande e il potere di alzare gli occhi al cielo senza timore.

Un libro che amplia il concetto stesso di femminismo, solidarietà e resistenza oltre i confini e le sovrastrutture.

Sara Ahmed intesse un arazzo e un archivio del collettivo e della comunità femminista guastafeste, dopo aver letto il quale nessun pranzo di famiglia sarà più un terreno neutrale e nessuna battaglia sarà più individuale.

Traduzione di Michela Baldo e feminoska

Research paper thumbnail of Un'altra cena rovinata. Saggi scelti

Fandango, 2023

Conoscere il pensiero intersezionale di Sara Ahmed significa entrare in un mondo dove il sessismo... more Conoscere il pensiero intersezionale di Sara Ahmed significa entrare in un mondo dove il sessismo, il colonialismo, il razzismo e la violenza di genere vengono analizzati e decostruiti per garantire a tutte e tutti gli strumenti adeguati per riconoscerli e superarli. Con questa antologia sarà possibile avere un compendio delle sue opere più importanti, una piccola avanguardia per introdurre in Italia la sua filosofia ribelle e libertaria e per non ritrovarci più le “sole femministe al tavolo”.

Traduzione di feminoska e Michela Baldo.
https://www.fandangolibri.it/prodotto/unaltra-cena-rovinata/

Research paper thumbnail of Sappho Singing (documentary by Tzeli Hadjidimitriou)

Sappho Singing. A woman's love and legacy across millennia in a timeless Lesbian landscape. For t... more Sappho Singing. A woman's love and legacy across millennia in a timeless Lesbian landscape.
For the first time, the lyric poet Sappho is presented as a modern woman whose opinions about equality and art still matter 2,600 years after her death. This time round she turns up in her birthplace, the remote village of Eressos on the Greek island of Lesvos and moves among its modern-day inhabitants. The stunning coastal landscapes, provide the backdrop for this unique lesbian-made production. Charmingly, a close harmony trio in twenty-first century guise sings traditional songs, recalling these lost loves. Sappho is reminded that the girls she once loved have gone, but when she moves to the nearby beach resort in summer she discovers scores of women ready to party and she takes full advantage.
Sappho's poems resonate down the ages in this humorous and touching film about love and legacy, based on a 2010 play by the acclaimed veteran writer Maureen Duffy.

Translation of the documentary into Italian by Michela Baldo

Research paper thumbnail of Le norme Traviate. Saggi sul genere e sulla sessualità nel cinema e nella televisione italiana (by Sergio Rigoletto)

Mimesis, 2020

"Questo volume esamina alcuni momenti chiave della storia del cinema e della televisione italiana... more "Questo volume esamina alcuni momenti chiave della storia del cinema e della televisione italiana, svelando alcune delle norme che danno forma a un immaginario collettivo e a delle categorie di identificazione per il grande pubblico. Il volume propone di “traviare” queste norme, rendendo visibile il loro potere normalizzante e le esclusioni da esse prodotte. A partire dalle commedie del miracolo economico fino a film più recenti quali Le fate ignoranti e Chiamami col tuo nome, viene tracciato un filo rosso che delinea convenzioni di genere, modelli narrativi e posizionamenti spettatoriali che tendono a naturalizzare una delle norme più invisibili dell’immaginario collettivo: l’eterosessualità. La disamina pone altresì l’attenzione su degli scenari di resistenza alla norma eterosessuale e ai modelli prescrittivi di genere a essa legati. Alcuni di questi scenari hanno dei precisi contorni identitari, in parte legati ai regimi rappresentativi delle soggettività LGBT contemporanee. Altri mettono in discussione questi contorni identitari, invitandoci ad allargare il campo di espressione di genere e a considerare pratiche del corpo e del desiderio alternative.'

Translation by Michela Baldo. Revision and rewriting by Sergio Rigoletto.

Research paper thumbnail of Queer theories. An Introduction: From Mario Mieli to the Antisocial Turn (by Lorenzo Bernini)

Routledge, 2020

""This is a short and accessible introduction to the complex and evolving debates around queer th... more ""This is a short and accessible introduction to the complex and evolving debates around queer theories, advocating for their critical role in academia and society. The book traces the roots of queer theories and argues that Foucault owed an important debt to other European authors including the feminist and homosexual liberation movements of the 1960–1970s and the anticolonial movements of the 1950s.

Going beyond a simple introduction to queer theories, this book situates them firmly in a European and Italian context to offer a crucial set of arguments in defence of LGBTQI+ rights, in defence of the freedom of teaching and research, and in defence of a radical idea of democracy. The narrative of the book is divided into three short chapters which can be read independently or in sequence. The first chapter argues that queer theories are rooted in the critical philosophical tradition, the second presents a critique of heterosexism and the binary inherent to the gender-sex-sexual orientation system, and the third chapter sketches a history of the queer debate. The book offers a useful typology of queer theories by sorting them into three basic paradigms: Freudo-Marxism, radical constructivism, and antisocial and affective theories, clarifying the complexities of the nature of the debates for undergraduates.

The book is both accessible and original, and is suitable for both specialist researchers and undergraduate students new to queer studies. It will be essential reading for those studying philosophy, sexuality studies and gender studies."

Translation into English by Michela Baldo and Elena Basile

Research paper thumbnail of The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism (2020)

by Rebecca Ruth Gould, Sarah Irving, Eylaf Bader Eddin, Moses Kilolo, Aria Fani, omid mehrgan, Brahim El Guabli, Sahar Fathi, Mehrdad Rahimi-Moghaddam, Manuel Yang, Michela Baldo, Bidisha Pal, and Partha Bhattacharjee

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism provides an accessible, diverse, and in many r... more The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism provides an accessible, diverse, and in many respects ground-breaking overview of literary, cultural, and political translation across a range of activist contexts. This volume brings together case studies and histories of oppressed and marginalised peoples from more than twenty different languages, ranging across Africa, Asia, the Americas, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Part One considers the theoretical foundations of translation and activism. Part Two examines the figure of the interpreter as an activist. Part Three examines the figure of the translator as an activist. Part Four is comprised of autobiographical reflections by translators and writers who bear witness to the stories of oppressed peoples. Part Five engages with translation and activism from a range of legal perspectives focusing on human rights. Part Six introduces a range of case studies of translations into vernacular languages. Part Seven situates translation and activism in the context of migration, with particular attention to refugee experience. Part Eight examines the role of translators in shaping revolution. As the first extended collection to introduce translation and activism from a systematically global perspective, this handbook will serve as a useful guide to translators, writers, scholars, and activists seeking to better understand the agency of language in bringing about political change.

Research paper thumbnail of Il genitivo del ricordo. Recensione de Le figlie di Saffo

Il Tascabile, 2024

Recensione de Le figlie di Saffo di Selby Wynn Schwartz

Research paper thumbnail of Translating Transfeminist Activism: The Case of STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries)

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Sexuality, 2024

This chapter examines the translation into Italian of S.T.A.R, Transvestite Action Revolutionarie... more This chapter examines the translation into Italian of S.T.A.R, Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, a transfeminist zine published in the US in 2013, made from a collection of documents, interviews, speeches and essays regarding radical transgender activists Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, who were members of the eponymous political collective and who took part in the Stonewall riots. The zine was first translated into Italian in 2020 as an ebook, and then in 2021 in print. The discussion focuses on what prompted the Italian translations, the way in which these were carried out and their performative aspect, that is, their impact on the Italian transfemininst movements. Regarding what prompted the translations, these were motivated by the desire to look at the Anglo-American hegemonic narratives about Stonewall through decolonial lenses, by linking them to the LGBTQ+ Latin American movements, and by pointing at the need to do more research on the less known Italian LGBTQ+ history. Concerning the performative aspect of the translations instead, this can be found in the way the translations stress how the life experiences of Silvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson, and they work of mutual aid, are relevant to, and inspirational, for the current Italian transfeminist movements.

Research paper thumbnail of Code-switching as a linguistic and metalinguistic narrative resource: Translational and affective assemblages

Forum for Modern Language Studies, 2024

This Special Issue understands code-switching as a key narratological tool available to writers t... more This Special Issue understands code-switching as a key narratological tool available to writers to build their narratives. It includes seven contributions based on the literary production of writers who employed code-switching in their works. These authors belong to diverse literary traditions and contexts, spanning key classic authors (such as Leo Tolstoy, Kafka and Joyce); borderland authors (Chicano literature); self-translators (Nancy Huston); migrant, post-migrant, exilic and postcolonial writers (Junot Díaz, Ágota Kristóf and Monica Meneghetti). These writers employ different languages in their works: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Italian dialects, Russian, Bulgarian and other Slavic tongues, Filipino, Waray and, in the case of Joyce, the seventy languages detected in his last work, Finnegans Wake. The differences that exist among the writers considered in this Special Issue help us to demonstrate that the fictionality of the code-switching practice concerns world literature as a whole, regardless of writers’ specificities. The contributors employ a variety of key theoretical perspectives such as sociolinguistics applied to code-switching, analysis of language biographies and metalanguage, postcolonial studies, trauma studies, food studies and queer temporalities. However, the narratological lens unites all the contributions and, in some cases, even the narratological approach alone outlines productive new ways in which to understand code-switches.

Research paper thumbnail of Code-switching, queering food and narrative construction in Monica Meneghetti’s memoir What the Mouth Wants

Forum for Modern Language Studies, 2024

This article examines the extent to which the Italian-Canadian queer writer Monica Meneghetti, in... more This article examines the extent to which the Italian-Canadian queer writer Monica Meneghetti, in her memoir What the Mouth Wants, challenges and disrupts heteronormative notions of gender and sexuality through the code-switching of food terms in Italian or in a Northern Italian dialect. Code-switching is used primarily to evoke memories of Meneghetti's late mother through the author's favourite dishes, and of the homophobia (or rather biphobia) directed at her by her father, with whom she used to make fresh pasta and cook Italian meals. The memories and flashbacks, interspersed with present-day accounts of the preparation of Italian childhood meals with her polyamorous family, allow the memoir's protagonist to build a new sense of family: a queer Italian-Canadian family. Drawing on feminist and queer food studies, the article reveals that Meneghetti uses codeswitching to signal point of view and to construct the memoir's characters and plot, as code-switched food items are also linked to the notion of memory and to what it means to write the memoir.

Research paper thumbnail of Baldo, Michela and Terrore Femme (2024) “Dirsi e farsi femme. Introduzione al Manifesto della femme squalo e alla fanzine Fems Aqui.

” DWF , “Lesbiche.3 Amare” , 2024

Research paper thumbnail of Translating Jack Halberstam's Gaga Feminism and The Queer Art of Failure into Italian

Comparative Critical Studies, 2023

This contribution features a dialogue between three translation practitioners with an interest in... more This contribution features a dialogue between three translation practitioners with an interest in queer theory and activism, Michela Baldo, Elisa Virgili and Goffredo Polizzi, on the recent translations into Italian of two works by Jack Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure (2011), translated by the collective CRAAAZI, to which Goffredo Polizzi belongs, and Gaga Feminism (2012), translated by Elisa Virgili. After introducing these translations and the context in which they came into place, Baldo, Virgili and Polizzi analyse the translation process and the choices made by the translators. The last part of the discussion focuses on the reception of these translations in the Italian context and highlights their importance on the transfeminist scene.

Research paper thumbnail of The formation of translation collectivities in Italian queer feminist activist scenarios. The case of Onna Pas

Translation in society, 2023

This contribution analyses the role played by translation in the emergence of the Italian transfe... more This contribution analyses the role played by translation in the emergence of the Italian transfeminist collective Onna Pas. The collective was born in 2019 after a series of workshops centred on the reading and translation of Wittig's and Zeig's work (1975). This contribution examines the formation of Onna Pas using the concept of affective performativity. Drawing on sociological theories of affect (Gregg and Seighworth 2010; Ahmed 2004) applied to translation (Koskinen 2021), according to which affect is a force arising in the "in-betweenness" of encounters (Gregg and Seigworth 2010, 2), I understand translation as both an affective practice that brings about "intense" joyful and playful encounters, and as a performative one capable of producing other translations, performances, objects, collectivities and alliances. I particularly explore the unpredictable outcome of translational encounters, contrary to studies of translation and activism (Baker 2013), which tend to stress the notion of conscious positionalities.

Research paper thumbnail of Un femminismo martellante : Pratiche affettive e performatività del linguaggio in Sara Ahmed

Un'altra cena rovinata. Saggi scelti, 2023

This is an introduction of the notion of affect in Sarah Ahmed and on the performativity of her l... more This is an introduction of the notion of affect in Sarah Ahmed and on the performativity of her language

Research paper thumbnail of “The Courage we Have: On old and new coming outs”

Here and Now: An Anthology of queer Italian-Canadian Writing, 2021

Research paper thumbnail of Queer Feminisms and the Translation of Sexual Health

The Routledge Hanbook of Translation anf Health, 2021

This chapter focuses on the notion of health in relation to translation and gender and sexuality ... more This chapter focuses on the notion of health in relation to translation and gender and sexuality studies. It will make references to the way health has been theorised by a range of contemporary queer feminists in the US, Europe, Latin America, and China, who were inspired mainly by the feminist initiatives in the 1970s. For queer feminisms, health becomes synonymous with freedom of choice on matters such as one’s own body, affective and sexual relationships, and reproduction. Many queer feminist groups are actively engaged in the production of counter-knowledge on health, i.e. new and peripheral knowledge that opposes the official mainstream one, for two main reasons: first, to subvert the asymmetrical relationship between expert mainstream knowledge and the needs expressed by women and LGBTQ* subjects on these topics; second, to challenge institutional medical narratives, which have marginalised or censored this counter-knowledge. Pivotal in the production of an understanding of health in queer feminist terms is translation, given that it can make up for the lack of specific knowledge in a given cultural context. The translation scenarios analysed in this chapter will revolve around taboo topics concerning female sexuality and genitalia, transgender issues and reproductive choices.

Research paper thumbnail of Translating the time of neoliberal precarity. Some notes on Italian Queer Transfeminist Scenarios.

In James Saint André (ed.) Translation and Time. Migration, Culture and Identity, 2020

Voluntary translation work plays a key role in those activist movements in Italy whose agenda can... more Voluntary translation work plays a key role in those activist movements in Italy whose agenda can be defined as queer transfeminist. Given that in these groups the critique of heteronormativity is entangled with a critique of neoliberalism, and that the notions of precariousness and precarity discussed in relation to neoliberalism are linked to that of temporality, this chapter aims to investigate how time is resignified in these scenarios and the role that translation plays in its theorization. A paradigmatic case is the queer transfeminist group ideadestroyingmuros. This collective (formed mainly of northern Italian activists who migrated to Spain) conceives translation as a tool for “redeeming life” and is interested in opposing the individualistic self-exploitation and the unsustainable demands on our time posed by the threats of neoliberalist precarity through a reevaluation of practices of collaboration and solidarity. This chapter therefore explores how the practices of the queer transfeminist group, ideadestroyingmuros, and their theorizations of translation, as well as the choice of translating articles on alternative theorizations of time by activist translation collectives such as Les Bitches, participate in the theorization of new alternative temporalities in Italian transfeminist scenes. Temporality can thus be analyzed in relation to translation given that it represents widespread concern of various queer transfeminist Italian collectives
that use translation as part of their political agendas.

Research paper thumbnail of The contribution of the translation of Italian-Canadian writing to Italian diaspora studies

Moderna . Special issue on Italian diaspora edited by Margherita Ganeri, 2020

This chapter aims to discuss the potential contribution of Translation Studies to the field of It... more This chapter aims to discuss the potential contribution of Translation Studies to the field of Italian Diaspora Studies and will analyse some translation scenarios related to Italian-Canadian writing and its translation into Italian, in order to illustrate the terms of such contribution. It argues that Italian Diaspora studies should be understood in transla- tional terms, that is by taking into account the points of convergence/translation between different trajectories of migration into and out of Italy. As a consequence, Italian-Canadian writing and Italophone writing should be seen as part of Italian literature. Moreover, the chapter will also discuss the potential contribution of translation in forming and expanding canonical ideas about what constitutes Italian literature and Italian diaspora studies.

Research paper thumbnail of Activist Translation, Alliances and Performativity: Translating Judith Butler’s Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly into Italian.

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism, 2020

This chapter (https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315149660-3) theorises a concept... more This chapter (https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9781315149660-3) theorises a concept of activist translation, understood as a political, and often oppositional, act, capable of producing social transformation. It takes inspiration from the reception of the translation into Italian by Federico Zappino of Judith Butler’s Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (2015), translated as L’alleanza dei corpi (2017) (The Alliance of Bodies), a book that places particular emphasis on public protests. Firstly, by drawing on the idea of the performativity of bodies gathered in public demonstrations, I look at this translation’s performative aspect. Secondly, this chapter considers the extent to which we can theorise translation in activist scenarios as an ‘alliance,’ borrowing the term, which features in the title of the translation of Butler’s book. Concepts like ‘alliance’ and ‘solidarity,’ as in the use made by Butler, were, at times, criticised by the translator of L’alleanza dei corpi (2017), and by the Italian queer transfeminist groups and individuals who attended the presentations of the translation. This chapter uses this criticism to explore its applications for current understandings of activist translation, warning against ideas of solidarity and horizontality (Baker 2016a), which might not take sufficiently into account the power differentials among oppressed groups and countries.

Research paper thumbnail of Translating Italian-Canadian writing into Italian: returns and amnesia

Prooceedings of the Genova Conference Diaspore Italiane, 2020

This paper, based on my recently published book (Baldo 2019), aims to discuss how the translation... more This paper, based on my recently published book (Baldo 2019), aims to discuss how the translations of some Italian-Canadian works into Italian, by writers such as Nino Ricci (2004), Frank Paci (2007) and Mary Melfi (2012), have been framed in terms of a return to Italy of past Italian emigrants. This metaphorical return will be discussed in terms of restitution: the restitution of a lost voice and a sense of wholeness to first- and second-generation Italian-Canadians, and the restitution to Italians of a lost perspective on themselves, which can remind them of their emigrant history and fight the amnesia surrounding it.

Research paper thumbnail of Performance queer drag: Senith e la sperimentazione faux queen in Italia

ITINERA, 2019

This article is centred on the faux queen experimental theatre by Italian artist Senith, and on t... more This article is centred on the faux queen experimental theatre by Italian artist Senith, and on the links between this theatre and queer feminist activism in Italy. Senith is a queer drag performer from Rome, and the co-founder of the former queer drag king group Eyes Wild Drag. After the group disbanded in 2015, Senith has been performing as a solo artist in shows such as BAD ASSolo (2016) and Lo Schizzo (2017) [Squirting]. She has also been developing, transforming and enriching projects originally born within Eyes Wild Drag such as the Erotic Lunch and the Queerrida. The article will concentrate on Senith's faux queen experimentations, trying to understand how the genre is translated/adapted for the Italian scenario and what Senith is trying to achieve with it. In doing so the article will discuss the notion of queer femininity, otherwise known as Fem or femme (Serano 2007; Dahl 2009), its genealogy within lesbian feminism, and the connection between the themes developed by faux queen performances in general and those discussed in queer transfeminist activist scenarios in Italy. These are, in particular, the invisibility of the Fem, misogyny, slut-shaming, sexism, and women's control over their body and sexuality.

Research paper thumbnail of Traduzione e performatività: approcci femministi e transfemministi queer (Book introduction)

Elementi di traduzione Transfemminista Queer by Laura Fontanella, 2019

Quando mi avvicinai, alcuni anni fa, agli studi sulla traduzione all'Università di Manchester, in... more Quando mi avvicinai, alcuni anni fa, agli studi sulla traduzione all'Università di Manchester, in Inghilterra, dove studiavo, il sentire generale era che la traduzione fosse un'attività da sempre poco considerata e che tali studi fossero nati appunto per invertire questa tendenza e ridare alla traduzione la dignità che meritava. Insieme al pessimismo si poteva respirare un certo ottimismo: la disciplina stava crescendo, stavano nascendo riviste accademiche sulla traduzione, si aprivano insegnamenti dedicati alla traduzione, si parlava finalmente di traduzione. Erano anni, parlo della prima decade del 2000, in cui stava maturando un filone di studi, capitanato a Manchester da Mona Baker, che poneva l'accento sull'aspetto politico della traduzione, sul suo essere un'attività attraverso cui poter produrre un cambiamento sociale.

Research paper thumbnail of Valerie Solanas's Trilogia SCUM: A feminist translation project of care. Interview/dialogue with Stefania Arcara and Deborah Ardilli

g/s/i, 2019

This interview focuses on the recent publication of Trilogia SCUM (2017), the Italian translation... more This interview focuses on the recent publication of Trilogia SCUM (2017), the Italian translation and retranslation of the complete works by radical lesbian feminist Valerie Solanas (editors Stefania Arcara and Deborah Ardilli). Solanas's publication is discussed as a feminist translation project of care: through the use of abundant paratextual material, and through the restoration of Solanas's uncensored SCUM Manifesto (1967), Arcara and Ardilli have joined efforts in reconstituting the legitimacy of Solanas as a feminist writer, a title of which she had been stripped by those who manipulated and discarded her work. The interview also discusses the performativity of this translation project in terms of the discourses and connections it created, and in terms of its importance for current Italian feminisms.

Research paper thumbnail of Translating Spanish Transfeminist Activism into Italian. Performativity, DIY, and Affective Contaminations

g/s/i, 2019

This article examines the translations into Italian of four post-porn and transfeminist Spanish t... more This article examines the translations into Italian of four post-porn and transfeminist Spanish texts, written by the writers and performers Diana Torres and Itziar Ziga: Pornoterrorismo/Porn terrorism (2014), Fica Potens/ Powerful Cunt (2015), Vomitorium/Vomitorium (2017), and Diventare Cagna/Becoming a Bitch (2015). The texts were translated by a group of Italian transfeminist translators. The presentations of these translations, between the years 2014 and 2017, have helped to enhance the Italian debate on post-porn and on issues such as slut-shaming, prostitution rights, and male violence against women. The concepts that will be discussed in this article are performativity, DIY translation, and contamination. Performativity and the DIY ethos relate to the fact that, prior to the publication of these translations, the texts were partially translated/interpreted by non-professional translators as well as performed, or used, within workshops of self-experimentation (for example those on female ejaculation); the presentations of these translations contributed to the creation of subsequent translations, workshops, performances, and performers. The concept of contamination, finally, is the product of these DIY translations and self-experimentations, which are capable of generating a contagious energy (Massumi 2002; Gregg and Seigworth 2010) that contributes to the creation of new affective networks and alliances among transfeminist collectives.

Research paper thumbnail of Queer(y)ing (Im)Possibilities in the British Academic Translation Classroom

Gender Approaches to the Translation Classroom. Training the Doers, edited by Marcella De Marco and Piero Toto, 2019

This chapter discusses my efforts at implementing a queer and feminist pedagogy (Fraser and Lambl... more This chapter discusses my efforts at implementing a queer and feminist pedagogy (Fraser and Lamble 2015) within some BA and MA programmes in Translation Studies in various British universities in which I have taught. Such a pedagogy is informed by a socio-constructivist (Kiraly 2000) and political approach to translation training (Tymoczko 2010; Baker and Maier 2011). Both queer and feminist pedagogies foreground the idea of using students’ and teachers’ own experience about oppression as learning materials, and consider knowledge to be socially and collaboratively constructed—similar to what is taught in political approaches to translation training. This chapter analyses classroom activities aimed at integrating a feminist and queer pedagogy in translation training, within the context of the constraints and (im)possibilities provided by the British Neoliberal University. Such pedagogical praxis is informed by the idea of queer desire, understood as a pleasurable and disruptive force capable of igniting the potentialities that students and teachers bring to class.

Research paper thumbnail of Translating affect, redeeming life. The case of the Italian queer transfeminist group ideadestroyingmuros

The Translator, 2018

This article looks at the role played by emotions and affect in activist translation, that is, tr... more This article looks at the role played by emotions and affect in activist translation, that is, translation understood as a tool for political change, by analyzing the Italian queer transfeminist group ideadestroyingmuros. Translation is conceived by this collective as a bodily act, a transformation of oneself in the act of migrating, as a way for, in the words of the collective, ‘redeeming life,’ that is, improving living conditions. This transformation, for ideadestroyingmuros and other queer transfeminist groups, can indeed stem from the creation of more affective, supportive and cooperative conditions of living. The article will draw on the concepts of emotion and affect, as theorised by some scholars who dealt with them. Emotion and affect, with their emphasis on relationality and on the capacity to create action and to be affected by action, can demonstrate how translation impacts on translators, and how sociopolitical studies of translation can benefit from a view of ideological positioning as the outcome of a series of intricate emotional and affective journeys.

Research paper thumbnail of Cultural resistance, female voices: Translating Subversive and Contested Sexualities

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Culture, edited by Sue-Ann Harding and Ovidi Carbonell Cortés, 2018

Research paper thumbnail of Painful Italianness. Translating the post-migrant female body

This paper examines the recent translation into Italian of the Italian-North American works by Lo... more This paper examines the recent translation into Italian of the Italian-North American works by Louise De Salvo, Vertigo (2006) [Vertigo], Kym Ragusa, La pelle che ci separa (2008) [The Skin Between Us] and Tina De Rosa, Pesci di Carta (2007) [Paper Fish]. These works use the painful and ill body as a source for writing about the experience of growing up as an Italian-American woman in US, and have been selected for translation by the publishing house Nutrimenti under the series Specchi [Mirrors] for their reference to the condition of marginality that they portray. In this paper I will explore whether a nostalgic national discourse of returning the Italian migrant back to Italy through translation (observed by the author in the translation of Italian-Canadian writing for example) is also at work in the Italian translations of the three works mentioned above, notwithstanding their feminist and post-colonial agenda. The analysis of the treatment of some textual instances of bodily descriptions in translation, discussed also in the translator’s prefaces and afterwords, and in email correspondence or interviews with the translators, constitutes an attempt to shed some light on this phenomenon.
Key words: Italian-American writing, women’s writing, literary translation, body, illness.

Research paper thumbnail of Activist translation, alliances, and performativity

Routledge eBooks, Jun 2, 2020

Research paper thumbnail of The courage we have: on old and new comings out

Research paper thumbnail of The Contribution of the Translation of Italian-Canadian Writing to Italian Diaspora Studies

Moderna: semestrale di teoria e critica della letteratura, 2020

This chapter aims to discuss the potential contribution of Translation Studies to the field of It... more This chapter aims to discuss the potential contribution of Translation Studies to the field of Italian Diaspora Studies and will analyse some translation scenarios related to Italian-Canadian writing and its translation into Italian, in order to illustrate the terms of such contribution. It argues that Italian Diaspora studies should be understood in transla- tional terms, that is by taking into account the points of convergence/translation between different trajectories of migration into and out of Italy. As a consequence, Italian-Canadian writing and Italophone writing should be seen as part of Italian literature. Moreover, the chapter will also discuss the potential contribution of translation in forming and expanding canonical ideas about what constitutes Italian literature and Italian diaspora studies.

Research paper thumbnail of Pronominal objects in English–Italian and Spanish–Italian bilingual children

Applied Psycholinguistics, Oct 13, 2011

This study investigated the role of typological relatedness, language of the community, and age, ... more This study investigated the role of typological relatedness, language of the community, and age, in predicting similarities and differences between English-Italian, Spanish-Italian bilingual children and their monolingual child and adult counterparts in the acceptability of pre-and postverbal object pronouns in [±focus] contexts in Italian and in English. Cross-linguistic influence occurred in [−focus] contexts as a function of typological relatedness and language of the community. English-Italian bilinguals in the UK accepted pragmatically inappropriate postverbal pronouns in [−focus] contexts in Italian twice as often as all the other groups. Cross-linguistic influence was unidirectional from English to Italian as shown by the categorical rejection of preverbal pronouns in [−focus] contexts in English. In [+focus] contexts, in English no significant differences existed between the monolinguals and the bilinguals in the low accuracy with which they chose pragmatically appropriate stressed pronouns. Similarly, the choice of appropriate pronouns in [+focus] contexts in Italian was problematic for monolingual and bilingual children irrespective of the language of the community and of the bilinguals' other language. Age was a factor only for the Italian children who approached adultlike performance in [+focus] contexts only by the age of 10. These findings point to the need for a multifaceted approach to account for similarities and differences between the linguistic behavior of bilingual and monolingual children. One important aspect of understanding bilingual language acquisition concerns the formulation of more accurate predictions about what linguistic constructions are represented and processed in essentially the same way by bilingual and monolingual children, which ones are likely to be represented and processed differently by these two populations, and which factors ultimately predict these differences.

Research paper thumbnail of Bilingual children's sensitivity to specificity and genericity: Evidence from metalinguistic awareness

Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, Apr 1, 2009

A number of recent studies have argued that bilingual children's language comprehension and produ... more A number of recent studies have argued that bilingual children's language comprehension and production may be affected by cross-linguistic influence. The overall aim of this study was to investigate whether the ability to judge the grammaticality of a construction in one language is affected by knowledge of the corresponding construction in the other language. We investigated how English-Italian and Spanish-Italian bilingual children and monolingual peers judged the grammaticality of plural NPs in specific and generic contexts in English and in Italian. We also explored whether language of the community, age, and the typological relatedness of the bilinguals' two languages significantly affected their performance. While performance in English was overall poor, no significant differences existed between the English-Italian bilinguals and the monolinguals. In contrast, we found that knowledge of English affected the bilinguals' ability to discriminate between grammatical and ungrammatical sentences in Italian. The English-Italian bilinguals were significantly less accurate than both the monolinguals and the Spanish-Italian bilinguals in a task where they simply had to rely on the local definite article cue to reject ungrammatical bare plurals in generic contexts. Language of the community and age also played a significant role in children's accuracy. * This research was supported by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (grant number R000230782 to the first two authors). We are extremely grateful to all the participants for their time. Special thanks are due to the children's parents and to the staff at the International School of Milan, the American School of Milan, the Bilingual School in Monza, the Italian School in Barcelona, Bruntsfield Primary in Edinburgh, "Giovanni Pascoli" and "Pilastro" primary schools in Este. Their enthusiastic cooperation has been invaluable for the completion of this project.

Research paper thumbnail of Queer feminisms and the translation of sexual health

Routledge eBooks, Mar 24, 2021

This chapter focuses on the notion of health in relation to translation and gender and sexuality ... more This chapter focuses on the notion of health in relation to translation and gender and sexuality studies. It will make references to the way health has been theorised by a range of contemporary queer feminists in the US, Europe, Latin America, and China, who were inspired mainly by the feminist initiatives in the 1970s. For queer feminisms, health becomes synonymous with freedom of choice on matters such as one’s own body, affective and sexual relationships, and reproduction. Many queer feminist groups are actively engaged in the production of counter-knowledge on health, i.e. new and peripheral knowledge that opposes the official mainstream one, for two main reasons: first, to subvert the asymmetrical relationship between expert mainstream knowledge and the needs expressed by women and LGBTQ* subjects on these topics; second, to challenge institutional medical narratives, which have marginalised or censored this counter-knowledge. Pivotal in the production of an understanding of health in queer feminist terms is translation, given that it can make up for the lack of specific knowledge in a given cultural context. The translation scenarios analysed in this chapter will revolve around taboo topics concerning female sexuality and genitalia, transgender issues and reproductive choices.

Research paper thumbnail of Italian-Canadian Narratives of Return

Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2019

Italian-Canadian Narratives of Return "Using perspectives from translation studies, narrative the... more Italian-Canadian Narratives of Return "Using perspectives from translation studies, narrative theory and diaspora studies, Michela Baldo traces the complex trajectories that link writing and identity in the work of leading Italian Canadian authors Mary Melfi, Frank Paci and Nino Ricci. Translation, understood both as a metaphor and as set of practices, is at the core of those journeys: it allows diasporic narratives to travel repeatedly between Italy and Canada, sustaining the multiple returns imagined by their authors."

Research paper thumbnail of Discourse conditions on subject pronoun realization: Testing the linguistic intuitions of older bilingual children

Lingua, Mar 1, 2009

This study investigates the acceptability of Italian and English pronominal subject forms in Àtop... more This study investigates the acceptability of Italian and English pronominal subject forms in Àtopic shift [ÀTS] and +topic shift [+TS] contexts in English-Italian and Spanish-Italian bilingual children aged 6-7 and 8-10, age-matched monolingual children, and monolingual adults. The aim was to disentangle possible effects of cross-linguistic influence from the more general effects of bilingualism and the use of 'default' forms. A further aim of the study was to test the influence of input and exposure to Italian by comparing bilinguals living in Italy and bilinguals living in the UK. The results showed no statistically significant differences in English: regardless of age, language combination, and language of the community, participants overwhelmingly rejected ungrammatical sentences with a missing subject and chose sentences with an overt subject pronoun. In Italian, by contrast, the patterns of results were much more varied. Younger monolingual and bilingual children chose significantly more pragmatically inappropriate overt subject pronouns than older children and adults. A significant interaction between age and language of the community also showed that at the age of 6-7 English-Italian bilinguals in the UK chose significantly more pragmatically overt pronouns than all the other groups of children, while at the age of 8-10 it was the Spanish-Italian bilinguals that performed significantly less accurately than all other groups of children. Bilingual children, regardless of age and language combination, also accepted some infelicitous null subject pronouns. This pattern of results indicates that variables beside cross-linguistic influence must be considered as explanatory factors in this particular domain. It also suggests that it is important to differentiate among different discourse conditions affecting subject pronouns in context.

Research paper thumbnail of Queer(y)ing (Im)Possibilities in the British Academic Translation Classroom

Springer eBooks, 2019

This chapter discusses my efforts at implementing a queer and feminist pedagogy (Fraser and Lambl... more This chapter discusses my efforts at implementing a queer and feminist pedagogy (Fraser and Lamble 2015) within some BA and MA programmes in Translation Studies in various British universities in which I have taught. Such a pedagogy is informed by a socio-constructivist (Kiraly 2000) and political approach to translation training (Tymoczko 2010; Baker and Maier 2011). Both queer and feminist pedagogies foreground the idea of using students’ and teachers’ own experience about oppression as learning materials, and consider knowledge to be socially and collaboratively constructed—similar to what is taught in political approaches to translation training. This chapter analyses classroom activities aimed at integrating a feminist and queer pedagogy in translation training, within the context of the constraints and (im)possibilities provided by the British Neoliberal University. Such pedagogical praxis is informed by the idea of queer desire, understood as a pleasurable and disruptive force capable of igniting the potentialities that students and teachers bring to class.

Research paper thumbnail of Towards a Narrative Model of Code-Switching in Diasporic Writing

Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2019

This chapter examines how narrative theory and translation can be combined, through the notion of... more This chapter examines how narrative theory and translation can be combined, through the notion of written code-switching, the switch from a language into another, into a model of analysis that can be used to examine the notion of return in Italian-Canadian diasporic writing and in its Italian translation. This chapter begins by looking at the meaning of focalisation and voice in classical and poststructuralist narratology, and in narrative theory, arguing that these elements concern the visual and aural point around which our narrative subjectivities are turned into plots that make sense. It then discusses the notion of code-switching, the switch from a language to another, paying specific attention to the fictional and pragmatic aspect of written code-switching and to studies which investigate its translation. The model finally links code-switching to the narratological concepts of focalisation, voice and plot, within the framework of studies of style in translation and narrative theory, demonstrating that in diasporic writing narratives are “translational”, as they are assumed to be founded on translation.

Research paper thumbnail of Introduction: Translation, Narratives and Returns

Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2019

This book revolves around the analysis of a corpus of texts by Italian-Canadian writers: Mary Mel... more This book revolves around the analysis of a corpus of texts by Italian-Canadian writers: Mary Melfi, Nino Ricci and Frank Paci. Before delving into the discussion of the texts, this chapter introduces the main theoretical concepts, which have underpinned the textual analysis, namely translation, narrative and return. Translation is theorised here as a metaphor for return and as a metaphor for writing. Both metaphors originate from studies of diaspora as a term referring to conditions of displacement and to the translation of such displacement. Translation is best represented in this scenario by the use of heterolingualism, which exemplifies the movement back and forth between different points of view and voices, belonging to the Italian and Canadian sphere of consciousness. Since voice and perspective are narrative concepts, it is through theories of narrative that returns are discussed.

Research paper thumbnail of Italian-Canadian Writing and Narratives of Translation as Return: The Italian Translations of Ricci’s Trilogy, Melfi’s Italy Revisited and Paci’s Italian Shoes

Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2019

This chapter investigates the concept of return in relation to a trilogy of novels by author Nino... more This chapter investigates the concept of return in relation to a trilogy of novels by author Nino Ricci (1990, 1993, 1997)—a memoir by author Mary Melfi, Italy Revisited (2009) and a novel by author Frank Paci, Italian Shoes (2002), and their respective translations into Italian. The chapter starts by introducing the phenomenon of Italian-Canadian writing, a body of literature produced in Canada in the last forty years by writers of Italian background, focusing on the question of ethnicity and heterolingualism or code-switching, the switch from a language to another. It then moves into a discussion of the theme of return within this writing and finally analyses the theme of return in Ricci, Paci and Melfi’s texts, and in the discourses that have framed their translations as a return to Italy of the past emigrants.

Research paper thumbnail of Chapter 9. Translation and Opposition in Italian-Canadian Writing. Nino Ricci’s Trilogy and its Italian Translation

Multilingual Matters eBooks, Dec 31, 2011

Research paper thumbnail of Return as Restoration and Restitution

Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2019

This chapter discusses the findings of the textual analysis of code-switching, that is the switch... more This chapter discusses the findings of the textual analysis of code-switching, that is the switch from a language to another, in Ricci’s trilogy (1990, 1993, 1997), Paci’s Italian Shoes (2002) and Melfi’s Italy Revisited (2009), in the light of the social narratives of return which surround the Italian translations of these works (Ricci 2004; Paci 2007; Melfi 2009). The analysis confirms how the code-switched items categorised in this body of writing are also commonly found in other diasporic writing, and that code-switching involves linguistic areas which are also likely to be code-switched in oral conversation. Moreover, it confirms how code-switching, by focusing on elements such as origins and sense of guilt, contributes to the construction of narratives of return which are framed in terms of restoration of a sense of wholeness and restitution of loss as a result of the fractures opened up by emigration or as a result of the loss of memory about such emigration.

Research paper thumbnail of Painful Italianness: Translating the (Post)Migrant Female Body

This paper examines the recent translation into Italian of the Italian-North American works by Lo... more This paper examines the recent translation into Italian of the Italian-North American works by Louise De Salvo, Vertigo (2006) [Vertigo], Kym Ragusa, La pelle che ci separa (2008) [The Skin Between Us] and Tina De Rosa, Pesci di Carta (2007) [Paper Fish]. These works use the painful and ill body as a source for writing about the experience of growing up as an Italian-American woman in US, and have been selected for translation by the publishing house Nutrimenti under the series Specchi [Mirrors] for their reference to the condition of marginality that they portray. In this paper I will explore whether a nostalgic national discourse of returning the Italian migrant back to Italy through translation (observed by the author in the translation of Italian-Canadian writing for example) is also at work in the Italian translations of the three works mentioned above, notwithstanding their feminist and post-colonial agenda. The analysis of the treatment of some textual instances of bodily descriptions in translation, discussed also in the translator's prefaces and afterwords, and in email correspondence or interviews with the translators, constitutes an attempt to shed some light on this phenomenon.

Research paper thumbnail of The formation of translation collectivities in Italian queer feminist activist scenarios

Translation in society, Mar 6, 2023

This contribution analyses the role played by translation in the emergence of the Italian transfe... more This contribution analyses the role played by translation in the emergence of the Italian transfeminist collective Onna Pas. The collective was born in 2019 after a series of workshops centred on the reading and translation of Wittig's and Zeig's work (1975). This contribution examines the formation of Onna Pas using the concept of affective performativity. Drawing on sociological theories of affect (Gregg and Seighworth 2010; Ahmed 2004) applied to translation (Koskinen 2021), according to which affect is a force arising in the "in-betweenness" of encounters (Gregg and Seigworth 2010, 2), I understand translation as both an affective practice that brings about "intense" joyful and playful encounters, and as a performative one capable of producing other translations, performances, objects, collectivities and alliances. I particularly explore the unpredictable outcome of translational encounters, contrary to studies of translation and activism (Baker 2013), which tend to stress the notion of conscious positionalities.

Research paper thumbnail of Investigating LGBTQ+ issues in translation

Ahead of their special issue of Translation and Interpreting Studies on the theme of Translation ... more Ahead of their special issue of Translation and Interpreting Studies on the theme of Translation and LGBT+/Queer Activism, Michela Baldo, Jonathan Evans and Ting Guo discuss the interconnections between LGBTQ+ issues and translation. In the essay, they reflect on the translation of queer vernaculars, the relationship between queer theory and international LGBTQ+ cultures and the future directions of the study of translation and LGBTQ+ activism

Research paper thumbnail of Translation and LGBT+/queer activism

Translation and interpreting studies, Jun 18, 2021

Research paper thumbnail of Italian-Canadian Narratives of Return: Analysing Cultural Translation in Diasporic Writing

Italian-Canadian Narratives of Return "Using perspectives from translation studies, narrative the... more Italian-Canadian Narratives of Return "Using perspectives from translation studies, narrative theory and diaspora studies, Michela Baldo traces the complex trajectories that link writing and identity in the work of leading Italian Canadian authors Mary Melfi, Frank Paci and Nino Ricci. Translation, understood both as a metaphor and as set of practices, is at the core of those journeys: it allows diasporic narratives to travel repeatedly between Italy and Canada, sustaining the multiple returns imagined by their authors."

Research paper thumbnail of Queer Translation as Performative and Affective Un-doing

Routledge eBooks, Sep 22, 2017