During Autumn quarter 2023, the Department of French & Italian Studies hosted and sponsored a number of activities across campus. Here is a wrap up of the events we hosted in addition to which events to look forward to in Winter quarter.
Dawg Daze 2023
This year, the department had two Dawg Daze events. On September 22nd, we hosted a Bocce vs. Petanque game in the Quad field. During these games, students learned how to play Bocce and Petanque under the guidance of our faculty and graduate students. Our second event, on September 25th, was a round of French & Italian Studies trivia. The game was set up like a game of Jeopardy, asking groups of students to compete to answer questions in one of six categories the quickest. The events were a success and were even featured on the College of Arts and Sciences Instagram page.
FIS Holiday Open House
On November 30th, FIS hosted our first Holiday Open House! Students from across campus came to celebrate the end of the quarter while mingling with peers and faculty from FIS. They also had the opportunity to learn about two upcoming study abroad opportunities, Perugia and Nante, from faculty at the event. We look forward to holding this event again in the future.
Scriptor in Fabula: Dante’s Books Between Materiality and Textuality
On November 16th, guest speaker Franceso Marco Aresu, Assistant Professor of Italian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, gave a talk titled Scriptor in Fabula: Dante’s Books between Materiality and Textuality. In this talk, Aresu discussed how the Vita nova and the Commedia offer statements on the act and process of narration, thematize their own internal articulations and communicational scenarios, textualize their author’s interactions with his audience, provide interpretive guidelines for the readers, and allude to their intended book form. This talk examines how the Vita nova’s and the Commedia’s structural metatextuality and references to their anticipated (and hoped-for) materiality intersect with the early manuscript tradition of these works and with medieval Italian scribal culture.
Invoking the Invisible in the Sahara: Islam, Spiritual Meditation, and Social Change
On December 4th, Erin Pettigrew, associate professor of History and Arab Crossroads Studies at NYU Abu Dhabi, gave a talk sponsored by African Studies and the Department of French & Italian Studies. In her talk, Pettigrew presented her book Invoking the Invisible in the Sahara, which utilizes invisible forces and entities - esoteric knowledge and spirits - to show how these forms of knowledge and unseen forces have shaped social structures, religious norms, and political power in the Saharan west. Situating this ethnographic history in what became la Mauritanie under French colonial rule, and later the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, the book traces the changing roles of Muslim spiritual mediators and their Islamic esoteric sciences - known locally as l’ḥjāb - over the long-term history of the region. By exploring the impact of the immaterial in the material world and demonstrating the importance of Islamic esoteric sciences in Saharan societies, the book illuminates peoples’ enduring reliance upon these sciences in their daily lives and argues for a new approach to historical research that takes the immaterial seriously.
Upcoming Winter Events
Here is a sampling of our upcoming Winter events! For all events and up to date information, please keep an eye out on our website and Instagram.
- Study Abroad Fair- Thursday, January 18, 2024 from 10am-2pm in the HUB North Ballroom. This event is free and open to all UW students, staff, and faculty. At the fair, we will be promoting our Autumn in Nantes program as well as our newest program, Italian Studies Perugia: Art & Food in the Green Heart of Italy. Stop by to meet faculty and gather information on these upcoming programs!
- “Soirée Québec”- Wednesday, February 21st (TBC). Co-sponsored by FIS and the Center for Canadian Studies and by the Québec Ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie. They will be showing a film titled “Après la Romaine”, have a discussion related to the movie, and serve refreshments.