Edited by Akeel Almarai, Carla Bagna, Wafaa R. El Beith, 2022.

Link to open access:

Proceedings of the International Conference "Un itinerario tra Oriente e Occidente: la Via della Seta dal (e verso il) Mediterraneo", held in Cairo from 6 to 7 July 2019. Edited by Wafaa El Beih and Monica Biasolo. Link to open access:

This book addresses a dual and crucial issue in Europe today: the need to reconcile on the one hand the traditional discourse on common heritage with cultural diversity, and on the other the imperative to develop strategies that allow everyone to live in a different context from that of origin. The studies collected here therefore focus on the reconfiguration of Europe, in which contacts between different cultures and their interactions are accelerating and multiplying, once the transcultural dimension of transmission phenomena has been established as an important political factor of change that requires new conceptual tools and new methods of investigation.

This volume collects the results of some of the research conducted as part of the Jean Monnet/Erasmus Transcultural Europe in the Global World (TransEu) project, which questions the operativity of the "transculturality" concept mainly in the literary, transmedia and transdisciplinary fields . The field most represented here is the literary one, however declined in highly interdisciplinary research trajectories, since the very notion of "literary text" has in recent decades been subjected to increasingly strong extra-textual tensions, which if on the one hand they have undermined the traditional idea of ​​a literary text linked to elite knowledge, they have on the other hand amplified its presence, thanks to numerous transpositions and adaptations capable of connecting it with other artistic languages ​​and linguistic-cultural references different from those of its initial production context.

Diasporic Creativities is a bilingual volume made up of thirteen conversations between Humanities scholars and artists whose work focuses on the theme of migration and identity. The contributions in the collection embrace forms of production ranging from literature to visual arts, from cinema to theatrical performance, from podcasts to rap music, while debates on identity, language, migration, memory and citizenship emerge among the recurring themes. This volume is also an invitation to rethink creative and academic work in the Humanities as intrinsically linked to dialogue and collaboration. Each conversation focuses on Italy understood as a catalyst of meanings and artistic practices that develop in different and often unexpected directions, rather than as a geographically and culturally specific, homogeneous and delimited place. Likewise, the notion of Italian culture that emerges from these conversations is open, dynamic and intrinsically linked to the belief that research and creativity have a central role in imagining and building more righteous and inclusive societies.