CURRENTS. A Journal of Young English Philology Thought and Review, vol.1, no.1/2015 Ed. by E. Bodal, A. Jaskólska, N. Strehlau & M. Włudzik, www.currents.umk.pl ISSN 2449-8769 || All texts licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
Ewa Bodal
Nicolaus Copernicus University
TOWARDS NEW MODES OF CO-EXISTING? PARTNERSHIP ID-ENTITIE/S Editors: Antonella Riem Natale, Luisa Conti Camaiora, Maria Renata Dolce and Stefano Mercanti Title: Partnership Id-Entitie/s. Cultural and Literary Re-Inscription/s of the Feminine. Published: Udine: FORUM, 2010. Pages: 244; includes a DVD disc. Keywords: postcolonialism, postcolonial literatures, Aborginal peoples of Australia, art
As Antonella Riem Natale, Luisa Conti Camaiora, Maria Renata Dolce and Stefano Mercanti, the editors of Partnership Id-Entitie/s. Cultural and Literary Re-Inscriptions of the Feminine, declare in the introduction to the volume, their research project “aims at representing ‘other’ possible patterns of construction of the self and forms of coexistence generated by non-hierarchical relational processes in order to better understand and promote respect for the variety and complexity of world cultures, languages and literatures” (9–10). The 244page-long collection produced as one of the outcomes of this undertaking comprises texts, predominantly essays, created as a result of an international conference that took place at the University of Udine in early November 2009. The contributions are divided into three sections, where the “Id-Entities” invoked in the title of the volume are examined in the fields of world literatures, “writing, music and art,” and, finally, “education and language,” respectively. Within these areas, the contributors focus on such instances of products of human culture that invoke the notion of “partnership” in a particular manner, that is, texts which may be seen to propose different ways of situating the self than the dominant Eurocentric paradigm would allow, at times arguing directly against the typical framings of identity or agency. The first section, entitled Re-inscribing Id-Entities in World Literatures, constitutes a major part of the body of the collection, counting in itself over 130 200
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pages. The ten articles contained therein pertain to analyses of and reflections on selected works of English-language literature authored by writers from Australia, Africa, Canada, India, and, finally, Italy, Ireland and Great Britain. The contributors touch upon both relatively unknown authors—for instance, the Indigenous Australian poet, Romaine Moreton, discussed by Katherine E. Russo—and familiar names, such as William Blake, John Keats, or Augusta Gregory, whose works are herein explored by Milena Romero Allue, Luisa Conti Camaiora and Laura Pecoraro, respectively. Not infrequently, the articles in this section focus on matters relating to language and the way it is utilised to help construct an identity or a sense of agency; Antonella Riem Natale’s essay analyzing a lexicographer protagonist in a short story by David Malouf can be seen as especially notable in that regard. It is also worth remarking briefly on the texts whose authors take advantage of the universalising concept of “partnership id-entities” in order to reflect on how writers in particular localities approach the issue of inequality and strive to achieve a dynamic based on partnership between various groups in their homelands. Discussions pertaining to these issues can be found both in the essays on the subject of Indigenous Canadian and Australian writing (the former penned by Anna Pia De Luca, the latter—by Katherine E. Russo and Caterina Colomba), and in the texts reflecting on contemporary novel in South Africa (Maria Renata Dolce) and India (Stefano Mercanti). The reference to local specificity in these contributions serves to render the notion of “partnership id-entities,” and, indeed, the possibility of non-hierarchical co-existing, as extolled by the volume editors, more concrete as a whole. The five texts making up the second section, Re-imaging Id-Entities in Writing, Music and Art, broaden the scope of the volume by drawing the reader’s attention to discussions on the motif of consumption in opera (Linda and Michael Hutcheon), Christian religious imagery (Erika Di Bortolo Mel), as well as mythological female figures (Alessandro Grossato). Franca Cavagnoli’s contribution (in Italian), entitled Mbaquanga, constitutes, in fact, a fragment of 201
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her short story, while Gian Paolo Gri’s essay analyses feminine symbols in reference, among others, to the work of artists showcased during the conference, as well as some of the papers presented therein. Significantly, all four articles in English reflect on issues related to notions of femininity (as it can be perceived, for instance, in the figure of a consumptive heroine of an Italian opera), or mythical / religious iterations of femaleness, be it an archetypal Goddess, or Virgin Mary, reconfigured as “Our Lady of the Milk” (182). The three authors whose articles comprise the final section, Transforming Id-Entities in Education and Language, round up the issues contained in the volume by discussing them in more practical contexts of education and politics. In the field of education, Roberto Albarea examines the notions of competence and narration, while Alessandra Burelli devotes her essay to analyzing stories written by children in the Frulian region, focusing on the coexistence of nature and myth in these tales. The final article in the collection discusses the treatment of Indigenous peoples of Australia in the context of the apology issued towards them by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, as well as of the subsequent presence and representation of Indigenous Australians in public discourse, thus returning thematically to the problems explored in some of the essays in the first section of the tome. The volume is accompanied by a DVD disc, which serves to fill in the gaps with those elements of the conference which would have been impossible to reproduce in print form. Thus, a reader-turned-viewer may complement her encounter with the collection by watching the materials gathered on the disc, which include the opening addresses of the conference—starting and ending with a didgeridoo performance—and presentations by keynote speakers (a full speech delivered by Dhanggal Gurruwiwi, as well as a fragment of Linda and Michael Hutcheon’s paper on “The Consumptive Heroine in Opera” [163–174]). The DVD contains also short films documenting the artistic events that happened during the conference, such as a poetry reading, an art exhibition, 202
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dance and music performances, storytelling, as well as a traditional Aboriginal dance performance. The final component of the disc is a beautiful documentary movie entitled Sa Terra e su Chelu, directed by Diego Asproni, available, unfortunately, only in its original Italian language version. As this brief overview shows, the texts collected in Partnership Id-Entitie/s. Cultural and Literary Re-Inscriptions of the Feminine touch upon a wide variety of subjects connected with formation of identity and/or subjectivity in a milieu that perhaps has not yet been quite thoroughly suffused with the possibility of a partnership dynamic between differing groups or individuals. While the editors of the collection maintain that the volume contains “the most recent investigations into the cultural evolution of Western societies, underlying the tension between ‘equalitarian’ and ‘dominator’ modes of living” (9), it is worth noting that the book also explores many writings from the outside or the periphery of said Western societies. Indeed, the de-centring impulses found in many essays collected in Partnership Id-Entitie/s, as well as the focus on the Aboriginal population of Australia—as a subject recurring both in the volume proper and on the accompanying DVD disc—constitute some of the book’s most intriguing points. As a whole, Partnership Id-Entitie/s. Cultural and Literary ReInscription/s of the Feminine may be perceived as an engaging and worthwhile endeavour, especially relevant to the interests of scholars of postcolonial studies wishing to further their knowledge with somewhat unconventional cross-cultural reflection.
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