This volume celebrates fifty years of NeMLA's important presence in the world of academia with a collection of essays that adopt a transnational critical lens. With the present selection, we intend to add our voices to the ongoing debate centered on the renegotiation of space, national, and cultural geographies; to foster both the re-thinking of language(s) and literature(s) not exclusively in English and the study of race, gender, sexuality, and class within and across national boundaries. Most pertinently for this collection, we hope to add meaningful material to produce new theoretical paradigms and to rethink the role and significance of the humanities in today's world. In this light, 'Transnational Spaces: Celebrating Fifty Years of Literary, Cultural, and Language Intersections at NeMLA' offers a contribution to the study of our present, transnational condition, from the point of view of an organization, the 'Northeast Modern Language Association', that since its inception in 1969, has sought to provide a space of encounter, debate, and open intellectual exchange for all its members as well as for the academe at large. The essays contained in this volume emphasize the interdependency and interrelations engendered by the globalized world in which we live, highlighting the possibility to create new knowledge and forms of understanding across the boundaries of nationhood and region. At the same time, they remind us that the present situation calls for a radical self-examination of a history of systemic racism which continues to produce episodes of police brutality, rationalizes cultural and economic exclusion, and normalizes the incarceration of African Americans and "illegal" immigrants, including children and minorities. In this light, with this volume, we hope to have provided inclusive, egalitarian, and cosmopolitan spaces of encounter, exchange, and interrogation.
Mardorossian, Carine: - Carine Mardorossian is a Professor of English and Global Gender Studies at the University at Buffalo, SUNY where she specializes in postcolonial and Caribbean studies, feminist studies, creative nonfiction, and the medical humanities. Her first book, 'Reclaiming Difference: Caribbean Women Rewrite Postcolonialism', showed how Caribbean women writers help reframe the identities of race, gender, and nation as interrelated and contingent sites of difference. Her second book, 'Framing the Rape Victim: Gender and Agency Reconsidered', finds in Caribbean literature the answer to the impasse that has defined contemporary approaches to sexual violence. Her most recent book, 'Death is but a Dream: Finding Hope and Meaning at Life's End' (Penguin 2020), is co-authored with Christopher Kerr, MD and is a work of creative nonfiction that shows the centrality of the humanities to fields of specialized knowledge like medicine. She is currently completing a co-authored manuscript (with Veronica Wong) on Caribbean literature and the environment entitled 'Creolized Ecologies'.
Wright, Simona: - Simona Wright is a Professor of Italian at The College of New Jersey, where she directs the Italian program. She holds a Laurea in Germanistik from Ca' Foscari University (Venice, Italy) and a PhD in Italian Literature from Rutgers University. Her publications include a monograph on Italo Calvino, 'Calvino neobarocco' (Longo 1998), several articles on Italian women writers, contemporary Italian poetry, postcolonial literature and cinema, and Giacomo Leopardi. She is the co-editor of 'Contaminazioni culturali' (Vecchiarelli 2014), 'Attraversamenti culturali' (Cesati 2016), 'Mapping Leopardi' (Cambridge Scholars Press 2019), and 'Crocevia' (Led, 2022). Since 2006, she has been the editor of 'NeMLA Italian Studies' and has served on the editorial boards of Cambridge Scholars Press, ACLS, El-Ghibli, and 'Italica' online. Since 2013, she has co-organized the 'Intersections-Intersezioni Conference' (Turin and Florence, Italy) and has served twice on the Executive Board of NeMLA as President (2007-2011; 2017-2020).
