The Call for Papers can be downloaded here.
Carlo Collodi’s Le avventure di Pinocchio. Storia di un burattino is one of the most popular Italian literary works ever written. Being translated into hundreds of languages, the puppet’s story is known virtually everywhere across the globe. However, Pinocchio not only survives in book form but permeates all media. As the puppet metamorphosizes into other beings, the story seems capable of adapting to new forms and new historical contexts. Pinocchio as a transmedial figure has also been at the core of a variety of critical studies across different academic fields. Such a multitude of perspectives and readings prompts us to reflect on how and why Collodi’s story continues to pull the strings of our imagination.
The aim of this conference is thus to bring together the latest investigations on Pinocchio’s world within and beyond its literary matrix: from the history of the text, its reception, and dissemination, to the commercial success of Le avventure di Pinocchio in its various forms; from the relevance of Pinocchio as a made-in-Italy brand exported abroad to the most recent approaches to its afterlives in the new millennium, across different media, languages and cultures. We therefore invite papers that may include, but are not limited to, an investigation of the following themes:
- Carlo Collodi and the making of Le avventure di Pinocchio
- Literary and philosophical interpretations of Le avventure di Pinocchio
- Pinocchiate and the legacy of Pinocchio in children’s literature
- Pinocchiologies: meta-critical reflections on scholarly works about Pinocchio
- The afterlives of secondary characters from Le avventure di Pinocchio
- Real places and imagined spaces in Le avventure di Pinocchio
- Historical and socio-cultural perspectives in and beyond Le avventure di Pinocchio
- Satire, parody, irony and humor in Le avventure di Pinocchio and its adaptations
- Translations of Le avventure di Pinocchio in other languages
- Remediations of Pinocchio in different cultural traditions
- The folklore of Pinocchio
- Pinocchio as a fairy tale, fairy tales in Pinocchio
- Local, regional and global perspectives on Pinocchio
- Pinocchio as a made-in-Italy brand
- Art and craftsmanship inspired by Pinocchio
- Transmedial, intermedial and cross-medial approaches to Pinocchio
- Pinocchio in cinema, theatre, music, comics and graphic novels
- Pedagogical, psychological and psychoanalytical approaches to Pinocchio
- Political power and authority in Pinocchio
- Gothic Pinocchio
- Pinocchio, digital humanities and artificial intelligence
- Pinocchio and science fiction: puppets and cyborgs
- Postmodernist, posthuman, eco-critical and gender perspectives on Pinocchio
We welcome submissions of abstracts (max. 300 words) for 20-minute papers, followed by a short biographical note. The working languages of the conference are English and Italian. Please submit your proposal in either language to the conference organizers Pablo a Marca and Elena Sottilotta at stringsofimagination@gmail.com. The deadline for submission is 31 May 2024. Notification of inclusion will be sent by the end of June.
We intend to publish a special issue or edited volume after the event. We look forward to receiving your proposals.