Agenda

On the centenary of the birth of Italo Calvino (eminent writer of the twentieth century, born in Cuba in 1923 and died in Siena in 1985) the Department of Comparative Linguistic and Cultural Studies and the SICL promote the International Conference «Italo Calvino, the arts, the sciences», which will be held in Venice on the 28th, 29th and
November 30, 2023. The hope is that the critical work on the great Ligurian author, who was fond of Paris and Venice, will take on a new, more organic, articulated and complete than previously, exploring an interdisciplinary cross-section of his operates according to a hitherto unprecedented approach which forced the organizers, given the high number of participants received, to add an extra day compared to the two days of work initially planned. In fact, if what is already known finds an unprecedented refinement, much else will be proposed and proposed for studies and research beyond to come. We will investigate among the papers, the correspondence, the many correspondences from Italy and abroad to document aspects never before attempted Calvino's writing and biography. In many interventions the unmistakable trait of the style will be analysed, as well as the important interpretative node on the authentic figure of the novel even of generally less frequented titles. From the neorealist beginnings to the Trilogy of our ancestors, from the stories and novels of the great "Boom" to Ti con zero and Le cosmic comics, from The Castle of Crossed Destinies and Invisible Cities to If a Traveler on a Winter's Night and Palomar, an Account Will Be Given over a forty-year period. Several contributions concern Calvino's cultural background, his love for French (Ponge) and English (Conrad) authors
South Americans (Cortazar), the solicitations of philosophy and contemporary art (from structuralism to comics to music by Luciano Berio). Still others shed light on Calvino's fortune in the countries of the former Soviet bloc, through the Polish translations of Italian fairy tales. There is no lack of attention to Calvino's relationship with Venice as a place and as a symbol
The profile of a writer who was also a full-fledged intellectual emerges, intent on questioning the infinite contradictions of the present and to reflect on the apparently irredeemable crisis of history. 

Many, of different backgrounds and backgrounds, have, as already mentioned, responded to the charm and nostalgia of one one of the most beloved writers of the twentieth century, not only Italian. To them, to the Italian Society of Literary Comparative Studies and to those who worked on the preparation of the Conference deserve the gratitude of those who, even in Venice, love Italo Calvino and awaits its adequate re-enactment.

In collaboration with: Società Italiana di Comparatistica Letterari, Accademia Belle Arti