Studies on Cultural, Linguistic and Literary Adaptation
Project
The Department of Comparative Linguistic and Cultural Studies (DSLCC) has been reconfirmed as a Department of Excellence by the MUR for the five-year period 2023–2027. The Department is, in particular, excellent in the theoretical and empirical study of modern languages, cultures and literatures as universal heritage to be protected, promoted and transmitted to future generations, as a fundamental right of individuals and communities, and as a driver of social and cultural innovation.
The project of the Department of Comparative Linguistic and Cultural Studies (DSLCC) as a Department of Excellence has received funding from the Ministry of University and Research of €7,879,605.
The project aims to make the DSLCC a centre of excellence in the study of cultural, linguistic and literary adaptation processes, using the key anthropological concept/frame of Adaptation/Adaptability to address the multiple transformations of the human and social environment.
The project will focus on:
- diverse modes of transformation of texts, genres and forms across centuries and geographical areas, from a transnational and global perspective. The interplay with historical and international fields will allow for a deeper study of the contexts of transformation and adaptation as a form of response to crises by human societies.
- language adaptation, in the interaction of languages with their contexts and the development of linguistic varieties with features of inclusivity.
The ICARHUS Centre
At the heart of the ICARHUS Research Centre - Innovation Center for Adaptation Research into Humanities and Literary Studies - is an audio recording studio for the production of podcasts and other multimedia materials in European languages, as an experimentation with and use of new communicative tools to transmit and disseminate humanistic knowledge in ways that adapt to the challenges of a new eco-modernity.
To use the audio recording studio, Ca' Foscari internal staff must make a booking in advance; bookings for external users will be available soon.
Podcasts
Podcasts represent an important tool for conveying the interdisciplinary and innovative content emerging from the Project's research. Podcasts allow us to adapt our research topics to reach the widest possible audience, including non-specialists. The Department works in collaboration with storielibere.fm [ITA] for the production of series distributed on the main platforms. Podcasts can also serve as a useful teaching tool, involving collaboration with students through workshops connected to our courses.
“Dietro la Storia”
Dietro la Storia is a journey through the myth and life of Giacomo Casanova, an eighteenth-century Venetian, adventurer, writer, and restless observer of his time. Our guide is Antonio Trampus, Professor of Modern History at Ca' Foscari, who has spent over thirty years tracing Casanova's footsteps through archives and manuscripts to separate truth from legend. In his Memorie, there is far more than the celebrated seducer: there are passions and duels, but also solitude, ingenuity, and the struggle of a man searching for his place in the world. Together with Ca' Foscari students, the podcast reopens the pages of the Memorie to discover what truly lies behind history.
“Il diritto di pensare”
In this podcast, Mena Mitrano - Professor of Anglo-American Literatures at Ca' Foscari University of Venice - guides us through the work of six great women thinkers who have redefined the meaning of citizenship beyond the boundaries of nation, ethnicity and territory. Susan Sontag, Gloria Anzaldúa, María Zambrano, Eve Sedgwick, Hannah Arendt, Angela Putino. Through six keywords and six remarkable intellectual journeys, Il Diritto di Pensare explores citizenship as an elemental passion of belonging: to thought, language, community, and the world. A journey that returns inclusion to us as a shared heritage, to be questioned and lived every day.
“Kill Will”
Shakespeare is closer than you might think. Forget young men in tights holding skulls: he shows us family vendettas, furious jealousies, battles of the sexes, and fathers reluctant to relinquish power to the young – this is how his stories still speak to us. Our guide on this journey is Laura Tosi, Full Professor of English Literature at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, who leads us episode by episode through Shakespeare's great plays to show just how alive, recognisable and relevant they remain. From Hamlet to King Lear, from Othello to The Tempest: a journey through passion, power and identity that spans the centuries - and might even offer a few tips for surviving the present.
“Chi ben comincia”
Pia Masiero, Professor of North American Literature, and five other faculty members from Ca' Foscari University of Venice, discuss the openings of well-known and lesser-known texts in the podcast Chi ben comincia, produced by Ca' Foscari University of Venice in collaboration with Storielibere.fm.
