Pre-conference event

Among the main objectives of AIA (Associazione Italiana di Anglistica ­– Italian Association for English Studies) is to promote and encourage English Studies in Italy, supporting and coordinating academic research in this field and facilitating contact among scholars at the national and international level. The most important instrument in this regard is the Association’s biannual conference, hosted by a different university every two years. This event is perhaps the main point of convergence for scholars involved in English Studies and offers a significant opportunity for meeting, exchange and debate among academics in the three main areas of research represented by the Association: Literature, Culture, and Language.

Drawing inspiration from the experience of the XXIX AIA Conference, hosted by the University of Padua, the AIA Pre-Conference Symposium for Early-Career Researchers 2022 seeks continuity in contributing to the academic aims of the Association by creating a moment open to everyone, but which is dedicated in particular to doctoral, post-doctoral and fixed-term researchers. The aim of the Symposium is to promote reflection on the themes the young researchers are investigating in their own universities, creating an institutional forum for exchange and discussion, an opportunity for sharing information, approaches, discoveries and first results.

The Symposium, presented and coordinated by members of the AIA Board and the Academic Programme Committee of AIA 30, will be articulated in a series of round tables in which the young scholars will illustrate their research and after which there will be discussion, also coordinated by young representatives from each area.

This moment of academic exchange will be rendered particularly fruitful by the fact that the participants will be invited to share their presentations before the Symposium, so as to encourage and favour pertinent questions and considered reflection. The concluding observations from the area representatives will function as syntheses of the various sessions, thus providing an overview of research in contemporary English Studies and, at the same time, favouring constructive and interdisciplinary dissemination.

On this basis, this year’s edition of the Symposium will take place at the University of Catania’s Ragusa campus for Modern Languages and Literatures on 14 September 2022, the day before the opening of the 30 AIA Conference, “Experiment and Innovation: Branching Forwards and Backwards” (Catania, 15–17 September 2022). Transfer to Catania will be taken care of by the conference’s Local Organizing Committee.

How to participate:

Young researchers who are current paid-up members of the Association are invited to present a proposal (300 words maximum) describing their research, with particular reference to theoretical­–methodological structure, analytical activity and expected or achieved results.

This abstract, complete with personal details (name, affiliation, position, email) must be sent to aiasegreteria@unict.it by 23 April 2022.