Call for Papers
REGISTER HERE FOR THE 57TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE AT MONTCLAIR
57th Annual IASA Conference
Montclair State University
University Hall Conference Center
Nov. 6-9, 2025
Call for Papers
Submit by Monday, April 21, 2025 May 5th, 2025
Intersecting Transitalia in Communities: Nation(s), Transnation(s), Neighborhood(s)
Conference Theme: The theme of this year’s conference is community in the Italian diaspora, historically and in the present day. The programs and panels of this conference will explore how, historically, Italians have worked in building their local communities and how they have attempted (successfully or not) to bridge (linguistic, cultural, etc.) gaps across communities throughout the country or even the world.
The conference committee welcomes individual papers and full panels that engage with the diversity within and between communities, broadly defined, within the diaspora. The conference is open to scholars from all disciplines, creative writers and artists, translators, and members of the surrounding Montclair communities.
The conference committee will consider proposals that do not specifically address but may complement this year’s conference theme. Organized panels should feature no more than three presenters (or creative writers or artists, as the case may be), not including the chair and respondent. All presentations are limited to 15-20 minutes based on the number of people on the panel.
Proposals should include a 250-word abstract for each paper and a 75-word bio for each participant, including chairs and respondents, and for all participants in a proposed panel. Each participant’s name, affiliation, email, and preferred address should be listed. Please indicate if the presenter/panel requires AV equipment (each room has a computer, a projector, and speakers). The Conference Committee will send an email notification of acceptance for individual abstracts or proposed panels through Submittable by May 15, 2025.
Possible themes and topics include but are not limited to:
- Workers (e.g., Urban Industries, Coal Mining, Masonry, Railroad Lines)
- Politics, Unions, and Anarchist groups
- Italian American Protest (Civil Rights Movement)
- Italy Made in America
- Translation, Dialect, and Linguistic Perspectives
- Italian ‘American’ Creative Voices (All Genres Welcome)
- Italian Americans Youth Culture (Social Media, TikTok)
- Italian American Sports Figures and Contributions
- Social Communities: Bocce, Caffes, Operas, Social Clubs
- Newspapers and Other Print Cultures
- Religious Festivals and Traditions: Black Madonnas, San Gennaro, & Presepi
- Italian Americans and Native Americans (Alliances and Common Ground)
- Multi-Ethnic Neighborhoods (Black and Italian; Hispanic and Italian)
- Multilingual Communities and Pedagogies (Heritage Learners, Romance Language Speakers)
- Labor Museum in Haledon (Botto House)
- Società di Mutuo soccorso
Hotel Information
Up-to-date Conference Program Draft
Presenter Bios
Bio: Mary Jo Bona is SUNY Distinguished Professor Emerita of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies and English at Stony Brook University. A specialist in the field of Italian American/diaspora studies, multiethnic American literature, and feminist literary studies, her authored books include Mothers, Mobility, Narrative: Maternality in US Literature; Women Writing Cloth: Migratory Fictions in the American Imaginary; By the Breath of Their Mouths: Narratives of Resistance in Italian America; Claiming a Tradition: Italian American Women Writers, and a book of poetry, I Stop Waiting For You. Bona is also editor of The Voices We Carry: Recent Italian American Women’s Fiction and co-editor (with Irma Maini) of Multiethnic Literature and Canon Debates. Bona is the series editor of Multiethnic Literatures for State University of New York (SUNY) Press.
Keynote
Mary Jo Bona
Distinguished SUNY Professor Emerita
Dept. of Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies
Affiliate, Department of English
Stony Brook, New York
Title: "Matrilineal Desire and Geographies of Return in Multi-[Italian] America"
Bio: Mary Jo Bona is SUNY Distinguished Professor Emerita of Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies and English at Stony Brook University. A specialist in the field of Italian American/diaspora studies, multiethnic American literature, and feminist literary studies, her authored books include Mothers, Mobility, Narrative: Maternality in US Literature; Women Writing Cloth: Migratory Fictions in the American Imaginary; By the Breath of Their Mouths: Narratives of Resistance in Italian America; Claiming a Tradition: Italian American Women Writers, and a book of poetry, I Stop Waiting For You. Bona is also editor of The Voices We Carry: Recent Italian American Women’s Fiction and co-editor (with Irma Maini) of Multiethnic Literature and Canon Debates. Bona is the series editor of Multiethnic Literatures for State University of New York (SUNY) Press.
Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Bio: Maria Mazziotti Gillan is an artist, poet, and professor. She is the Founder and Executive Director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, New Jersey, and is the founding editor of the Paterson Literary Review. Gillan is a Bartle Professor and Professor Emerita of English and creative writing at Binghamton University-SUNY. She has published more than 20 books of poetry and four literature anthologies. A collection of her poems, along with a selection of her paintings, was published as The Girls in the Chartreuse Jackets. Her most recent poetry collection is When the Stars Were Still Visible (2021). Her poetry and photography collaboration with Mark Hillringhouse is Paterson Light and Shadow. Gillan is the recipient of the 2014 George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature from AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Programs), the 2011 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers, and the 2008 American Book Award for her book, All That Lies Between Us (Guernica Editions).