Call for papers| Who’s Afraid of Gender in Italy?
The American Association for Italian Studies is organizing a conference entitled Precarity/Care/Liberation in Sassari from June 3 to 5, 2026. The conference invites scholars to reflect on how Italian literature, cinema, art, politics, and history deal with conditions of vulnerability and instability, ethics and practices of care, and the possibilities for collective and individual liberation.
The panel “Who's Afraid of Gender in Italy?” invites contributions that explore the Italian debate on gender and sexual difference in its historical, cultural, and political dimensions. We seek to reconstruct the genealogy of these concepts, examine their appropriation in the media and political discourse, and imagine new forms of feminist, queer, and transfeminist alliance.
Articles addressing the following topics are welcomed:
- Genealogy of gender and sexual difference in Italian feminist thought
- Black, Marxist, queer, and transfeminist perspectives in Italy
- Thought on sexual difference and its local and global impact
- Radical, materialist, and lesbian feminisms and their controversial legacy in contemporary Italy
- Anti-gender rhetoric and trans-exclusive narratives in LGB communities
- Feminism, Catholicism, and the rhetoric of “gender ideology”
- The Zan bill, media representation, and LGBTQIA+ politics
- Emerging feminist, queer, and trans alliances and activism
- Comparative perspectives on Italy and transnational anti-gender movements
- The cultural politics of fear: why gender destabilizes Italian democracy
Proposals must include an abstract (200-250 words) and a brief presentation (100 words).
Proposal should be sent to the following addresses: amontalbano@ua.edu e eIrene.villa93@gmail.com.
Deadline: December 15, 2025.
Further information can be found in the attached poster.
