Starting on Wednesday, May 7, the Department of Humanities at the University of Trieste will host SpringBookS. Dialogues on Literary Theory and Cultural Criticism, a series of events curated by Sergia Adamo, Francesca D’Alessio, Tommaso Dal Monte, and Iwan Paolini. The series will continue with six more meetings through June 23.

The invited guests will discuss their editorial activities, publications, and research projects, all of which establish a dialogue between the present and the thought of key figures from twentieth-century literary and cultural history, including Auerbach, Haraway, Pasolini, and Lonzi.

The first event will be held at 6:00 PM in Room 6 of the DiSU building (Via del Lazzaretto Vecchio 8), and will feature a presentation of the publishing house Triestiana by its president, Laurent Feneyrou, in conversation with Elvio Guagnini, Professor Emeritus of Italian Literature at the University of Trieste.

Founded in 2021, Triestiana specializes in the translation into French of poetry from Trieste and its surroundings. Its catalogue already includes prominent names such as Virgilio Giotti and Biagio Marin.

Elvio Guagnini has extensively explored the relationship between poetry and science, as well as the scientific and philosophical poem in the eighteenth century, the Italian novel of the eighteenth century, travel literature from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, the issue of Italian detective fiction, and borderland literature. He has always devoted special attention to Triestine and Julian literature from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, to which he has dedicated numerous publications and editorial projects.

In addition to being president of Triestiana, Laurent Feneyrou is a researcher at the CNRS, secretary of the Salabert Foundation, and a member of both the Académie Charles Cros and the Scientific Committee of the Levi Foundation (Venice). He is also an editor of composers’ writings, the author of numerous musicology essays—focused both on the relationship between music and politics and on theories of musical composition in the twentieth century—and a translator of poets from Trieste and the surrounding area.

Updates on times and locations of the upcoming meetings will be published on the DiSU social media pages and on the University of Trieste’s website.