From risorgimento to resistance: intergenerational female literary legacy in the Collier-Galletti-Salvadori Family
Submitting Institution
Bishop Grosseteste UniversityUnit of Assessment
English Language and LiteratureSummary Impact Type
CulturalResearch Subject Area(s)
Language, Communication and Culture: Cultural Studies, Literary Studies
History and Archaeology: Historical Studies
Summary of the impact
The impact of this case study is located in uncovering the contribution
of Margaret Collier to the Anglo-Italian literary and cultural relations
from Risorgimento to Resistance through her individual initiative as well
as her legacy in the literary works and political commitment of her
daughter, Giacinta Galletti, and grand-daughter, Joyce Salvadori. Impact
is achieved through disseminating and promoting the understanding of this
lesser-known intergenerational female legacy nationally and
internationally through publications, conferences, and lectures in public
domains; in translating texts previously available only in Italian; in
broadening the knowledge of nineteenth- and twentieth-century British
literary communities in Italy; and in deepening the understanding of
concepts of nationality, multiculturalism, migration, otherness and
difference.
Underpinning research
This case study originated from a doctorate funded by the AHRC
(competition B) and the Faculty of Arts and Social Science of the
University of Hull (maintenance). At the University of Hull, it was also
supported by the Carl Baron Memorial Fund (2002, 2004) and the Faculty of
Arts Research Fund (2002, 2003, 2004) for fieldwork and the participation
in the international debates on women's writing and intertextuality. It is
indebted to the British Academy funded, `European Intertexts' project
(2000-2004) that encouraged Capancioni's first publication on Joyce
Salvadori in 2006 (`"Border-crossing" English: The Poetic Communications
of Joyce Lussu', in Macedo, A. G. & Pereira, Esteves M. (eds), Identity
and Cultural Translation: Writing Across the Borders of Englishness,
Peter Lang, pp. 87-94) and on antifascism, a subject central to the
Collier-Galletti-Salvadori's intergenerational Anglo-Italian literary and
cultural legacy (2006,`From Independence to Fascism: British Women Writers
Depicting Italy in the Interwar Period', in Russell, E. (ed.), Loving
against the Odds, Peter Lang, pp. 195-205).
The publication of the first article based on Capancioni's successful
doctoral thesis `Anglo-Italian Literary Identity in the Writings of
Margaret Collier, Giacinta Galletti and Joyce Salvadori', was in 2007.
Since then she has engaged with lay and academic audiences through
conferences, research seminars, collaborations, public talks and
consultancy taking place in the UK and abroad, and as a member of The
British Association of Victorian Studies, The Midlands Interdisciplinary
Victorian Studies Seminar and the Lincoln-based, Nineteenth-Century
Research Group, the Centro Studi Joyce Lussu (Joyce Lussu Research Centre)
and Urbinoir.
Since 2010, her project has been evolving at Bishop Grosseteste
University by means of presenting work through Academic Conference or
Other Research Activity Fund Scheme (2011, 2012) and the RAE Project Award
Scheme (£1,000 in 2010). The latter funded archival research at the Harold
Acton Library, Florence, Italy, that resulted in an emphasis on the wider
implications of Collier's contribution to Victorian women's responses to
Italy challenging a predominant romanticised fictional portrait of
pre-unification Italy. Many are the prominent scholars who have studied
the contribution of women writers, artists and journalists to Italy's
quest for independence favouring the first half of the nineteenth century
until what has been defined as a pivotal year, 1859, therefore a time
prior to the Italian unification. Her project focuses on engagement with
Italian political actuality and the emergency of Italian identity as a
nation after the country's unification; it brings to light the ways in
which British women writers continued their commitment to Italy's quest
for liberty, equality and progress by turning their attention to the
Italians. It broadens the knowledge of late nineteenth-century British
literary communities in Italy and deepens the understanding of the Risorgimento
in the context of Anglo-Italian cultural and literary relations
contributing to our understanding of women's writing, multiculturalism and
nationhood, and the aesthetics and politics of Anglo-Italian literary
communities by covering the work of lesser-known writers. This new
direction is illustrated in Anglistica Pisana (2012).
References to the research
Capancioni, C. (2012) `Sherlock Holmes, Italian Anarchists and Torpedoes:
The Case of a Manuscript Recovered in Italy', in Vanacker, Sabine and
Wynne, Catherine (eds), The Cultural Afterlives of Sherlock Holmes and
Arthur Conan Doyle: Representations Across the Media, Palgrave [ISBN
978-0-230-30050-7]
`Capancioni's essay proves an inspiring journey into a different cultural
imaginary and into Italian politics of adaptation.' Boehm-Schnitker,
Nadine, Neo-Victorian Studies 5:2 (2012, p. 222)
Capancioni, C. (2012) `"The strong patriotism with which the hearts of
all Italians beat has made them one nation": the Risorgimento in
the writings of Margaret Collier', Anglistica Pisana IX: 1 - 2
[ISBN: 9788846735300]
Capancioni, C. (2012) `Joyce Lussu's "Africa, Out of Portugal":
translating José Craveirinha, Kaoberdiano Dambarà, Marcelino dos Santos,
Agostinho Neto, and Alexander O'Neill in Italian', Scientia
Traductionis, published at the Universidade Federal de Santa
Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil http://www.periodicos.ufsc.br/index.php/scientia/article/view/1980-4237.2012n11p245
Capancioni, C. (2011) `Travelling and Translation: Joyce Lussu as a
Feminist Cultural Mediator', in Federici, Eleonora (ed.) Translating
Gender, Oxford, Bruxelles: Peter Lang, pp. 177-187. [ISBN
978-3-0343-0405-4 pb.; ISBN 978-3-03451-0198-0 eBook]
`and Claudia Capancioni's essay on the crucial role of the translator
Joyce Lussu (1912-1998) in opening up selected Anglophone texts to an
Italian readership'. Castro, Oolga, Translation Studies 5:3 (2012,
p.377)
Capancioni, C. (2009) `"L'altro lato d'Italia": viaggiatrici britanniche
alla scoperta delle Marche nell'Ottocento', in Brilli, Attilio and
Federici, Elisabetta (eds) Il viaggio e I viaggiatori in età moderna:
gli inglesi in Italia e le avventure dei viaggiatori italiani,
Edizioni Pendragon, pp. 193-215. [ISBN 978-88-8342-701-5]
Capancioni, C. (2007) `Transmitting Difference: An Anglo-Italian Female
Tradition in Joyce Salvadori Lussu's Literary Investigation', in Giorgio,
Adalgisa, and Marsh, Rosalind (eds.), Women's Writing in Western
Europe: Gender, Generation and Legacy, Cambridge Scholars Press, pp.
279-293. [ISBN 9781847181657] http://www.c-s-p.org/flyers/9781847181657-sample.pdf
Details of the impact
The research captured by this case study impacted nationally and
internationally in cultural life by influencing the dissemination and
promotion of an understanding of the literary production of Margaret
Galletti di Cadilhac, née Collier (1856 - 1928), Giacinta Salvadori, née
Galletti (1875 - 960) and Joyce Lussu, née Salvadori (1912 - 1998); the
commemoration of their contribution to Anglo-Italian relations and
European history from Risorgimento to Resistance; and the accessibility to
some of their works written in Italian. It impacted also in the
development of ways in which these women's multiculturalism, antifascism
and anti-colonialism, benefit local, national and international people,
communities and institutions by deepening the understanding of concepts of
nationality, migration, and difference.
The study of the literary production of Collier, Galletti and Salvadori
was disseminated and promoted through public national and international
engagement with projects, conferences, lectures and commemoration events
which Capancioni was invited to, consulted about and participated in as a
keynote speaker. Papers on Collier (2008; 2009; 2010; 2011; 2012; 2013)
and Salvadori (2009; 2010; 2012) were regularly presented to international
audiences. Most of these venues included the wider public. However, this
impact case highlights four among them that enthused an understanding of
the Collier-Galletti-Salvadoris' Anglo-Italian intergenerational
historical, literary and cultural legacy by reaching lay audiences in the
Italian region where their descendants still reside, where their legacy
has historical as well as literary value as it describes a changing time
in the rural southern province of the Marche by the Adriatic coast as
Italy moved from unification to the end of the twentieth century. This
proves to be an area rarely explored by travellers or tourists, and rarely
mentioned in literary English or Italian accounts. In 2007, Prof. Ruggero
Ranieri's invitation to `Travel and Travellers in the Modern Age. The
discovery of Italy in the English-Speaking World and the Adventures of
Italian Travellers', an international conference organised by the
Uguccione Ranieri di Sorbello Foundation and held in Perugia, Italy (10-12
May), as a fully-funded guest speaker expert in British women writer and
the Marche revealed the originality of Capancioni's research. Her
contribution, delivered in Italian to facilitate the lay audience,
resulted in a publication in Italian (2009) included in a volume edited by
Italy's leading expert in the history of travel writing and travellers to
Italy, Prof. Attilio Brilli (http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/attilio-brilli/).
The event was reported by the local university (http://www.suef.unipg.it/articolo.php?id=27)
and the Italian local and regional media (Nel Centro Online: http://www.nelcentroonline.it/index.php).
The volume was launched in two Italian universities, University of Bologna
and that of Macerata (11/05/2010; & 09/12/2009) and is now available
in libraries world wide.
At the conference `Women Travellers in Italy' (13 February 2008, Centre
for Travel Writing Studies, Nottingham Trent University, UK), Capancioni's
paper on Collier's published and unpublished writing eased connections
with Italian and British historians interested in the Risorgimento that
resulted in an invitation to one of the events celebrating the anniversary
of the Italian unification in 2011. `Art, Literature, The Press and Exile:
Relationships between the United Kingdom and the Italian Risorgimento' was
an international congress organised by the Michel de Montaigne Foundation,
the University of Pisa, the Istituto Storico Lucchese (Lucca's
Historical Institute), and sponsored by the Municipality of Bagni di
Lucca, Italy, where it took place (9-11 September). It was covered by the
Italian local and national media (http://iltirreno.gelocal.it/livorno;
http://www.luccaterre.it/it/dettaglio/6032/Arte-Letteratura-Stampa-ed-Esilio-rapporti-tra-il-Regno-
Unito-e-il-Risorgimento-Italiano.html; http://federlombardaedilizia.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/9-10-11-settembre-p-v-convegno-internazionale-risorgimento-italiano/).
Capancioni's dissemination, promotion and understanding of Salvadori's
historical and literary contribution began developing an international
impact when the Centro Studi Joyce Lussu (Lussu's Centre for Studies,
located in Porto San Giorgio, in the Marche, Italy, where the
Collier-Galletti-Salvadoris lived) gave her an opportunity to partake as
an adviser in the project which led to Salvadori's biography Biografia
e Bibliografia Ragionate di Joyce Lussu (Joyce Lussu's Reflective
Biography and Bibliography, ISSN 17215269). This was authored by Antonia
Langiù and Gilda Traini, and published in 2008 with the sponsorship of the
Marche Region to commemorate ten years from her death. Two regions where
Salvadori lived and studied local traditions and female storytelling:
Marche and Sardinia celebrated it, and in May 2009, it was launched at the
most important national Italian book fair in Turin, Fiera del Libro di
Torino.
In 2008, Capancioni also collaborated on a publishing project led and
edited by Dott. Giorgio Mangani that commemorated Salvadori's work ten
years after the death. It was sponsored by the publishing house Il Lavoro
Editoriale, where he works. Capancioni advised him on the selection of the
texts to be included in the anthology entitled Joyce Lussu Opere
Scelte (Selected works by Joyce Lussu, 2008, ISBN 978 8876634215, http://www.lavoroeditoriale.com/estratti/Joyce_Lussu-Opere-scelte-estratto.pdf).
This
gives access to some of Salvadori's most important works, including her
autobiographical account of the Italian Resistance, and others that were
out-of-print. It is available as an eBook and Kindle edition (ISBN-13:
9788876634215).The relevance of Salvadori's legacy on women and equality,
political resistance and freedom, post-colonialism and multiculturalism
was emphasised in 2012 by the decision of the Municipality of Fermo, where
she lived from the 1970s to her death, to commemorate her hundredth
birthday by donating a copy of this anthology to all high schools of its
territory (local and regional media reports: Piceno 33 http://www.primapaginaonline.it/fermano/un-omaggio-a-joyce-lussu;
InfoFermo.it http://www.infofermo.it/2012/12/18/la-provincia-dona-le-%E2%80%9Copere-scelte%E2%80%9D-di-joyce-lussu-a-tutte-le-scuole-superiori-e-alle-biblioteche-del-territorio/).
In
2005 Capancioni's bilingualism had already secured her collaboration as a
translator to an English publishing project of Il Lavoro Editoriale, led
and edited by Mangani The English in The Marche (ISBN 88 7663 388X
http://www.lavoroeditoriale.com/estratti/The_English_in_the_marche-estratto.pdf).
She translated into English two of Salvadori's works on her ancestors
[`Note to Our Home by the Adriatic' (pp. 45-52) and The Story
of Adlard Welby (pp. 83-97)], making them available to Anglophone
audiences for the first time. She also authored the introductory note to
Joyce Lussu (pp. 79 - 81) for this anthology.
In 2012, Salvadori's centenary was commemorated by national and
international events such as `Joyce Lussu tra Storia e Futuro' (Joyce
Lussu between history and the future) a free, public talk organised and
funded by Centro Studi Joyce Lussu on 8 May 2012. Capancioni was
invited and funded by the Centro Studi Joyce Lussu to give a
keynote in Italian. Three other speakers were invited including another
international speaker from the United States. The success of this
commemorative occasion was visible: people were standing in a room holding
more than hundred people. It was announced and reported by the local
official institutions and press organisations. Capancioni commemorated
Salvadori's centenary by writing one article for a Brazilian journal
(2012) and an essay (2011) on her contribution to antifascism and
anti-colonialism and the understanding of concepts of nationality,
migration, and difference as a translator. In 2012, she also had the
opportunity to celebrate Salvadori's detective fiction with an essay on
her contribution to the afterlives of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes (2012), and
the presentation of this volume to Italian audiences as a guest speaker at
`Urbinoir 2012: the Dark Side of Words' (28-30 November 2012). Urbinoir is
a centre for crime fiction that has regularly organises events since 2008,
of which Capancioni is now a member (http://www.urbinoir.uniurb.it/staff.html).
The impact of Capancioni's dissemination, understanding and commemoration
of Galletti's historical and literary contribution is limited to one
project of international relevance. In 1926, Galletti met the Indian Nobel
Prize for Literature, Rabindranath Tagore, and influenced his change of
mind on fascism and Mussolini's form of fascism specifically.
Historically, the articles written both by Galletti and Tagore in the Manchester
Guardian and the documents and correspondence collected in the
Tagore Centre, in Santiniketan, only reported Galletti's name under her
title as a married woman, Signora Salvadori. When Dr Kalyan Kundu, a
founder of the Tagore Centre UK, author and editor of works on
Rabindranath Tagore, contacted Capancioni, who could reveal the
biographical of this Signora Salvadori, informing him on her antifascism,
Resistance, and her writings. Sponsored by The Tagore Centre UK, Kundu's
research project became a monograph in 2009 and Capancioni contributed to
it as a translator and adviser on Interwar Anglo-Italian anti-fascist
activism. She also edited the appendix of historical Italian newspapers
articles. It was published in Bengali with the title, Itali safare
Rabindranath o Mussolini prasanga" (ISBN 978-8173325618), by
Punascha, Kolkata, India. Kundu is finalising a contract for his monograph
to be published in English at present.
Sources to corroborate the impact
Contacts
Further media sources available online