Doctoral Course in Languages, Literatures, Cultures in Contact - Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
In 2025, it will be exactly fifty years since the release of Kafka. Per una letteratura minore (1975), a seminal work in late twentieth-century literary theory. In this essay Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari analyse the work of the Czech author in order to free his identity from oppressive exegetical restrictions, particularly those of psychoanalytic origins. They progressively develop the concept of "minor literature", initially theorised by Franz Kafka (1883-1924) in his Diaries concerning Czech and Yiddish literature in Warsaw, beginning with a definition that is both meaningful and rich in epistemic implications, concentrating on the gnoseological, aesthetic, and poetic modalities that characterise the minority use of a majority language.
In accordance with their extensive philosophical inquiry, developed in the volumes Capitalismo e schizofrenia - L'anti-Edipo (1972) and Millepiani (1980), Deleuze and Guattari examine the mechanisms that Kafka employs, along with Joyce, Céline, and Beckett, in an intensive approach to language and writing, recreating, overdetermining and resematising the stylistic, semantic and connotative significance of both common and canonised literary language. This process leads to an internal implosion, subverting its fundamental structures, reversing the hierarchies between expression and content, and facilitating a systematic figurative or perceptual deviation of the selected referents.
Even if, according to Deleuze and Guattari, "a minor literature is not the literature of a minor language but that which a minority makes of a major language" and the idea of becoming "nomadic" or "foreign" within it, the concept of "minor literature" has gradually diverged from its original guidelines over the decades. The term "minor literature" has been adopted from various fields of study, sometimes achieving productive outcomes and at other times revealing potentially exaggerated and inadequately substantiated applications. This concept has begun to circulate within theoretical discussions that extend beyond the fields of literary and philosophical criticism, increasingly manifesting in distinct forms and for various purposes independently.
In "Minor is beautiful" Il concetto di letteratura minore come strategia di (auto)legittimazione per le scritture migranti (2012) Chiara Mengozzi observes that the concept of minor literature moves from Kafka to Deleuze and Guattari, from Deleuze to migration literature, crossing littérature beure or Francophone literatures, eventually evolving into a crucial concept in cultural and postcolonial studies, experiencing an ongoing series of semantic modifications. Consequently, it is essential to examine the instrumental use of this term, particularly when it provides a primary mechanism for validating the existence of a literary genre, a critical category, or an editorial label. We must assess the hermeneutic resources it can produce, taking into account the improvement of the theoretical or analytical implications of the original structure, while consistently evaluating the settings of application and the practical ramifications. Mengozzi affirms that this diffusion undermines rather than increasing its heuristic relevance, turning it into an excessively easy "legitimisation strategy for emerging fields of study".
In consideration of these premises, the PhD candidates and doctoral researchers in Languages, Literatures, and Cultures in Contact at the University "G. d'Annunzio" of Chieti-Pescara, together with the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, are planning a conference focused on the multiple meanings of the concepts of "minor", "minority" and "minoritization" from literary, linguistic, philological, and translational perspectives. The objective is to encourage a dynamic and interdisciplinary discourse and to promote a reflection that successfully intersects different yet complementary analytical views. After fifty years, this project aims to examine the epistemic importance and trans historical relevance of Deleuze and Guattari's analysis of "minor literature", while also confronting the multiple revisions, adaptations, and transformations it has encountered. Furthermore, it seeks to meticulously analyse the diverse applications suggested across multiple domains of the humanities, while also taking into account, when suitable, the differences from the Deleuzian framework, the boundaries of action, and the yet-to-be-explored critical-theoretical potentials of these crucial threshold concepts, their new functionalities and validations, potentially connecting them with original disciplinary fields, revitalised methodological approaches, and supposedly unrelated lines of inquiry.
The definition of the literary canon, as presented by Mario Domenichelli (2009), highlights the international discourse regarding the classifications of "minor" and "major" was particularly controversial during the 1980s and 1990s, challenging the prevailing integration models in Anglophone regions of the postcolonial era, with significant implications for the European cultural environment as well. The literary canon, previously regarded as the foundation of literary narratives, was deconstructed and dismantled from the 1970s, especially during the 1980s and 1990s, due to emerging declarations from voices considered "minor" or "inappropriate" for not adhering to established historiography. Feminist criticism and gender studies, in their interdisciplinary and intercultural manifestations, have examined the canon by focusing on the exclusion, devaluation, or deliberate neglect of women's writings and, more generally, of voices that express requires for alternative aesthetic and poetic existences, together with a pronounced sense of otherness. This points out the crucial necessity to renegotiate systems of consensus and distribution of value and social recognition.
As for translation studies, based on the idea that the historical diffusion and relative imposition of hegemonic values and systems of thought ended in "official" language- cultures achieving a dominant position over "minority" language-cultures, translation emerges as a viable instrument for the linguistic and cultural emancipation of minorities, through two complementary possibilities: on one hand, the translation of literature labelled "minor" into official languages; on the other hand, the translation of the so- called "dominant" literature into the "minor" language-culture. Both concepts, to which we intend to dedicate important moments of reflection within the conference, might encourage the emergence of a new local identity that distinguishes itself from its predecessors.
Expanding into the linguistic domain, special emphasis will be placed on the study of "minority" languages, as well as linguistic systems that are "other" to the norm prevailing in a specific sociocultural environment. We therefore intend to give space to works that analyse marginal linguistic phenomena, as well as to contributions that explore - whether synchronically or diachronically - the specific characteristics of minority languages (as well as dialects and idiolects). Attention will also be devoted to the role of minority language in today's society, phenomena related to the teaching/acquisition process of such linguistic systems, and/or the cultural and political implications related to them. Similarly, studies on interlanguage - defined as the linguistic system employed by a learner of a foreign or second language - and on its connection to the native norm are welcome.
In the discipline of philology, attention will be allocated to the examination of the minor witnesses of any textual tradition. Simultaneously, studies pertaining to linguistic and palaeographic aspects of glosses, annotations, and marginalia are encouraged: those areas of the code/book, apparently minor (marginalia), containing information which are far from being secondary.
A further thematic that requests examination pertains to the diagnostic analysis of communication asymmetry between citizens and institutions, particularly concerning the utilisation of essential services offered by Public Administration, the more vulnerable individuals and their autonomy in managing bureaucratic processes. A potential intervention may examine whether linguistic aspects in institutional communication necessitate more meticulous and prompt attention, as they are crucial for recipient comprehension.
Below are proposed research directions. Additional examination topics are accepted, provided they are related to the themes and issues proposed above.
Participation Guidelines
The call for papers is addressed to PhD students, Post-Doc, and researchers. Authors are solicited to contribute to the conference by submitting proposals with a title, an abstract up to 500 words (excluding references), and a brief bio-bibliographic profile. Submissions must be in pdf format and received by February 15, 2025, to the following email address: [email protected]. The e-mail subject must be indicated as follows: "CFP Title_Surname Name". Notification of paper acceptance will occur by April 15, 2025, at the latest. The time slot for each oral presentation is 20 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of discussion. The Organizing Committee remains available for any issue and clarification.
Scientific Committee Director: Prof. Persida Lazarević
Scientific Committee: Niccolò Amelii, Marta Mancini, Giulia Nonno, Simone Pettine, Domenico Tenerelli.
OrganizingCommitee:Maria Annese, Carolina Bertaggia, Beatrice Bindi, Giammarco Campetta, Enrico Davanzo, Manuela Francia, Carlo Girelli, Michele Paladino, Alessandro Vichi.