This is the first of five workshops sponsored by the Queer Italia Network, led by Dr Charlotte Ross (University of Birmingham), Julia Heim (CUNY) and SA Smythe (UCSC). The Queer Italia Network is the recipient of a 2016-2018 AHRC grant, and seeks to: build an international network of scholars, activists, and cultural practitioners, who will engage meaningfully with queer sexualities, identities, cultures, scholarship, and politics in Italy; focus on issues of critical theory and practice, with an aim of developing innovative theoretical approaches to queer questions; and reflect in depth on the key issues of language, interdisciplinarity, representation, performance, politics, identity, and migration across various platforms.
The first workshop will be held at the University of Verona, in collaboration with Politesse. It will centre around the issues of theory and practice and will investigate the intersections and divergences of Anglo and Italian critical reflection regarding queer theory within Italy, and dissident Italian thought.

Some questions this workshop seeks to address are:
1. How have Anglophone queer theories been received in Italy, and what queer perspectives and practices have developed in Italian culture?
2. How might transnational dialogues foster larger academic, artistic, or social investigations and understandings of both the Anglophone and Italian queer contexts?
3. How does art speak to or otherwise engage with queer theory within the Italian context?
4. Are there intersections between activism and teaching within the Italian context when it comes to issues of queer theory and gender and sexuality studies?

Room SMT.08
University of Verona, Polo Santa Marta
via Cantarane 24