Broaden your knowledge of Italy's life and culture, past and present, with Il Circolo Letterario. Open to everyone, this monthly online event gives you the opportunity to explore Italy through its many writers and books. Presentations will be in English with short readings in Italian. It is not required to read the books to attend.
Join us for our third appointment on Wednesday, December 2, 6:00-7:00 PM, curated and presented by Pieranna Garavaso, Professor Emerita of Philosophy, University of Minnesota, that will focus on women's challenges in Italy during the 20th century through the writings of Dacia Maraini.
Dacia Maraini (1936-) is a writer of novels and plays. As a child, she lived in Japan and during World War II her family was interned in a concentration camp because her parents did not pledge adherence to the Republic of Salò where Mussolini and his supporters retreated after the fall of the fascist regime. Her writings address the conditions of women and she has been politically active until quite recently. We will focus on Bagheria (Bagheria), a novel about Maraini’s childhood in Sicily and her memories of her father and La lunga vita di Marianna Ucrìa (The Long Life of Marianna Ucrìa), a historical novel also placed in Sicily about the life of a deaf and mute girl in the 18th century. Maraini's writings will provide a more contemporary approach to issues regarding women living in Italy.
Online Events - Registration required Free or with suggested donation to support our programming All donating participants will enter a raffle to win a copy ofDacia Maraini's masterpiece "Bagheria" (in English)!
Pieranna Garavaso is native Italian and came to the US to earn a PhD in Philosophy (at the U of Nebraska Lincoln). She taught Philosophy at the University of Minnesota Morris for 34 years. She was awarded the UMN Morris Alumni Association Teaching Award (2003), the Horace T. Morse Alumni Association Undergraduate Teaching Award (2004) and the UMN Morris Faculty Research Award (2017). Her areas of research include History of Analytic Philosophy, Philosophy of Mathematics, and Feminist Philosophies. She has published articles in Italian and English and authored, co-authored or edited several books; the last collection she has edited is the Bloomsbury Companion to Analytic Feminism (2018). As Emerita/retired she plans to devote more time to reading and discussing Italian literature.
