Francesca Nottola
Address: Department of Italian Studies, School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, Samuel Alexander Building, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester. M13 9PL
E-mail: francesca.nottola@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk
PhD title.: Translation as a Potential Catalyst for Social Change? Feminine Models from Romanzi della Palma (1932-1943), Fascist Discourse and Italian Culture and Society.
My PhD project, partly funded by SLLC, investigates the interaction between discourses about gender and modernity emerging from translated fiction and Italian culture in the 1930s.
Through a textual and paratextual analysis of a selection of novels from the Mondadori series 'Romanzi della Palma' and a scrutiny of editorial documents in the publishing house in Milan, I am examining the gender models proposed in this collection and setting them in the cultural context of the 1930s as documented by scholarship on fascism, culture and gender.
The purpose of my research is to test the hypothesis - proposed by other scholars but not really investigated in depth - that this collection may have played an important role in the popularisation of new definitions of gender, particularly regarding feminine models.
A lot has been written about culture, translation and censorship under fascism, but we do not know much about one of the most popular and widely read collection of novels of the 1930s and early 1940s. My research aims to fill this gap and is intended to be a contribution to the history of translation and, from a theoretical point of view, to the debate about the troubled relationship of fascism with 'modernity' from an angle that privileges the study of gender roles and of commercial culture.
Supervisory panel: Dr Francesca Billiani, Dr Christopher Rundle, Dr David Laven, Dr Karl Posso.
Main discipline areas: Cultural History, Translation Studies, Gender Studies, Sociology of Culture.
Publications
2010 'The Einaudi Publishing House and Fascist Policy on Translations' in C. Rundle and K. Sturge (eds), Translation Under Fascism, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.
Presentations
19th May 2010: University of Manchester, Italian Studies Postgraduate Conference. Title: Work, Career, Independence and Money: The New Woman as Portrayed in Translated Novels from the Mondadori Series 'Romanzi Della Palma' (1932-1943).
8th May 2009: University of Manchester, Italian Studies Postgraduate Conference. Title: Crisis Women and the New Fascist Woman. Conflicting and Competing Feminine Models and the Role of Translations.
Academic qualifications
2008-present PhD in Italian Studies, University of Manchester
2008 Degree in Modern European Languages and Literature (English and Spanish, Cultural History programme), Università di Bologna, Italy. Title of dissertation: Pubblicare traduzioni sotto il regime fascista. La sfida di Giulio Einaudi.
2000 Diploma for Translator, Interpreter and Foreign Correspondent (English and Spanish), Università di Bologna (SSLiMIT), Italy. Main modules: Translation, Linguistics, Italian, Law. Topic of final exam: Contemporary Feminisms in Anglo-American and Hispanic Cultures.
Professional career
2001 - present Freelance translator
2005 - 2006 Teacher of English language and literature for Associazione culturale C.S.A. (Bologna) and Centro Didattico Uno sas (S. Lazzaro di Savena - Bologna), Italy
2004 - 2005 Volunteer teaching assistant at AIPI - Ass. Culturale Polo Interetnico (Bologna, Italy)
2001 Trainee project-manager at translation agency Logos (Modena, Italy)
Research interests
Italy and modernity - Movements, political parties and political violence - Fascism - Antifascism and the Resistance - Anti-communism - Italian colonialism - Trasformismo and corruption - Women, society and power - Prejudice and violence related to gender identity and sexual orientation - Feminist theory - The body in Italian culture - Sicily and issues of gender - Utopian literature - Catholicism - Atheism - Minority cultures in Italy - Cultural imports and social change - Realism in the arts - Intellectuals and society - Prejudice against Italians abroad - Cultural consumption - Dissenting artists and intellectuals.