Discourse Boundary Creation

Carravetta, ed. ed. Carravetta, FIAC / Proceedings 2 $20 CONTRIBUTORS Gian Maria Annovi Teodolinda Barolini CREATION BOUNDARY DISCOURSE Peter Carravetta Alessandro Carrera Patrizio Ceccagnoli DISCOURSE Andrea Ciccarelli Luigi Fontanella Erin Larkin BOUNDARY Ernesto Livorni Mario Moroni CREATION Alessandro Polcri Lucia Re Graziella Sidoli Edited by Laura Wittman Bordighera Peter Carravetta SAGGISTICA 10 ISBN 978-1-59954-036-8 BORDIGHERA PRESS 9781599540368-Cover.indd 1 12/17/13 4:12 PM SAGGISTICA 10 DISCOURSE BOUNDARY CREATION (LOGOS TOPOS POIESIS) DISCOURSE BOUNDARY CREATION (LOGOS TOPOS POIESIS) A Festschrift in Honor of Paolo Valesio on his 70th birthday Held at Stony Brook University, April 23, 2010 Edited by Peter Carravetta BORDIGHERA PRESS Library of Congress Control Number: 2013956388 Sponsored by The Alfonse M. D’Amato Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies at State University of New York at Stony Brook Stony Brook, NY 11794 USA © 2013 by Peter Carravetta & authors All rights reserved. Parts of this book may be reprinted only by written per- mission from the respective authors, and may not be reproduced for publication in book, magazine, or electronic media of any kind, except for purposes of literary reviews by critics. Printed in the United States. Published by BORDIGHERA PRESS John D. Calandra Italian American Institute 25 West 43rd Street, 17th Floor New York, NY 10036 SAGGISTICA 10 ISBN 978-1-59954-036-8 TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD ix Peter Carravetta ESSAYS 1 Teodolinda Barolini, Toward a Dantean Theology of Eros: From Dante’s Lyrics to The Paradiso 19 Peter Carravetta, History, Empire, and Political Reason: Campanella and The Dawn of Modern Europe 55 Alessandro Carrera, The Logic of Poetic Genealogy: On Paolo Valesio’s “The Dark Flame” 76 Andrea Ciccarelli, Abroad and Beyond: Paolo Valesio and the Empty Nest 91 Ernesto Livorni, Poetry, Dialogue, Silence 116 Mario Moroni, The Continuous Meditation / The Meditation Continues 119 Alessandro Polcri, L’imprendibile (note per un ritratto di Paolo Valesio) 131 Lucia Re, “Più che l’amore:” d’Annunzio’s Bitter Passion and Mediterranean Tragedy 148 Laura Wittman, Undefended Communication TESTIMONIALS 169 Gian Mario Annovi 175 Patrizio Ceccagnoli 178 Luigi Fontanella 183 Erin Larkin 185 Michael Palma 187 Graziella Sidoli 195 Contributors 200 Conference Program 204 Index of Names FOREWORD he sponsor of this volume, the Alfonse D’Amato Chair in T Italian and Italian American Studies at Stony Brook Uni- versity, New York, was instituted in 2008. As the first holder of this Chair, I am committed to promoting a number of aca- demic, cultural, and social activities across several disciplines. Among these a central concern is Critical Thinking, that is, reflection upon undertakings, publications and events that engage and stimulate historical, artistic, pedagogical and, in general, other intellectual pursuits. In order to give body to these often problematic, just as often much contested yet to some degree still elusive objectives, I have launched a Forum in Italian American Criticism (FIAC), which consists primarily in organizing at least one major conference a year, and some- times half-day gatherings on more restricted topics. This collaborative project aims to create the premises for an open- ended dialogue with the most probing interdisciplinary work being done by scholars, thinkers, professionals and art- ists who are engaged in matters Italian, Italian American, American Italian, and, in our ever more interconnected XXI Century, more broadly Euroamerican and Global. The speakers at the first FIAC Symposium, held at Stony Brook University and at the John D. Calandra Italian Ameri- can Institute on October 3-4, 2008, dealt primarily with meta- critical issues and addressed the very reasons for and methods of our work in the humanities. The papers were subsequently published in a volume edited by Jerome Krase and bearing the conference title, The Status of Interpretation in Italian Ameri- can Studies (Forum Italicum, 2011). The present volume col- lects the Proceedings from the second FIAC symposium. The proceedings from a third FIAC symposium, dedicated to the question of history in Italian and Italian American studies on the occasions of the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Italian state, and held at Stony Brook in March 2011, will appear in Spring 2014. ix The present volume embodies the same critical spirit by focusing, rather than on a general topic, on the work done by one specific individual who has engaged in and embodied all of the perspectives listed above. I will cite a key paragraph from the Invitation to Participate in a Conference, which I sent out to about twenty scholars in early 2009: Dear …. I am writing to invite you to participate in a Festschrift in honor of Professor Paolo Valesio, on the occasion of his 70th birthday. As you well know, Valesio has been a leading Italianist in the United States for over three decades. He has made seminal contributions in linguistics, rhetoric, literary theory, poetics, religious literature, and D’Annunzio and Marinetti studies. He has moreover distinguished himself as a novelist and even more so as a poet, with a substantial production and unique voice. Valesio has been a teacher and inspiration to a great many of us, always ready to put his great learning and critical insights in so many fields at the service of his stu- dents, colleagues and the profession, and on both sides of the Atlantic. Many of us wish to honor the achievements and com- mitment of this internationally known intellectual, thinker and poet in our profession. Consistent with his humanity and modesty, Valesio would likely appreciate more a gathering focused on ideas and creativity than something ce- lebrating his person. To that end, and after consulting with colleagues who know him well, the event will bear the aegis of two word-concepts under which a great many of his areas of interest can be covered: Nomos and Logos […] The conference title was subsequently changed (see Program, reproduced at the end of the volume) to include the word poiesis, since Valesio’s activity in more recent years has turned with increasing intensity toward poetry. But for these Proceedings, the title “Logos Nomos Poiesis” seemed too unwieldly, probably snob and offstandish, so I x thought it opportune to give English equivalents. Needless to say, each of the three Greek words, with their broad and fluid semantic history, could have been rendered differently, and in specific contexts others would probably have been more appropriate. Yet if we bear in mind the work that our esteemed honoree has carried out during such a distinguished career, rendering logos with Discourse seems justified insofar as he has plumbed the depths of the word (and this in several languages) always in relation to others parts of speech, to rethoric in short, since the young linguist—at age thirty co-editor of the most important and scientifically up to date dictionary of the Italian language, the Zingarelli, 9th edition—, was already seeking to understand how meanings are carried across space and time to reach and shape other community of speakers. It is significant that one trained in structural linguistics then turns to ancient ideas about language and, in extracting the best from both worlds, creates a hybrid appropriate for our age, a contemporary theory, as the subtitle of his milestone Novantiqua (1980) states. Boun- dary for nomos can make one think, more much than its do- main in paleojurisprudence, of the loi du genre, the concept of determining where one form of articulation cedes space to another and is governed by a different semiotic code. This also has been a terrain Valesio has trod and mapped and reflected upon over the years (at one point he had intro- duced the notion of “semiohistory”). He has in fact written in just about all the genres, and thus has had first hand knowledge of boundaries not just as a scholar and critic, but and most impressively as author as well. Indeed the question of the limit, the frontier, the definition of movement and expression has characterized his entire professional modus operandi. Finally, poiesis, which is the greater category of which techné is the specific real-world manifestation and concretization, has been rendered with Creation not only because it contains the general sense of creativity as, effec- tively, the existential and material dimension of a craft, of xi doing art, of ushering forth what was not there before; but also because in his research Valesio has slowly moved from the strictly philologic and linguistic to the philosophical and the theological. In fact, the question of the creation and disclosure of meaning has (pre)occupied him intensely to the point of interrogating the very pneuma that animates the cosmos. To frame it in Parmedian terms, why we are (why we exist) and cannot not be, not being void, entails also ask- ing the supreme question about Creation, thus legitimizing the adoption of this word in the broadest possible sense, a rendering apt at covering the strands and tendrils of his multifarious observations, experiments, expressions, and the relentless pursuit of gaining insights into the human con- dition. Everyone I invited to the symposium considered it an honor and an intellectual duty to render homage to Valesio. Unfortunately some could not make it to the April 2010 gathering, sending in their regrets while being supportive of the initiative. Also, in the end, some of the speakers con- vened could not send in their papers for inclusion, having elected to publish them elsewhere; this was owed in no small part to my being late in assembling the anthology, for which I publicly apologize. Thus it is with deep appreciation that I would like to thank the authors here assembled for having waited so long before seeing their tribute finally appear in a collection dedicated to our friend and teacher.

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