Report of the 4th Interdisciplinary Italy Summer School (London 2023)

As we begin to plan our Interdisciplinary Italy Summer School 2024, we have been reflecting on the 2023 Summer School which took place in London and was hosted by Royal Holloway University of London in collaboration with Trinity College Dublin, Utrecht University, and the Society of Italian Studies. The annual event continues to expand the network of scholars and practitioners who find an intellectual home in the ethos and theoretical focus of Interdisciplinary Italy. It is an important part of the intellectual legacy of the project which allows us to connect with international scholars who pursue intermedia research in Italian studies.

The two days saw a number of interactive workshops led by our keynotes speakers. Prof Emma Bond (Oxford), in a workshop entitled ‘The Museum as Interdisciplinary Space: Concepts and Practices’, drew on her extensive work with museum practitioners and curators to invite us to think about the museum space as fundamentally interdisciplinary and the place where theory and practice come into creative encounter with different communities of practice. Prof Charles Burdett, in his keynote lecture ‘Transnational Time: Approaches to Temporality in Research’, introduced us to the most recent developments of of his seminal work on transnationalizing Italian Studies highlighting the significance of understanding and promoting our discipline within the broader context of modern languages. Dr Adele Bardazzi (Utrecht) took on the challenge of AI in relation to poetry; her talk ‘Poetry’s Ends: Artificial Intelligence and Contemporary Italian Poetry’ reflected on experimental poetic practice, the (many) current limitations and flaws of AI in the field, and the expansion of the material and intermedial boundaries of poetic practice in twentieth and twenty-century Italy. Dr Julia Caterina Hartley and Roberto Binetti delivered a dynamic workshop on impact and dissemination which cast light onto a key concern in British universities.

The growth in importance of taking academic research to wider audiences has been a seminal shift in the way research is evaluated and conceived in Britain. It has led to a much greater engagement with communities and the wider public. Differentiating between impact and dissemination remains a key concern, guiding, from the very beginning, the way we plan how our research will travel beyond academia.

Networking and thinking proactively about the pipelines of interdisciplinary talent into our discipline has always been at the forefront of our project and an integral part of the Summer School programme. This has taken different shapes, from providing an open space for interdisciplinary exchange to sharing ideas and practical advice on career progression. The latter was a particular focus of the 2023 Summer School.

Prof Simon Gilson led an interactive session on pathways for PhD and early career researchers which mapped past and present routes into academic positions and industry opportunities for researchers. We run a CV clinic in which we gave one-to-one guidance and an outsider’s view that brought into sharp relief the need to be mindful of contexts and culture, and the need for careful tailoring of one’s profile to suit diverse institutions. The second day opened with a practical session on grants and fellowships.Prof Giuliana Pieri (Royal Holloway University of London) encouraged participants to think like a reviewer and interrogate one’s research project as a dispassionate outsider, who will invariably be less critical than ourselves in evaluating our work but whose work of evaluation needs to be made easier, with clear signposting and scaffolding of information. The day ended with an exhilarating session: in the elevator pitch participants took it into turn to deliver a one-minute elevator pitch on their current research project. We used the rehearsal room technique; each participant delivered their very brief speech, and received feedback on delivery, content, pace, and tone.