Between Italy and Argentina: Circular Accents in Contemporary Migration Literature.

Abstract

Migration has shaped both Italy and Argentina’s histories since the mid-nineteenth century, and current migratory flows are transforming the ethnic, linguistic, and cultural composition of both countries. Contemporary novels are one product of a renewed interest in remembering the history of past migrations in order to better understand the present situation and anticipate what the future holds. Through a binational approach, my dissertation analyzes works of Italian and Argentine literature published from the 1980s to the present that explore how Italian-Argentines have negotiated between multiple languages and cultures for over a century. I introduce the expression “circular accent” to describe the literary technique of creating a circularity between past and present, Italy and Argentina, through accenting these countries’ histories. Contemporary authors make use of this technique to reveal their characters’ struggles to negotiate multiple languages and cultures and, more broadly, to show the crucial role that migration has played throughout these countries’ histories and the impact this has had on discourses of national identity and belonging. My work establishes contemporary Italian Argentine migration literature as a genre, united by the presence of circular accents, an exploration of the long history of migration between Italy and Argentina, and the prominence of one or more Italian-Argentine characters. In chapter 1, I focus on race and ethnicity at the turn of the twentieth century, in chapter 2 on role of translation in the early to mid-twentieth century, in the third chapter on the function of memory in the aftermath of the Argentine Dirty War, and in the fourth chapter on Italian-Argentine identity from the 1990s to today. By highlighting the hybridity and multiculturalism present in both countries since the nineteenth century, these narratives suggest that categories such as Italian, Argentine, and white, will continue to become more inclusive to account for the inhabitants of these countries. Ultimately, they show that the latest migration by Italian-Argentines and others is just the latest development in a continuously transforming network of global migratory flows.