Similarly, the transnational turn in modern languages implicitly calls for a critical reconsideration of the role of scales. On different occasions, it has been remarked that the national does not operate in isolation but rather in relation to other simultaneous and concurrent spatial representations (Charles Burdett, Nick Havely, and Loredana Polezzi 2020). The transnational as such “can occur in national, local, or global spaces across different and multiple spatialities and temporalities (Françoise Lionnet and Shun-mei Shih 2005); yet it is still unclear how scales and interscalar dynamics actively contribute to what Claudio Fogu calls a fruitful path towards the definition of a new field of “critical nation studies” (2024). This panel fosters conversations for a conscious use of scales in the disciplines of modern languages within and beyond the sphere of the national.
Delphine Gatehouse tackles the political implications of a local/global dichotomy by proposing a cultural investigation of the symbolic geography of the “there/not here” opposition summarized in the term “Nimbyism” (“Not In My BackYard”.) While this term is recent (1986-), Gatehouse argues that a literary-historical work is needed to locate the concept and to think past its imaginative blockades. Gatehouse identifies key moments in the evolution of this political and spatial pattern starting from Locke’s terra nullius liberalism and culminating in the conceptual assumptions of literary realism. Despite its traceable origin, nimbyism challenges the national by potentially being applicable to virtually any local/global settings.
Silvia Guslandi’s paper focuses on Amelia Pincherle Rosselli (1870-1954), an Italian writer of Jewish origin with strong international ties who grew up within the tradition of Mazzinian patriotism. Rosselli’s patriotism emerges from two of her works, San Marco (1914) and Minor Brothers (1921), situated on a middle ground between aggressive nationalism and universalist cosmopolitanism and firmly rooted in the local – expressed, among other things, through the use of Venetian dialect. Guslandi argues that Rosselli’s position limits the national by anticipating current formulations of cosmopolitanism as in Martha Nussbaum, Michael W. McConnell, and Kwame Anthony Appiah.
Federica Di Blasio argues that a tension between global mobility and fixed locality is methodologically embedded in the cinema of Andrea Segre (b. 1976). Yet, she notices, the nation resurfaces when Segre understands mobility as from the point of view of postcolonial subjects. Di Blasio touches on two of Segre’s most recent films: Welcome Venice [2021, problematizing the issue of over-tourism in Venice], and Trieste is Beautiful at Night [2023, narrating migrations at the Slovenian/Italian border].
İlyas Deniz Çınar analyzes the understudied production of Turkish Westerns – namely, two films by Osman F. Seden: The Enemy Has Cut All Roads, 1959 and Dual-wielding Groom, 1967. Çınar is interested in investigating how Westerns made in Turkey mediate the confluence of localized cultural identities and the overarching paradigms of global cinematic traditions. He suggests that Turco-Westerns showcase the fluidity of cultural boundaries and the potential of such generic amalgamations to facilitate the provincialization of national narratives in a global context.
The panel gathers diverse perspectives and expertise including scholars across different ranks, geographic location, discipline, and institution type. While exposing different national contexts (USA, UK, Italy, and Turkey), the session showcases transcultural subjectivities (the Jewish diaspora) and transnational mobility (both migration and tourism). With a heterogeneous set of case studies, the panel fosters comparative discussions highlighting the relevance of local/global scales as objects of, and tools for study to provincialize the national in reference to specific political patterns (N.I.M.B.Y., anti-migrant and anti-tourist sentiments), mediums (literature and cinema), genres (the Western), languages (English, Turkish, Italian), and locations (Venice). This special session of the MLA will facilitate new connections among transnational disciplines and feature groundbreaking work to establish the relevance of scales in the humanities.
The four presenters will be allotted 10-12 min. for their presentations, so that 15 minutes or more can be dedicated to a final discussion.