Italy’s (Post)Colonial Ecologies: Elements, Power, and Resistance
Due Date: 10-17-2025
Please consider submitting a 300-word chapter proposal for an edited volume, tentatively titled Italy’s (Post)Colonial Ecologies: Elements, Power, and Resistance, by 17 October 2025.
Volume Editors: Giovanna Faleschini Lerner, Professor of Italian and Film and Media, Franklin and Marshall College; Qian Liu, Assistant Professor of Italian Studies, Ohio State University.
If colonialism is understood as a foundational act of territorial violence, then in the postcolonial conditions, “land” and “environment” would emerge as a critical site of struggle, resistance, and recuperation. Ecocritical and postcolonial approaches have in common their sharp critiques of extractive transnational capitalism, their attention to the land and its inhabitants, and a decentering of Western cultural perspectives that parallels posthuman challenges to anthropocentrism. With the important exception of work by Elena Past (2019), Serenella Iovino (2017), Rhiannon Welch (2017), Pasquale Verdicchio, and Michele Monserrati (2020, 2023), the field of Italian studies still lacks a comprehensive and sustained framework that explores the full possibilities of dialogues between postcolonial and ecocritical considerations. How can ecocritical interpretations shed new light on Italy’s colonial past in Africa and the eastern Mediterranean and on its history as a country of emigration? How will an ecocritical approach reinforce (or compromise) the political engagements of the debates on race and (de)coloniality? Will a focus on the more-than-human possibly destabilize the perception of postcolonial diasporic subjectivities? What would be the role of different media platforms in mediating such ontological and epistemological encounters?
This interdisciplinary volume seeks essays that critically engage with postcolonial environmental art, literature, and other cultural practices that address crucial but often-overlooked aspects in the transnational negotiations of Italian identities. We welcome proposals that reimagine the intersections of Italy’s colonial legacies, historical emigration, and contemporary immigration across a range of topics, including but not limited to:
Agriculture and the politics of food
Narratives and counter-narratives of development
Climate change and its consequences
Italian fascist and colonial politics on ecology
Coloniality, post-coloniality, and decoloniality
Ecofeminism and decoloniality
Animals and trans-species intersectionality
Deforestation and reforestation
Desert- and sea-scape
Urban ecologies
Enslavement and trafficking
Extractive capitalism
Food insecurity
Human and more-than-human migration
The idea of nature
The question of the land
Water crises
General Timeline:
Proposed title, abstract, and a short bio by Friday, 17 October 2025.
Notice of acceptance around early November 2025.
Selected proposals will be asked to submit a 6,000-word essay, including notes and works cited, by Monday, 13 April 2026.
The anticipated publication date is late 2027. (Please note that several presses have expressed interest in publishing this volume, and we will keep all contributors updated regarding this development.)
Please send your proposals to the editors, Giovanna Faleschini Lerner at glerner@fandm.edu and Qian Liu at liu.12199@osu.edu.