07.03.2024 \\
As part of the exhibition Matando el Rato, the first solo show in Italy of the young Cuban artist Eileen Noy, Fondazione Morra Greco presented the talk Tales of Cuba – Matando el Rato, held on Thursday, March 7, 2024 at 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. at the Foundation’s headquarters located at Largo Proprio di Avellino, 17 in Naples.
The meeting took the first part of the title from the collection of short stories of the same name published by Alessandra Riccio in 2011 for Iacobelli Edizioni. A teacher of Spanish and Hispano-American Literature at the University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’, as well as an expert on Cuban history and culture, Alessandra Riccio, who passed away in May 2023, was a point of reference in the field of literary criticism non-fiction and correspondent in Cuba for L’Unità from 1989 to 1992. To this day, her figure proves to be central in reknitting the relationships that have taken place between the city of Naples and the island as well as a reference for all those in Naples who have approached the cultural and literary history of Cuba, including the guests of the program proposed by Fondazione Morra Greco.
Throughout the event, speakers have been asked to share their knowledge and experience in different disciplinary fields, relating them to the themes touched upon by the artist’s works in the exhibition.
Involving different possible readings, not exclusively concerning Noy’s artistic work, the conversations will attempt to open a window on the literary, sociological and postcolonial context of Cuba and to portray its connection with our territory.
The March 7 event, starting from the very expression that gives the exhibition its title – Matando el Rato, which can be translated as “killing time” – opened a horizontal dialogue between the audience and the experts who will speak, leaving room for reflections, implications and drifts on the concepts of temporality and dilated time, slowness and productivity declined within coordinates such as modernity and late capitalism, trying to activate a multifaceted perception of them through the eyes of different generations and disciplinary fields, from literature to postcolonial studies.
SPEAKERS:
Iain Chambers, independent researcher and writer
Marina De Chiara, University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’
Andrea Pezzè, University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’
Marcella Solinas, Università degli Studi Gabriele d’Annunzio Chieti – Pescara
Speaker Bio
Iain Chambers is an independent researcher and writer who has taught cultural, postcolonial and Mediterranean studies at the University of Naples “Orientale” for many years. His publications include ‘The Many Voices of the Mediterranean'(2008), ‘Migratory Landscapes’ (2018), ‘Mediterranean Blues’ (2020), and with Marta Cariello ‘The Mediterranean Question’ (2019). He participated in Documenta fifteen (2022) as a member of the collective ‘Jimmie Durham & A Stick in the Forest by the Side of the Road’.
Marina De Chiara teaches English Literature at the University of Naples “L’Orientale.” She focuses on modern and contemporary Anglophone literature, postcolonial and gender studies, frontier theories and Chicana literature. She is the author of Paths into Oblivion. Postcolonial Poetics of Creolization (Costa & Nolan, 1997), The Track of the Other. Writing, Identity and Myths of the Feminine (Liguori, 2001), Beyond the Cage. Colonial Order and Border Art (Meltemi, 2005), The Postcolonial Babel (Adestdellequatore, 2017) and edited, in 2019, the volume Imaginary Souths: Coloniality of Power, Rebellious Chicanes, Interference Blues.
Andrea Pezzè teaches Hispano-American literatures at the University of Naples L’Orientale. His research interests focus on Hispanoamerican detective literature, on which he has published three monographs: Marginality in Hispanoamerican detective literature (Rome, 2009), Lo barroco en lo policial (Bogotá, 2013) and Delirios panópticos y resistencia (Ciudad de Guatemala, 2018), as well as Latin American science fiction, horror and cinema.
Marcella Solinas teaches Spanish language and translation at the University “G. d’Annunzio” of Chieti-Pescara. Her research interests focus on translation studies, cultural studies in the Caribbean and critical discourse analysis. Publications include the volumes, Translating the Caribbean (Salerno, 2011), Islas de palabras (Milan, 2023) and Alejo Carpentier, The Word and its Shadow. (Salerno, 2024 – in press).