‘Transnational Italian Cultures’: Editing as method

Abstract

The issue editors invited contributors to this section on methodologies to re fl ect critically on the bene fi ts and drawbacks of using a transnational approach to Italian cultures, and to assess whether the multiple and diverse applications of this approach have changed the fi eld of Italian Studies more broadly. In order to offer some response to these questions, and to propose ways forward for work in this fi eld during the decade to come, I want to focus here on my role as co-editor of the book series ‘ Transnational Italian Cultures. ’ ‘ Transnational Italian Cultures ’ was a joint initiative that my colleague Derek Duncan and I fi rst proposed to Liverpool University Press in the summer of 2014. Looking back at the initial proposal that we sent to the press, I am struck by two things. The fi rst is how we de fi ned the scope of our inquiry as operating within “ the burgeoning fi eld of postcolonial, global and transnational Italian studies. ” The second is our stated aim to “ bring together the outstanding work which is now being done in this area, and by bringing it together , set a new agenda for academic research on what constitutes Italian culture today ” (emphasis mine). I am interested in the fi rst statement because of how broadly we initially de fi ned our “ fi eld ” of inquiry, as spanning the intersecting spheres of postcolonial, global, and transnational studies, and I will return periodically to the still-shifting nature of how we set the boundaries of Transnational Italian Studies throughout this short piece. The second statement, however, is what I want to focus on: the importance of the act of “ bringing together ” the individual works in question in terms of providing a tailored space for their publication, but also in terms of what assembling a group of particular works means for the development of the wider fi eld itself. Inthe paragraphs to come, I will thus seek to explore and offer some answers to the following questions through an analysis of the volumes we have published in the series to date. Why is it important to carve out a speci fi c space of assemblage, such as an edited series, in