New ACIS collaboration with Spunti e Ricerche
A new collaboration between ACIS and the journal Spunti e Ricerche. Rivista d'italianistica.
The academic journal Spunti e Ricerche. Rivista d’italianistica is delighted and proud to announce a new collaboration with the Australasian Centre for Italian Studies (ACIS) involving an annual subvention towards printing and production costs. Volume 35, edited by Antonio Pagliaro and Barbara Pezzotti, and dedicated to one of Italy’s most well-known writers, Andrea Camilleri (1925-2019), creator of the beloved Inspector Montalbano, has just been printed under this new arrangement.
Spunti e Ricerche was first published by staff members of the Department of Italian at Melbourne University in 1985. It has been published annually since then. As its first editor, Walter Musolino, wrote in its inaugural preface:
"Spunti e ricerche hopes to identify itself and make its mark by consistently, at times even exclusively, offering its pages to ‘Australian’ writers concerned with Italian literature, politics, linguistics, economics, history, society, cinema and art. However it also intends to study and encourage the more valuable manifestations of the cultural work produced by Italians, or about Italians, in Australia."
It is currently available in printed form and
online, and in both forms has subscribers in Australia, Europe, and North America. As such it is the only Australian peer-reviewed Italian Studies journal to appear in hard copy and in digital form. In its years of existence, it has published both general issues and issues dedicated to a specific theme or author. Its collection of essays (vol. 12, 1996-7) on
Antonio Tabucchi, for instance, published with the
beneplacito of the author and edited by Nicole Prunster and Bruno Ferraro, was the first large critical collection in English for the Italian narrator.
The idea for a journal was initially discussed among tutors in Melbourne University’s Italian Department in 1981-1982, notably Walter Musolino, Manuela Caluzzi and Piero Genovesi. Eventually with the help of funds obtained by Head of Department Cordelia Gundolf, and later by Dino Bressan, the first volume was published in 1985. Although the editor for the first issue was Walter Musolino, important input came from other staff members such as Piero Genovesi, Manuela Caluzzi, Cordelia Gundolf, Dino Bressan.
The co-editors of the second volume, printed in 1986, were Stephen Kolsky and Walter Musolino, other members of the Editorial Board were Dino Bressan, Diana Cavuoto, Consuelo Di Leo, Piero Genovesi and Tom O’Neill who had recently arrived from the U.K. to take up the Chair of Italian at Melbourne. This volume included an opening essay by Brian Moloney who had been the driving presence behind a one-day conference during an academic visit to Melbourne. By now an Advisory Board of ten eminent international scholars had been recruited (Giovanni Aquilecchia, Giovanni Carsaniga, Remo Ceserani, Fredi Chiappelli, Giulio Lepschy, Colin McCormick, Brian Moloney, Olga Ragusa, Eduardo Saccone, and John Scott), presumably with stimulus and assistance from Tom O’Neill. The administration and layout, major tasks in pre-computer days, were looked after by Consuelo Di Leo, then Italian Department administrator. Gradually the Editorial Board was extended to include academics from other Victorian universities.
In 1995 Editorial Board members represented four Melbourne universities (The University of Melbourne, Monash University, La Trobe University, and Swinburne University of Technology). By 1994, under the pressure of other university administrative work, Consuelo Di Leo relinquished her role. Since then administration for individual volumes has been looked after by the relevant editors of the volumes in question and the subscriptions have been managed by Antonio Pagliaro. Cover design and layout have been outsourced to the very competent Veronica Peek.
The current editorial board members are:
Prof. Carolyn James, Monash University, Australia
Dr Gregoria Manzin, La Trobe University, Australia
Dr Annamaria Pagliaro, Monash University, Australia
Mr Antonio Pagliaro, La Trobe University, Australia
Dr Barbara Pezzotti, Monash University, Australia
Spunti e Ricerche now welcomes the assistance which ACIS has given towards the publication of the last two volumes and which ensures its continuance.
