Representation of work in contemporary Italian short story collections from the 1980s to the present day

Guest editors: Filippo Gobbo, Mara Santi and Tiziano Toracca.

Over the last twenty years, labour has received growing attention in Italian culture, both in literary and media studies. Scholars have investigated the representation of work in the contemporary Italian novel, characterized by a generic hybridization between realism and autobiography (Avallone, Baldanzi, Bertolotti, Falco, Fazzi, Maino, Murgia, Prunetti, Rea, Raspi, Santoni, Siti, Targhetta, Tonon, Trevisan Valenti) or narrative nonfiction (Ferracuti, Leogrande, Rovelli, Wu Ming). However, there is no equivalent study of how short story collections address the theme, even though a respectable body of collections has been written and published during the 2010s. Indeed anthologies and collections, such as Tu quando scadi? (2005), Laboriosi oroscopi: diciotto racconti sul lavoro (2006), Il corpo e il sangue d’Italia. Otto inchieste da un paese sconosciuto (2007), Il lavoro e i giorni. Venti racconti sui giovani, la precarietà e la disoccupazione (2008), Articolo Uno. Racconti sul lavoro (2009), Lavoro da morire. Racconti di un’Italia sfruttata (2009), Sono come tu mi vuoi. Storie di lavori (2009), Lavoro vivo (2012), Lavoricidi italiani (2012) testify a renewed interest for work in the editorial market and by writers of different generations, intellectual postures and positions in the Italian literary field.

This special issue aims to fill this significant critical gap by offering a reflection on short story collections (including anthologies, literary magazine and blogs) that have treated the theme of work between the 1980s and the early 2000s, that is the period determined by substantial changes to the labor market. At the same time the issue aims to explore how politextual structures have shaped the theme.

Possible topics include, but are by no means limited to:
- aspects of labour represented in Italian short story collections;
- formal patterns used to reshape our contemporary work life;
- differences between short story collections about labour and its treatment in other genres;
- narrative motifs and topoi in short narratives about labour;
- presentation of specific historical changes: Italian industrial dismantling policy, effects of economic globalization in the labour market and delocalization of production, changing of the tertiary sector, the increase in precarious labour, the feminization of the workplace, etc.;
- the idea of labour literature that stems from it;
- the connection between short story collections and literary blog debates;
- the partial anticipation of a collection through online publishing.

The authors can focus on the formal aspects of a single short story or investigate thematic and formal patterns in one or more short story collections while paying attention to their simultaneously complex and unitary nature.
Contributions are accepted in Italian, French, English and Spanish. Abstracts (max 1000 characters) should be sent with a short biographical note to lavoroeraccolta@gmail.com. The submission deadline is the 20th of September 2020. The accepted proposals will be communicated on the 28th of September 2020 and the papers will be due on 15th December 2020 (max 35.000 characters in length).