Adoption Studies Project

广告

Th

TEACHING

“Narrating Adoption: Choice, Chance and Circumstance” – a class taught for the Honors Program in Fall 2023 (to be offered in 火狐体育 as “The Meanings of Adoption”).

• This course examines adoption’s primary association with various forms of family (fostering, kinship adoption, long-term mentoring) but also broadens the meaning of the term to encompass the adoption of a language for a writer, of a country for an immigrant, and a muse for an artist. It addresses adoption in its different meanings in a variety of geographical areas (Italy, South Korea, the U.S., the U.K., Spain, Peru, Afghanistan, India, Switzerland, Belgium) and historical periods (from the post-WWII period to the contemporary era), through novels (Pinocchio), graphic novels, films (Secrets and Lies and Return to Seoul), animated films (My Life as a Zucchini), newspaper articles, memoirs (Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson and Blue Nights by Joan Didion), essays (In other words by Jhumpa Lahiri) and art pieces (Vanessa Beecroft’s photos). The course uses critical essays from two milestone anthologies: The Routledge Critical Adoption Studies Reader and The Routledge Handbook of Adoption, both providing a multi-faceted interdisciplinary take on adoption.
  

  

  

  

  

  RESEARCH

  Translation

  • Dasvidania by Nikolai Prestia (title in English TBC). Venice: Marsilio, 2021. Co-translated with Daniela Chaudhary Fiore. New Brunswick, NJ: OVOI series, Rutgers UP (under contract, slated for publication in March 2026).

  Invited Talk

  • “Adoption as a an Act of Translation in the Autobiographical Works of Jeanette Winterson and Nikolai Prestia.” Talk given to a graduate class on translation taught by Prof. Manuela D’Amore (English Literature), followed by a short translation workshop using excerpts from Winterson’s book “Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?”

    

  Conference papers

  • “Translating a Novel about Adoption, Dasvidania, with My Adopted Daughter.” OVOI (Rutger UP) panel. AATI Annual Conference, Catania, Italy. July 2023.
  • “Re-reading Race and Class in Italy through Recent Novels about Adoption.” AATI Annual Conference, Catania, Italy. July 2023.
  • “Longing for Identity, Belonging Through/To Words: Stories of Adoption in Contemporary
    Italian Literature.” ACAS (Alliance for the Study of Adoption and Culture Biennial Conference), Brown University. April 2024.

  CULTURAL EVENTS

  

  

  

  
  From left to right: Poster of Sicily presentation of the book Dasvidania; Teresa Fiore (Inserra Chair, Montclair State University) and author Nikolai Prestia; Italian book cover.

  From a Russian Orphanage to a Sicilian Adoptive Family: Dasvidania (2021), a novel by Nikolai Prestia (Zoom, May 2022)

  Presentation of Dasvidania by Nikolai Prestia in Italy. (Agrigento. Aug. 2024).

  A Girl Returned: Film Screening and Q&A with Director Giuseppe Bonito (Montclair State University, Thur. Oct. 5, 2023)

  

  

  From left to right: Teresa Fiore (Inserra Chair, Montclair State University); Director Giuseppe Bonito; Interpreter Maria Galetta.

  Ciudad de los Niños (Bolivia-Italy): Documentary Screening and Discussion about Foster Care, Education, and Migration (Montclair State University, April 17, 2023)

  

  From left to right:  Marko Machicao (Consul General del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia); Arian Craig (Director, Red Hawk Fellows); Svetlana Shpiegel (Associate Professor, Social Work and Child Advocacy Dept., Montclair State University); Fulvio Diploma (Director, Ciudad del Niño, Cochabamba, Bolivia); Teresa Fiore (Inserra Chair, Montclair State University); Father Sergio Gamberoni (Director, Migrant Office, Catholic Diocese, Bergamo, Italy); Elena Bellina (Department of Italian Studies, NYU, USA, and co-writer/director of the documentary Ciudad de los Niños); and Mario Gallo (Director of Admissions, St. Benedict’s Preparatory School, Newark, NJ, USA).

  Image credit: Full Circle by Jin Meyerson (oil on canvas), 2020.