Reversing the Gaze

GENEVIÈVE MAKAPING is an adjunct professor in French language and culture at the University of Mantova in Italy, and has taught English at the high school level since 2013. Makaping was born in Cameroon and has lived in Italy since 1982. SIMONE BRIONI is an associate professor in the Department of English at Stony Brook University in New York. He is the author of The Somali Within: Language, Race and Belonging in Minor Italian Literature and editor of Shirin Ramzanali Fazel’s Islam and Me: Narrating a Diaspora (Rutgers University Press).VICTORIA OFFREDI POLETTO (Senior Lecturer Emerita) and GIOVANNA BELLESIA CONTUZZI (Professor and Chair) have taught and collaborated together in the Department of Italian Studies at Smith College since 1990. They are committed to bringing the voices of migrant and second-generation women writers to the English-speaking world. Their many translations include Adrian Bravi’s My Language is a Jealous Lover, Gabriella Ghermandi’s Queen of Flowers and Pearls, and Cristina Ali Farah’s Little Mother. CATERINA ROMEO is an associate professor of literary criticism and comparative literature at the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. She is the author of Riscrivere la nazione. La letteratura italiana postcoloniale [Rewrite the Nation: Postcolonial Italian Literature.

"A bold statement about language, identity, and belonging. Makaping’s unparalleled dissection of white Italy is fearless, unnerving, and unfailingly accurate. Without doubt the foundational text of Black Italian studies." - Derek Duncan (co-editor of Transnational Modern Languages: A Handbook) “Combining memoir with the social sciences, Makaping tells us about the challenges of being a black woman in Italy, how double consciousness takes on new meanings, and why the color line remains an unresolved question in twenty-first-century Europe. A pioneering text, a fundamental read.” - Alessandra Di Maio (author of Wor(l)ds in Progress: A Study of Contemporary Migrant Writings)

• Foreword: Producing Transnational Black Studies with an Intersectional ApproachCaterina RomeoTranslators’ NoteGiovanna Bellesia Contuzzi and Victoria Offredi PolettoEditor’s NoteSimone BrioniReversing the GazeIntroduction: My Nonaligned FeminismGeneviÈve Makaping1. The Anthropological Journey of a Bamileke Immigrant Woman2. End of the Anthropological Journey of a Bamileke Woman3. My Not Very Personal Diary4. To Belong, But to Which Tribe?5. Call Me Negra6. The Difficulty of Dialoguing within the Margin7. The Anthropology of the Other8. Harassment and More9. Daily Experiences10. The Many Shades of Black11. Participant Observation of an Eccentric SubjectAcknowledgmentsGlossaryReferencesAbout the Author, Editor, and Translators