Alpe Adria e dintorni, itinerari mediterranei – serie

The studies gathered in this volume analyze, in authors from Italy, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, and neighboring territories, the complex relation between identity and borders, namely those between languages and cultures, that can cut through one single territory. We are looking at identities made of different layers and elements, blurred and oppressed, and constantly forced to redefine themselves, in dialog with one another.

This volume presents the letters (approximately 600) that Scipio Slataper wrote between late 1909 and December 1915 to his “three friends” from Trieste, Anna Pulitzer, Gigetta (Luisa) Carniel, and Elody Oblath. These letters bring to light complex existential and intellectual storylines: of friendship, love, and pain, of the search of the purpose of life, cultural commitment, and artistic creation.

Mediterranean studies flourish in literary and cultural studies, but concepts of the Mediterranean and the theories and methods they use are very disparate. This is because the Mediterranean is not a simple geographical or historical unity, but a multiplicity, a network of highly interconnected elements, each of which is different and individual. Talking about Mediterranean literature raises the question of whether the connectivity of Mediterranean literature can or should be limited in some way by constructing an inside and an outside of the Mediterranean. What kind of connectivity and fragmentation do literary texts produce, how do they build and interrupt references (to the real, to fictional forms of representation, to history, but also to other texts and discourses), how do they create and deny communication, and how do they engage with and reflect literary and non-literary concepts of the Mediterranean? These and other questions are considered and discussed in the over twenty contributions gathered in this volume. Winner of the 2025 Mediterranean Seminar Prize for the best essay collection