There was a warm and enthusiastic turnout for the conference “A New Babel: Multilingualism, Translingualism, and Translation in Contemporary Literature,” organized by Gabriella Pelloni from our department, Marika Piva (Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies, University of Padua), and Paola Bellomi (University of Siena). Held from Monday, May 26 to Wednesday, May 28 between the Zanotto Campus and Santa Marta (University of Verona), the event brought together international scholars (from various European countries, Lebanon, the USA, Cameroon, and beyond) to discuss themes of multilingualism and translation as cultural practices, as they are represented and debated in contemporary literature.
Over the three days, the debates addressed a range of phenomena related to these topics, such as the psychosocial implications of cultural and linguistic alienation, power relations between dominant and marginalized languages, and the influence of the literary market.