On the occasion of the XXV edition of the Settimana della Lingua Italiana nel Mondo (SLIM, Week of Italian Language in the World), an annual international initiative promoting the Italian language and culture across the globe, the Italian Cultural Institute of Washington and the Department of Italian Studies at Georgetown University are proud to present “Andrea Camilleri’s Languages”.
Join the conversation, moderated by Professor Laura Benedetti, Chair of the Italian Department, with Professor Gianni Cicali and Professor Anna De Fina, all at Georgetown University, to commemorate the centennial of the birth of Andrea Camilleri beloved Italian author, playwright, director and creator of the iconic protagonist of his detective novels, Il Commissario Montalbano (Inspector Montalbano).
Camilleri was born into a “theatrical” family with ties to the Nobel Prize-winning playwright Luigi Pirandello. He pursued his passion immediately, studying theater before working intensively as a writer and director. In this conversation, Professor Gianni Cicali will explore how Camilleri’s passion for theatre is reflected in his television work, from Maigret with Gino Cervi to Il Commissario Montalbano, and consider it in the context of his times.
The evening, which will begin with a brief overview of the role of dialects in the linguistic evolution of Italy, will focus on Andrea Camilleri’s distinctive use of dialect, which he famously described as “an invented language.” Professor Anna De Fina will explore how this hybrid idiom functions within the celebrated Montalbano novels, highlighting the ways in which Camilleri harnessed dialect to shape narrative voice, convey cultural nuance, and enrich characterization, while examining how Camilleri’s strategies ensure that these dialectal expressions remained accessible and engaging to a broad readership.
No registration required.
Refreshments will complement our conversation.
LOCATION
Georgetown University
Georgetown Humanities Initiative Conference Room
Old North 205
37th & O Streets
Washington, DC 20057
ABOUT LAURA BENEDETTI
Laura Benedetti holds a laurea summa cum laude from the University of Rome “La Sapienza,” an M.A. from the University of Alberta, and a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. She was the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University before being appointed Laura and Gaetano De Sole Professor of Contemporary Italian Culture at Georgetown University, where she has also served for ten years as Chair of the Department of Italian Studies. She has published eight scholarly books and over eighty articles spanning seven centuries, from Dante to Elena Ferrante, as well as two novels: Un paese di carta (which she rewrote in English as A Country of Paper) and Secondo piano.
The recipient of numerous honors—including the Flaiano International Prize for her monograph The Tigress in the Snow: Motherhood and Literature in Twentieth-Century Italy, and the “Wise Woman” award from the National Organization of Italian American Women—Benedetti has also held fellowships from the Renaissance Society of America, the Bogliasco Foundation, and the Delmas Foundation.
ABOUT GIANNI CICALI
Gianni Cicali (Florence, Italy) is a specialist in History of Italian Theater (Renaissance, Baroque and 18th-century). He holds an Italian “laurea vecchio ordinamento” (M.A. equivalent) and doctoral degrees from both Italy (Università di Firenze) and Canada (University of Toronto).
His interests focus on Italian theater, opera and culture from the 15th to the 18th century; Renaissance and Baroque religious theater; cinema; migrations to the Americas of Italian theater professionals (19th-century New Orleans) . His last book is Teatro ed Eresia nel Settecento Italiano (Rome: Bulzoni, 2021), “Theater and Heresy in 18th-century Italy.” He is also author of a book on the Italian “Opera buffa” (Comic Opera) based on textual and archive research (Attori e ruoli nell’opera buffa italiana del Settecento, Florence: Le Lettere, 2005), and he also authored L’Inventio crucis nel teatro rinascimentale fiorentino (Florence, Società Editrice Fiorentina, 2012). He edited (with E. Mazzoleni, and A.M. Testaverde) a book with 16 chapters (and 17 authors): Migrazioni teatrali e artistiche tra Europa e Americhe (Rome: Bulzoni, 2024). With Elena Mazzoleni (Univ. of Bergamo, Italy), Cicali edited a special issue of a journal on theater, arts and migrations: Cicali, Gianni; Mazzoleni, Elena (eds.). “Dramaturgies et littératures en voyage” special issue of Cahiers de littérature française (Classiques Garnier),19 (2020). Gianni Cicali also edited a special issue in 2015 ”Teatro italiano fra testo performance e scena”, special edition of Quaderni d’Italianistica. He has published several articles on Italian Renaissance and Baroque theater, literature and arts, and on 18th-century theater.
Gianni Cicali has been Editor-in-chief of Quaderni d’Italianistica (journal of the Canadian Association for Italian Studies – CAIS) from 2011 to 2015, and he is a member of the Advisory Board of Letteratura teatrale italiana (Italy), Quaderni d’italianistica (Canada), Commedia dell’Arte. Storia e testi (Italy), Elephant & Castle (Italy) and Gentes (Italy) and member of the editorial board of Renaissance and Reformation (Canada). He is also member of the board of AMAtI (Archivio Multimediale dell’Attore Italiano, Univ. di Firenze, Italy).
ABOUT ANNA DE FINA
Anna De Fina holds a Laurea in Lingue e Letterature Straniere from Palermo University, an M.A. in Linguistics from Esculea Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico, a Master of Philosophy in Linguistics from Cambridge University (U.K.), and a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Georgetown University. Between 1981 and 1993, she worked as Professor of Applied Linguistics and Italian at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, where she chaired the Applied Linguistics Department between 1990 and 1993. In 1994, she moved to the United States where she taught at Georgetown University, University of Maryland, and Mary Washington College. In 2004 she joined the Georgetown Faculty where she is currently Professor of Italian Language and Linguistics in the Italian Department and affiliated professor with the Linguistics Department. Her interests focus on narrative, discourse and identity, immigrant and transnational communities, Italian American studies and superdiversity. She has published widely on a variety of topics in Applied Linguistics, Sociolinguistics and Discourse Analysis, from the discourse construction of identities to the use of media among transnational communities, from narratives in immigrant discourse to the role of ethnography in sociolinguistic research. Among her publications are the volumes Analyzing Narrative: Discourse and Sociolinguistic Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 2011) co-authored with Alexandra Georgakopoulou, Identity in Narrative (2003, John Benjamins), and the edited collections Handbook of Narrative Analysis (2015, Wiley Blackwell), with Alexandra Georgakopoulou and Handbook of Discourse Studies, co-edited with Alexandra Georgakopoulou (2020, Cambridge University Press). Her most recent publication is the volume Exploring (Im)mobilities: Language Practices, Discourses and Imaginaries. (with G. Mazzaferro, Bristol: Multilingual Matters.)
She is co-editor of the Series Encounters, for Multilingual Matters.
The 2025 edition is dedicated to “Italofonia: lingua oltre i confini”.
