ACADEMIC TITLES :- Associate Professor of French and Francophone Literatures at the University of Milan Address: Piazza S. Alessandro, 1 20123, Milan - Italy
First literary history of the Congo-Kinshasa aimed at comprehensiveness, the book draws a picture... more First literary history of the Congo-Kinshasa aimed at comprehensiveness, the book draws a picture of a unique creative space still too little known. Following a timeline, the author covers its evolution into five main parts: the colonial era and its tension between Western influence and affirmation of African identity, the 60s where poetry meets in full bloom the beginning of the novel criticizing the colonization, the 70s with the great authors of subjectivity, the 80s where Mobutu''s dictatorship is translated in some novels in which violence is exhibited and condemned, finally the beginnings of the new millennium with the development, in the variety of literary and paraliterary works, of the scriptures of freedom.
La citt\ue0 nella letteratura e nella cultura francese contemporanea: dall'estetica del framm... more La citt\ue0 nella letteratura e nella cultura francese contemporanea: dall'estetica del frammento e dell'effimero (Benjamin) a quella del "d\ue9tournement"
The article takes into consideration women’s magazines published in French-speaking Africa during... more The article takes into consideration women’s magazines published in French-speaking Africa during the colonial period and immediately after the Independences. In addition to offering an overview of the more or lesser-known publications (in particular «Awa: la revue de la femme noire»), it focuses on some prejudices that have so far prevented us from considering the French-speaking African women’s press as a fundamental element to understand the international feminist planetary movement. The careful reading of «Awa: la revue de la femme noire», made available thanks to the digitization and online publication of all the issues, shows in fact avant-garde positions, dissidents, and active participation in a cosmopolitan community that, in the Sixties and Seventies, had much to say to our contemporaneity.
Cette etude s’interroge sur les conditions de possibilites et les modalites d’entrance des auteur... more Cette etude s’interroge sur les conditions de possibilites et les modalites d’entrance des auteurs africains dans le champ de la bande dessinee europeenne de langue francaise. La these procede a une approche sociologique en effectuant, en premier lieu, une analyse institutionnelle des conditions de production, de circulation et de reception, ainsi que de la sociabilite dans les contextes locaux, notamment dans les pays de l’Afrique subsaharienne francophone. L’examen des modalites de publication dans l’edition ou dans la presse, des associations d’auteurs, des festivals et d’autres initiatives de promotion, des possibilites offertes par le monde associatif et celui des institutions montre que les auteurs locaux ont a realiser leur vocation artistique et leurs projets professionnels dans des milieux mal organises et peu propices. Cet etat de choses, certes, oblige les agents a mettre en œuvre leur plus ou moins grande habilete a s’y adapter et a le faire jouer a l’avantage de leur pa...
Historically and economically, the Congo has been considered one of the most internationalized st... more Historically and economically, the Congo has been considered one of the most internationalized states of Africa. The idea that African cultural plurality was minimized during the colonial era has to be reconsidered because textual negotiations and exchanges (cosmopolitan and vernacular, written and oral) have been frequent during and after colonization, mostly in urban areas. Through multilingual examples, this paper aims to question the co-construction of linguistic and literary pluralism in Congo and to advocate for the necessity of a transdisciplinary and collaborative approach, to understand the common life of African vernacular and cosmopolitan languages. I show that world literature models based on Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of negotiation between center and periphery thus have to be replaced by a concept of multilingual global history. Finally, I propose the notion of “planetary literature” as a new way of understanding the interconnection between literatures taking care of the...
Flourishing quantitatively and qualitatively in the early 60s, the poetic production of the DRC e... more Flourishing quantitatively and qualitatively in the early 60s, the poetic production of the DRC experienced a crisis until the end of the Mobutu era. In the fiftieth anniversary of independence, poetry seems to refresh around the themes of homeland and its reconstruction. The reflections proposed in these pages are not limited to the presentation of some Congolese intellectuals and their works - poets, filmmakers and musicians who live in the country or elsewhere, speaking in French, but also in some local or world languages. The intention is rather to show how Congolese poetry in the recent years invites to a mental decolonization and an anti-systemic utopian project.
Towards an Ethnology of the Present in Literature: Diffraction and Reconstruction of the Francoph... more Towards an Ethnology of the Present in Literature: Diffraction and Reconstruction of the Francophone African Heritage Our purpose is to analyse contemporary francophone texts and the notion of an \u201cethnology of the present,\u201d through metonymic reading and Foucauldian phenomenology, in order to show the diffraction and re-composition of a traditional African heritage by certain writers. The study of an initiation tale based on oneiromancy and its Luba symbols, and of a lyric epic inspired by the Malink\ue9 and Luba traditions, leads to key questions on the intersections of literature and anthropology in contemporary francophone African literatures (i.e. micro-ethnology versus macro-ethnology; co-construction of the field; theory of literary genres; hermeneutics)
Lo spunto offerto dal tema del vêtement, affrontato in queste pagine, invita ad interrogarsi su c... more Lo spunto offerto dal tema del vêtement, affrontato in queste pagine, invita ad interrogarsi su come la poesia contemporanea francese abbia attinto all’usata analogia fra testo e tessuto, suggerita dall’etimologia di textus, per riflettere in modo nuovo sui mezzi e metodi del suo stesso farsi. I motivi della tela, certo, ma anche della stoffa e infine dell’abito consentono, infatti, di abbozzare un breve percorso sull’uso della metafora della costruzione di trame nella poesia dell’extrême contemporain e dei suoi immediati predecessori, che interroghi non tanto il suo valore, quanto piuttosto il senso del suo perché e del suo farsi.
... J.-C. dans le sud-est de l'actuelle Mauritanie (site de Koumbi Saleh), fut détruit p... more ... J.-C. dans le sud-est de l'actuelle Mauritanie (site de Koumbi Saleh), fut détruit par les Almoravides (des Berbères sanhadja) vers le début du XIe ... Le risque de perdre ses mots, son nom et la mémoire de son passé dans le fond de la cale du vaisseau négrier pousse le poète à ...
First literary history of the Congo-Kinshasa aimed at comprehensiveness, the book draws a picture... more First literary history of the Congo-Kinshasa aimed at comprehensiveness, the book draws a picture of a unique creative space still too little known. Following a timeline, the author covers its evolution into five main parts: the colonial era and its tension between Western influence and affirmation of African identity, the 60s where poetry meets in full bloom the beginning of the novel criticizing the colonization, the 70s with the great authors of subjectivity, the 80s where Mobutu''s dictatorship is translated in some novels in which violence is exhibited and condemned, finally the beginnings of the new millennium with the development, in the variety of literary and paraliterary works, of the scriptures of freedom.
La citt\ue0 nella letteratura e nella cultura francese contemporanea: dall'estetica del framm... more La citt\ue0 nella letteratura e nella cultura francese contemporanea: dall'estetica del frammento e dell'effimero (Benjamin) a quella del "d\ue9tournement"
The article takes into consideration women’s magazines published in French-speaking Africa during... more The article takes into consideration women’s magazines published in French-speaking Africa during the colonial period and immediately after the Independences. In addition to offering an overview of the more or lesser-known publications (in particular «Awa: la revue de la femme noire»), it focuses on some prejudices that have so far prevented us from considering the French-speaking African women’s press as a fundamental element to understand the international feminist planetary movement. The careful reading of «Awa: la revue de la femme noire», made available thanks to the digitization and online publication of all the issues, shows in fact avant-garde positions, dissidents, and active participation in a cosmopolitan community that, in the Sixties and Seventies, had much to say to our contemporaneity.
Cette etude s’interroge sur les conditions de possibilites et les modalites d’entrance des auteur... more Cette etude s’interroge sur les conditions de possibilites et les modalites d’entrance des auteurs africains dans le champ de la bande dessinee europeenne de langue francaise. La these procede a une approche sociologique en effectuant, en premier lieu, une analyse institutionnelle des conditions de production, de circulation et de reception, ainsi que de la sociabilite dans les contextes locaux, notamment dans les pays de l’Afrique subsaharienne francophone. L’examen des modalites de publication dans l’edition ou dans la presse, des associations d’auteurs, des festivals et d’autres initiatives de promotion, des possibilites offertes par le monde associatif et celui des institutions montre que les auteurs locaux ont a realiser leur vocation artistique et leurs projets professionnels dans des milieux mal organises et peu propices. Cet etat de choses, certes, oblige les agents a mettre en œuvre leur plus ou moins grande habilete a s’y adapter et a le faire jouer a l’avantage de leur pa...
Historically and economically, the Congo has been considered one of the most internationalized st... more Historically and economically, the Congo has been considered one of the most internationalized states of Africa. The idea that African cultural plurality was minimized during the colonial era has to be reconsidered because textual negotiations and exchanges (cosmopolitan and vernacular, written and oral) have been frequent during and after colonization, mostly in urban areas. Through multilingual examples, this paper aims to question the co-construction of linguistic and literary pluralism in Congo and to advocate for the necessity of a transdisciplinary and collaborative approach, to understand the common life of African vernacular and cosmopolitan languages. I show that world literature models based on Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of negotiation between center and periphery thus have to be replaced by a concept of multilingual global history. Finally, I propose the notion of “planetary literature” as a new way of understanding the interconnection between literatures taking care of the...
Flourishing quantitatively and qualitatively in the early 60s, the poetic production of the DRC e... more Flourishing quantitatively and qualitatively in the early 60s, the poetic production of the DRC experienced a crisis until the end of the Mobutu era. In the fiftieth anniversary of independence, poetry seems to refresh around the themes of homeland and its reconstruction. The reflections proposed in these pages are not limited to the presentation of some Congolese intellectuals and their works - poets, filmmakers and musicians who live in the country or elsewhere, speaking in French, but also in some local or world languages. The intention is rather to show how Congolese poetry in the recent years invites to a mental decolonization and an anti-systemic utopian project.
Towards an Ethnology of the Present in Literature: Diffraction and Reconstruction of the Francoph... more Towards an Ethnology of the Present in Literature: Diffraction and Reconstruction of the Francophone African Heritage Our purpose is to analyse contemporary francophone texts and the notion of an \u201cethnology of the present,\u201d through metonymic reading and Foucauldian phenomenology, in order to show the diffraction and re-composition of a traditional African heritage by certain writers. The study of an initiation tale based on oneiromancy and its Luba symbols, and of a lyric epic inspired by the Malink\ue9 and Luba traditions, leads to key questions on the intersections of literature and anthropology in contemporary francophone African literatures (i.e. micro-ethnology versus macro-ethnology; co-construction of the field; theory of literary genres; hermeneutics)
Lo spunto offerto dal tema del vêtement, affrontato in queste pagine, invita ad interrogarsi su c... more Lo spunto offerto dal tema del vêtement, affrontato in queste pagine, invita ad interrogarsi su come la poesia contemporanea francese abbia attinto all’usata analogia fra testo e tessuto, suggerita dall’etimologia di textus, per riflettere in modo nuovo sui mezzi e metodi del suo stesso farsi. I motivi della tela, certo, ma anche della stoffa e infine dell’abito consentono, infatti, di abbozzare un breve percorso sull’uso della metafora della costruzione di trame nella poesia dell’extrême contemporain e dei suoi immediati predecessori, che interroghi non tanto il suo valore, quanto piuttosto il senso del suo perché e del suo farsi.
... J.-C. dans le sud-est de l'actuelle Mauritanie (site de Koumbi Saleh), fut détruit p... more ... J.-C. dans le sud-est de l'actuelle Mauritanie (site de Koumbi Saleh), fut détruit par les Almoravides (des Berbères sanhadja) vers le début du XIe ... Le risque de perdre ses mots, son nom et la mémoire de son passé dans le fond de la cale du vaisseau négrier pousse le poète à ...
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Books by Silvia Riva
Papers by Silvia Riva