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The Self in Question(s)
The Self in Question(s): New Writings on the Self, Essays and Autotheory (2000–2025)
17.04.2026
- Researchers
- Jean Christophe Cavallin
- Michela Davo
- Alexandre Gefen
- Daniele Giglioli
- Marie Jeanne Zenetti
- Matilde Manara
- Beatrice Seligardi
- Dominique Viart
- Walter Siti
The Department of Foreign Literature at the Università Roma Tre is inviting researchers and emeritus professors from French and Italian universities to explore new forms of writing about the self. This one-day event follows a first afternoon colloquium held at Università Roma Tre on Thursday April 16.
The symposium will be followed by a literary evening organized by the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici, with a reading by Caroline Guilea Nguyen and a presentation of the work of the resident Elitza Gueorguieva.
The colloquium The Self in Question(s): New Writings on the Self, Essays and Autotheory (2000–2025) explores contemporary forms of writing about the self, where autobiography intertwines with theoretical and scientific knowledge, essayism and critical reflection. At the heart of this reflection is the way in which these new writings of the self claim the ambition to produce knowledge, founded paradoxically on instability: a fragmented, fragile and protean instance of the “I”. Particular attention is paid toautotheory – a critical category that attempts to account for texts that fuse personal experience and theoretical analysis – and its role in redefining the boundaries between subjectivity and science. The aim is to reflect on how the subject, today, is becoming the foundation of a new relationship to knowledge, in texts where theoretical questioning is central: the inner world and personal experience become the material and instrument for investigating concepts with social, political and scientific stakes.
Program
9:30am - 11am Panel 3: Literary epistemologies
Dominique Viart (Paris Nanterre) “Anthropologies sociales de soi”
Marie Jeanne Zenetti (Lyon 2) “Théoriser à la première personne : savoirs situés, récits d’expérience et autothéorie” (Theorizing in the first person: situated knowledge, narratives of experience and autotheory)
11:30am - 12:45pm Debate
Walter Siti e Alexandre Gefen, Daniele Giglioli
13:00 - 14:30 Lunch
2:30 pm - 4 pm L'io saggistico dell'ecopoetica
Michela Davo (Università di Siena) « Raccontare la fine del mondo. Pecoraro tra esperienza individuale e autobiografia collettiva »
Jean Christophe Cavallin (Aix-Marseille Université) « Le sentiment égocéanique. Expérience de soi et écologie »4:30 pm - 6 pm Generi in transito
Beatrice Seligardi (Università di Bologna) “Resistere alla immediacy: forme di mediazione dell’io e soggettività femminile nella contemporaneità”
Matilde Manara (Università di Catania) “Primi materiali per un'(auto)teoria della jeune fille. Evoluzioni poetiche e politiche di un genere saggistico “
Practical information
Friday, April 17, 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Salle Michel Piccoli at Villa Medici
Presentations in French or Italian, with simultaneous translation
Free on inscription
