Gadda Transmissions

Hybridism is the key word to describe the work of Carlo Emilio Gadda (Milan, 1893-Rome, 1973), one of the major voices of twentieth-century Italian literature. Engineer, philosopher, writer, Gadda defied categorisation, weaving together literature, philosophy, psychoanalysis, history, and the natural sciences in a body of work that challenges interpretation, editorial practice, and translation. To engage with Gadda compels us to embrace complexity, contradiction, and, above all, an interdisciplinary perspective.

This book answers that call, by gathering for the first time scholars from across the humanities - textual criticism, literary criticism, linguistics, translation studies, philosophy, cultural studies - alongside an archive manager, an archive owner, and a translator. The book presents Gadda as a case study, with the aim of acknowledging his singular position at the crossroads of crucial theoretical debates on the nature of literature and the responsibilities of cultural transmission.

Luca Mazzocchi holds a DPhil in Medieval and Modern Languages (Italian) from the University of Oxford and has recently completed a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the University of Bologna. Serena Vandi is Assistant Professor in Italian at Trinity College Dublin and Honorary Faculty Research Fellow at the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford.