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| Italian Diaspora Studies Seminar group with Maria - Dummer 2019 |
As all of you are aware, the Coronavirus has become a global issue and is particularly bad in Italy. In early March, we were monitoring the situation to see if it would affect this summer's Writing Seminar in Italy in which I teach.
At that time, Calabria was still very safe and not in Cosenza or in the areas planned for the Seminar, but the virus was spreading in the North of Italy, and in other European countries. The predictions of the experts were not very optimistic.
Then, the U.S. government issued travel restriction to and from Italy, and President Conte closed all the schools and universities in Italy.
Unfortunately, by the end of the month, the situation was far graver worldwide and the organizers were forced to postpone this summer's Writing Seminar.
Here is the information in a letter from Professor Margherita Ganeri who is the Director of the "Italian Diaspora Studies Seminar." Please notes that, as with many other programs, we will attempt to offer some free online sessions to keep in touch with our global writing family. More information to come...
Dear All,
It is with great sadness that I am forced to announce that we will have to postpone IDS 2020. Due to the current spread of Covid-19 in Italy and in the world, unfortunately there is no hope at this point that we will return to normality in a short time. Therefore, we have decided that the best solution is to reschedule the program for May 2021, hoping that by then the virus will be defeated.
As you probably know, Italy has been locked down. We are severely limited in our movements. We are allowed to leave our houses only for emergencies and we need to have papers in order to be able to do that. Universities and schools are closed and most of them, including the University of Calabria, will not be open again until June. We are conducting our classes online. All public events have been canceled in Italy.
We cannot make plans for this summer and the following months because we have no way of knowing how long this situation will go on. That being the case, we are working to organize an online platform to stay in touch with you and carry on some conversations on your writings, thanks to the generous offer by Maria Mazziotti Gillan, and Mark and Linda Hillringhouse. This will be done on a totally free basis by Maria, Mark and Linda, and it will help all of us to stay in touch and to share ideas in this very difficult moment of suffering and isolation. We will let you know as soon as we have more information. And of course, there will be no commitment at all about participating in it.
We will look forward to the next program in 2021. It will be offered with the same format and it will be advertised later this year, or as soon as possible. As an accepted participant in this year’s program, each one of you will be guaranteed priority in the application round, provided you decide to apply.
We are going to refund you entirely. I kindly ask you to send us your complete bank details to receive the refunds. We will do our best to send the wire transfers as quickly as possible. However, we anticipate that there might be some delays, because the banks in Italy are operating in remote only. We will refund you from our home banking online account, but we can send only two wire transfers per day. Dr. Marco Gatto, vice-Director of the “Italian Diaspora Studies Association”, has generously offered to take care of all the wire transfers. You can refer to him when replying to this email with your bank details.
Please, stay safe: this is the most important thing. Hopefully we will see you in May 2021.
Kind regards.
Professor Margherita Ganeri
Director of "Italian Diaspora Studies Seminar"
Department of Humanities
University of Calabria
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