Cultural Mobilities Between China and Italy

"This collection offers a stimulating perspective on cultural exchanges by bringing together cultural studies and theories of mobilities. Focusing on cultural mobilities between Italy and China during various historical periods this book tells the story of interwoven cultural and corporeal mobilities between two continents. Indispensable reading for students and scholars of both cultural and migration studies." —Mette Thunø, Aarhus University "Cultural Mobilities between China and Italy builds on a long history of exchanges, using the lens of mobility to explore the multiple connections that continue to link the two countries today. The result is a collection of essays which often take us to unexpected places, tracing a map made of translation, travel, commerce, migration, and an intricate, often intimate reciprocity of gaze." —Loredana Polezzi, Stony Brook University Cultural Mobilities Between China and Italy addresses three periods in the twentieth century where new patterns of physical mobilities and cultural contact were established between China and Italy which were either novel at the time of their emergence or impactful on subsequent periods. The first two chapters provide overviews of writings by Italians in China and by Chinese in Italy in the twentieth century. The remaining chapters cover: Republican China’s relationships with Italy and Italian Fascist colonialism in China during the 1920s–1930s; Italian travelers to China during the Cold War from the 1950s to the 1970s; migrations between China and Italy during the 2000s–2010s. In analyzing these cultural mobilities, this book opens a new line of inquiry in Chinese-Italian Cultural Studies, which has been dominated by historical study, and contributes a significant case study to the scholarship on global cultural mobilities. Valentina Pedone is Associate Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Florence, Italy. Her academic interests lie in the languages and cultures of people of Chinese origins, inside and outside China. She is author of A Journey to the West: Observations on the Chinese Migration to Italy (Firenze University Press). Gaoheng Zhang is Associate Professor of Italian Studies at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver). He is the author of Migration and the Media: Debating Chinese Migration to Italy, 1992–2012 (University of Toronto, 2019). He is a recipient of major grants and fellowships from American, Canadian, and European institutions.