Today the didactics of literature is a crucial field of research for understanding and renewing literary education in schools and universities. Originating from the challenges of mass schooling, brought to a clearer institutionalisation in Italy by the demands of teacher training, it explores the methods, contents and practices related to the teaching and learning of literature, with theoretical as well as empirical perspectives. The didactics of literature not only offers essential tools for reflecting on the formative value of literary texts and how to make them accessible and meaningful to new generations of students, but also asks fundamental questions to literary theory. The purpose of the closing conference of the PRIN project Teaching literature: a field of research is to reflect on the role of literary education, anchoring it to epistemological and methodological questions. The conference aims to provide a platform for discussing current research, promoting dialogue between researchers from an international perspective and encouraging the comparison of different approaches and traditions.

The international conference "Teaching literature: a field of research" will take place on the 25-27th of June 2025. It is organized by the Department of Philology and Criticism of Ancient and Modern Literature (DFCLAM), Santa Chiara Lab - University of Siena.

Argument

Today the didactics of literature is a crucial field of research for understanding and renewing literary education in schools and universities. Originating from the challenges of mass schooling, brought to a clearer institutionalisation in Italy by the demands of teacher training, it explores the methods, contents and practices related to the teaching and learning of literature, with theoretical as well as empirical perspectives. The didactics of literature not only offers essential tools for reflecting on the formative value of literary texts and how to make them accessible and meaningful to new generations of students, but also asks fundamental questions to literary theory. The purpose of the closing conference of the PRIN project Teaching literature: a field of research is to reflect on the role of literary education, anchoring it to epistemological and methodological questions. The conference aims to provide a platform for discussing current research, promoting dialogue between researchers from an international perspective and encouraging the comparison of different approaches and traditions.

Lines of research

1. Epistemology and methodologies of the didactics of literature

This line of research aims to investigate the theoretical foundations of the discipline, its connections with other academic fields and its methodologies.

Contributions in this area could try to answer the following questions: How does the didactics of literature define its object of study? What are the methodological challenges in analysing teaching practices? To what extent does the discipline dialogue with other areas of knowledge, such as pedagogy, cognitive sciences, semiotics or sociology? The aim is to promote a critical reflection that highlights the specificities of the didactics of literature as a field of academic research, not neglecting historical and comparative analyses.

2. Empirical research and the didactics of literature

The didactics of literature is not only a place for theoretical reflection: this line of research welcomes empirical studies analyzing literary teaching and the impact of reading in educational contexts.

Contributions may explore issues such as: the use of digital resources and active methodologies for teaching literature; the effectiveness of practices such as reading aloud, narrative workshops and creative writing; the role of emotions in literary learning; the evolution of teaching practices in response to different educational policies. Studies assessing the impact of teaching practices on the development of students’ critical, aesthetic and relational skills will be particularly appreciated, especially when offering useful data for a dialogue between schools and universities.

3. The literary canon between school and criticism

The literary canon is not just a selection of texts, but a cultural device that reflects the power dynamics, values and priorities of a society. At the center of a heated debate in the 1990s, the question of the canon is once again being discussed following the widespread dissemination of cultural studies. This line of research aims to analyze the relationship between the literary canon and the school, with a focus on school anthologies, textbooks and text selection practices: how do school textbooks shape the canon? What is the role of translation in making works accessible to a wider audience? To what extent can rewritings and creative interpretations enrich the dialogue between text and reader? How does the anthologization of excerpts affect the idea of literature conveyed by the school? What are the devices that transform literature into a teaching object and how does this process contribute to the patrimonialization of literary works? What is the place of minority literatures at school? How is the historical-literary approach challenged in Italian schools?

4. Literary reading: aesthetic experience, ethics and the politics of reading

Literary reading is configured as an aesthetic experience that involves the reader in an active and transformative way. In this perspective, the reader is not a passive subject, but an integral part of a dialogical process in which meanings, emotions and memories emerge from the interaction between the text and the reader’s subjectivity. This approach, which finds an important reference in Louise Rosenblatt’s transactional theory, emphasizes the relational nature of reading, conceived as a unique event that intertwines the structure of the text with the reader’s personal experience, giving rise to meaning that does not exist independently of this transaction.

At the same time, the paradigm of the “sujet lecteur”, well present in contemporary French research, deepens the notion of the reader as a complex subject, capable of negotiating the meaning of the text through the filter of his or her own biography, cultural memory and the expectations generated by the school experience. The meanings originated thus reflect both the internal dynamics of the text and the influences of the educational and social context.

This research area invites contributions that explore how teaching practices do or do not foster a deep and conscious interaction between reader and text, valuing both aesthetic and ethical experience and ultimately asking to what extent literary reading is present at school.

Submission guidelines

Abstracts of approximately 500 words, including the title and a brief bibliography, should indicate the research area of interest and should be sent to carola.borys@unisi.it and to simone.giusti@unisi.it in Word or PDF format, accompanied by a brief bio-bibliographical note of the author.

Deadline for submission of proposals: 31 January 2025

Notification of selection results: 15 February 2025

Scientific committee

• Carola Borys (Università di Siena),
• Simone Giusti (Università di Siena),
• Marco Leone (Università del Salento),
• Luca Mendrino (Università del Salento),
• Marion Sauvaire (Université de Toulouse - Jean Jaurès),
• Niccolò Scaffai (Università di Siena),
• Patrizia Sposetti (Università di Roma La Sapienza),
• Beatrice Stasi (Università del Salento),
• Natascia Tonelli (Università di Siena).

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