Camping Italia. Notes on Italian Camp
New York University, Department of Italian Studies

Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, October 10-11, 2025

Organized by ALESSANDRA MULÈ and GIORGIO DI DOMENICO

October 10, Friday

9:00am | REGISTRATION, COFFEE

9:30-11:15am | PANEL 1 | Silver Screens

Chair: DAVID FORGACS (New York University)

IKUYA KANDA (Kyoto University)
Reflecting on Camp: Anita Ekberg after La Dolce Vita

COLIN MARSTON (University of California Los Angeles)
Beyond Neorealism and the auteur: Visconti’s camp cinema in Ludwig (1973)

DAMIANO GAROFALO (Sapienza Università di Roma, remote)
Notes on Italian (Camp) Holocaust Films

AYMERI DULER (Sorbonne-Université, Paris)
Campy as Camp: Analyzing Argento’s Suspiria through Sontag’s Notes on Camp

11:30am-1:15pm | PANEL 2 | Sounds Camp

Chair: EUGENIO REFINI (New York University)

HARRY ROSE (Brown University)
“Il fragile strumento / Vassallo della man:” Meaning, Melodrama, and Camp in Adriana Lecouvreur

GIUSEPPE PREVITALI (Università di Bergamo, remote)
Il Carrozzone Goes Camp: Renato Zero’s Queer Musical Manifesto

BIAGIO MAZZELLA (Brown University)
“Abbastanza salamandra”: Audiovisual Aldo Busi from Realism to Reality

EMILY C. ANTENUCCI (Vassar College)
Camping Italianità: Pop Excess and Cultural Cliché in Lady Gaga’s Performance of Ethnicity

1:15-2:45pm | LUNCH BREAK

2:45-4:00pm | PANEL 3 | Performativity

FILIPPO BOSCO (ICI Berlin, remote) - JOSÉ B. SEGEBRE (New York University Berlin)
Fertile Fellini! Camp’s Reception, Transvestism and Cross-cultural Exchange in Jack Smith’s Cocktail Party in Rome (1975)

ALESSANDRA MULÈ (New York University)
Camp and Italian Theatre, 1970-1989

MATTHEW ZUNDEL (Miami University)
Camp and Counterculture: or, notes on queer form in Italy

4:30-5:30pm | KEYNOTE LECTURE

FABIO CLETO (Università di Bergamo)
Uncovered: A Pink Spy Story

6:00-7:30pm | RECEPTION

October 11, Saturday

9:00am | COFFEE

9:30-10:30am | SPECIAL LECTURE
Respondant: FABIO CLETO (Università di Bergamo)

KAREN VAN GODTSENHOVEN (Ghent University, remote)
Camp and the Archive

10:45am-12:30pm | PANEL 4 | As of Today

Chair: GIORGIO DI DOMENICO (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa)

GIULIA SBAFFI (Università per Stranieri di Siena)
Sex Work, Camp, and the Aesthetics of Disidentification in Italian Queer Culture

ELOISE FORNIELES (The British School at Rome)
Camp Resistance: Contemporary Queer Voices Speaking to Power in Rome

ALICE MINERVINI (CASTRO Projects, Rome, remote)
Reclaiming ‘Pakkianas’, on Camp Aesthetics and Fashion Folklore as Transfeminist Experimentalism

ELEONORA SANTAMARIA (Università dell’Aquila)
Phantasmagoria Camp: Drag Strategies of Ecosystemic Contamination

12:30-2:00pm | LUNCH BREAK

2:00-3:15pm | PANEL 5 | Touring It

Chair: ALESSANDRA MULÈ (New York University)

ROSSANA CAPOBIANCO (Sapienza Università di Roma)
The Candelora of Montevergine: Reclaiming Spaces of Disidentification

GIORGIO DI DOMENICO (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa)
Gregory Battcock’s “Viaggi en Italia”, 1957-1980

STEFANO MUDU (Università di Bergamo)
“Il raduno delle folli”: Aesthetics of Excess and Politics of Performativity in Italian Gay Camps (1979–1986)

3:15-3:30 | FINAL REMARKS
GIORGIO DI DOMENICO (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa) & ALESSANDRA MULÈ (New York University)