postcolonialdialogues

Welcome to POSTCOLONIAL HORRORS, the third edition of the University of Padova’s International Summer School “ENTANGLEMENTS,” taking place from July 6 to 10, 2026.

The Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies is inviting undergraduate and master’s students, PhD candidates and young researchers to take part in an immersive cultural experience focused on postcolonial horror in multiple languages, and featuring dialogues with exceptional international guests.

The School guarantees the acquisition of 4 academic credits (ECTS).

Registration is now closed. Thank you!

Overview

At its third edition, in 2026 the Entanglements summer school is centered on Postcolonial Horrors and aims to explore horror as an aesthetic, political, and epistemological symbol through which postcolonial literatures stage the traumatic memories of colonization, identity tensions, diasporic movements, and the re-emergence of the spectral within global modernities. The goal is to interpret horror not only as a genre, but as a critical and deconstructive tool capable of destabilizing ethnocentric categories of subjectivity, body, sovereignty, and knowledge.

Plenary talks by leading international scholars hailing from different spheres of knowledge will be followed by workshops enabling participants to put the acquired insights into practice. The lingua franca of the School will be English, although workshops will be provided in Spanish and Italian, as well.

The four-day attendance will serve as an introduction and a facilitated access (Summer Term) to the Postcolonial, Afro-descendant and Global South Cultures programs offered by the Master’s Degree Course in European and American Languages and Literature (LM-37).

The School, in its second year, falls within the third line of action addressing the phenomena of literary transculturation in the global era as envisaged by the 2023-2027 ‘Digital and cross-cultural TRANSmission of TEXTs (TRANSTEXT)’ Project of Excellence, which the Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies received funding for from the Ministry of Culture.

Guest Speakers

Gaia Giuliani – Institute of Contemporary History NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities / IN2PAST

Keynote: Monday 6 July 2026, 5:30 PM

Dr. Gaia Giuliani is a political philosopher & cinema studies scholar. She is an associate researcher (permanent position)/Investigadora Auxiliar (carreira) at the Institute of Contemporary History, NOVA School of Social Sciences and Humanities / IN2PAST — Associate Laboratory for Research and Innovation in Heritage, Arts, Sustainability and Territory. Her fields of expertise include: Postcolonial studies, Critical race theory, Cultural studies, and Gender studies across Political philosophy, Contemporary history, Visual studies & Cinema. Among her more recent publications: Zombi, alieni e mutanti. Le paure dall’11 settembre ad oggi (Le Monnier/Mondadori education 2016), Race, Nation, and Gender in Modern Italy: Intersectional Representations in Visual Culture (Palgrave Macmillan 2019), Monsters, Catastrophes and the Anthropocene. A Postcolonial Critique (Routledge 2021)

Priya Sharma – writer

Lecture: Tuesday 7 July 2026, 10 AM

Priya Sharma is a contemporary British writer best known for her horror and weird fiction stories, characterized by an evocative and often deeply emotional style. Born in the United Kingdom and of Indian descent, her cultural identity significantly influences the themes of her fiction, which frequently explores a sense of belonging, loss, desire, and human relationships through a fantastical and unsettling lens. Sharma first made a name for herself in the world of short fiction, publishing stories in prominent fantasy magazines and anthologies. Her work has received widespread critical acclaim, leading her to win major awards: She is the recipient of several British Fantasy Awards and Shirley Jackson Awards, as well as a World Fantasy Award. She is a Locus Award and a Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire finalist. Her work has appeared in venues such as Tor.com (now Reactormag.com), Interzone, Black Static, and Weird Tales. Among her best-known works is the collection All the Fabulous Beasts, which showcases her ability to blend horror elements with lyrical and intense prose. Priya Sharma’s writing is acclaimed for its psychological depth and her ability to create evocative atmospheres in which the supernatural intertwines with authentic human experiences. Today she is considered an original and influential voice in contemporary horror fiction. She lives in the UK, where she works as a medical doctor.

Giovanna Rivero – writer

Lecture: Wednesday 8 July 2026, 10 AM

Giovanna Rivero (Bolivia) holds a Ph.D. in Latin American Literature from the University of Florida. She is the author of the short story collections Para comerte mejor (2015), Tierra fresca de su tumba (2020)—chosen by critics and writers as the best Bolivian book of the first quarter of the 21st century, and whose English translation was a finalist for the Queen Sofía Prize. She also authored Un resplandor (2025), as well as the novels 98 segundos sin sombra (2014), adapted for the screen by Juan Pablo Richter, and Alma oscura del alba (2025). She was selected by the Guadalajara International Book Fair as one of the “25 best-kept literary secrets of Latin America” (2011). She is an assistant professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Iowa, where she teaches literature and creative writing.

Roberto Mazzini – teacher

Workshop: Thursday 9 July 2026, 10 AM

Roberto Mazzini, founder of Giolli (1992) and a former elementary school teacher, has gained experience in various theatrical disciplines, ranging from Third Theater to mime and Commedia dell’Arte, as well as in nonviolent, bioenergetic, and psychodramatic training.

He holds a degree in Psychology and later trained in biosystemic therapy with Jerome Liss. He leads workshops using the methods of Boal (Theater of the Oppressed) and Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed), and coordinates and supervises various Giolli projects.

He has written articles and contributed to books on the Theater of the Oppressed method and its applications in various fields.

As a trainer, he has worked in psychiatry, prisons, and schools, both with disadvantaged groups and with the staff of these institutions.

He has also served as coordinator for several European projects led by Giolli, such as Fratt (against racism), Fotel (against early school leaving), Fhofij (for the inclusion of LGBTI people in the labor market), Vivien (on violence against women), The TIP (on Islamophobia), CaaD (creative method against discrimination), Migreat! (counter-narrative on migration), and three local participatory projects in the province of Parma.

Daniele Comberiati – Université de Montpellier Paul-Valéry

Lecture: Friday 10 July 2026, 10 AM

Daniele Comberiati is Associate Professor in Italian Studies. His research interests include Migrant and Postcolonial Italian Literature and Culture, Contemporary Italian Literature, Italian Science Fiction, and Italian Comics. He published with Simone Brioni Italian Science Fiction. The Other in Literature and Film (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) and Ideologia e rappresentazione. Percorsi attraverso la fantascienza italiana (Mimesis, 2020). On Italian Comics, he published the book Un autre monde est-il possible? Bandes dessinées et science-fiction en Italie, de l’enlèvement d’Aldo Moro jusqu’à aujourd’hui (1978-2019) (Quodlibet, 2019). With Barbara Spadaro, he co-edited Transnational Italian Comics (Routledge, 2026). As a writer, he published with the photographer Eugenio Barzaghi L’uomo dall’altro mondo. Fantascienza di un’Italia (im)possibile (DeriveApprodi, 2025).

Schedule

MONDAY 6 JULY, 2026

10:00 am – 12:30

Workshop: Introductory Group Activity on the Keywords of Postcolonial Horror

@ Meeting Room

12:30 – 2:00 pm

Lunch

@ Chiostro

2 – 5 pm

Introductions

@ Meeting Room

5 – 5:30 pm

Coffee Break

@ Chiostro

5:30 – 7: 30 pm

Keynote speaker – Gaia Giuliani

@ Aula 1

Monsters, catastrophes and the Anthropocene. For a postcolonial critique of bio- and necropolitical horrors.

In my lecture, I will address a critical examination of the dominant narratives of the Anthropocene, and reconsider the intersections of power and the enduring influence on them of colonial and racist discourses. My analysis begins with a reflection on the relationship between the bio- and necropolitical horrors of racial capitalism, on the one hand, and the modern and contemporary colonial archives of race, on the other. This approach seeks to reveal how discourses produce material violence, and how, in turn, material violence enacted upon people and environments reproduces racist narratives. One of the bio/necropolitical performative devices enabling such violence is the border—understood as a social and historical construct emerging from acts of bordering and Othering. My argument is that today, a specific border separating “places of disaster” from places for disaster” on a global scale, functions to reproduce colonial and racist categories, imaginaries, and narratives that distinguish a “We” to be saved from catastrophe from a “They” (including nature) to be sacrificed for the benefit of that “We.” Finally, through a historicized analysis of the modern and contemporary figure of the fugitive as a “monster”— a figure that generates moral panic and serves to delegitimize certain human and non-human forms of life—my reflection seeks to contribute to current debates on monstrification, necropolitics, racial capitalism, and their epistemologies.

8 pm

Welcome Party

@ La Forma del Libro

TUESDAY 7 JULY, 2026

10:00 am – 12:30

Anglophone Literatures

Lecture – Priya Sharma

@ Room 11

Immigration Stories: Tall Tales and Family Histories in Horror

12:30 – 2 pm

Lunch

@ Chiostro

2 – 3:30 pm

Anglophone Literatures

Workshop Part I: Postcolonial Horror Movies – Francesca Furlan & Alice Salion

@ Room 11

3:30 – 4 pm

Coffee Break

@ Chiostro

4 – 5 pm

Anglophone Literatures

Workshop Part II: Postcolonial Horror Movies – Francesca Furlan & Alice Salion

@ Room 11

WEDNESDAY 8 JULY, 2026

10:00 am – 12:30

Latin American Literatures

Lecture – Giovanna Rivero

@ Room 11

Restos de vida en lo hórrido o la microscopía como subsistencia

12:30 – 2 pm

Lunch

@ Chiostro

2 – 3:30 pm

Latin American Literatures

Workshop Part I – Gabriele Bizzarri & Francesco Fasano

@ Room 11

3:30 – 4 pm

Coffee Break

@ Chiostro

4 – 5 pm

Latin American Literatures

Workshop Part II – Gabriele Bizzarri & Francesco Fasano

@ Room 11

THURSDAY 9 JULY, 2026

10:00 – 12:30

Theater of the oppressed workshop Part I – Roberto Mazzini

@ Carichi Sospesi

12:30 – 2:00 pm

Lunch

2 – 5 pm

Theater of the oppressed workshop Part II – Roberto Mazzini

@ Carichi Sospesi

FRIDAY 10 JULY, 2026

9:30 – 11:00 am

Comparative Literatures

Lecture – Daniele Comberiati

@ Room 2

The “Unexpected” Horror: Postcolonial Memories in Contemporary Italian Literature

The horror genre, with its monsters, specters, and ghosts, easily lends itself to a postcolonial reading. But what happens when the conventions of horror “invade” apparently realist narratives? In my presentation, I will discuss four postcolonial Italian novels —Sabrina Efionayi’s Padrenostro (2024), Mohamed Maalel’s Baba (2023), Emanuela Anechoum’s Tangerinn (2024), and Nadeesha Uyangoda’s Acqua sporca (2025)— to show how, despite presenting themselves as realist narratives, these texts draw on numerous conventions of classic horror. For each of these novels, we will present one or more horror conventions: the isolated room, the figure of the double, the closed door, the liminal space between the living and the dead. The aim is to analyze how, even in a context apparently far from the supernatural, the systemic violence revealed by postcolonial, intersectional, and ecological perspectives lead the reader into a space that necessarily transcends classical realism.

11 – 11:30 am

Coffee Break

@ Chiostro

11:30 – 1 pm

Comparative Literatures Part II – Marco Malvestio

@ Room 2

Mourning in America. The Ruins of Detroit in Contemporary Horror Cinema

This paper takes into account a privileged subject in contemporary representations of ruins, the city of Detroit, whose progressive urban decay, due to a combination of infrastructural collapse and de-industrialization, has become the epitome of mournful ruminations on the decline of the American empire, even in official contexts. Detroit’s ruins have been metabolized in our imagery to such an extent that they can function as the backdrop for horror movies like Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), It Follows (2014) and Don’t Breathe (2016), repurposing the Gothic component of ruins – with the crucial difference that here vampires and monsters do not find refuge among the derelict remnants of a long-gone world, but in everyday houses and buildings, as can be found in most American towns. This spectral take on a post-industrial environment is also reflected in the work of photographers Andrew Moore and Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre, whose depictions of ruined areas of Detroit reflect and adjourn Romantic and Gothic aesthetics.