Resources
The Kafka Project @ SDSU
The Kafka Project is the third official search to recover the last writings of Franz Kafka, working on behalf of the Kafka Estate of London, England. Under the auspices of San Diego State University's College of Arts and Letters since 1998, the Kafka Project has worked with the German government for the discovery and return of Kafka's unpublished letters and notebooks.
The project is directed by Kathi Diamant and was moved to the Department of European Studies in early 2023. Building on the results of the last search conducted by Max Brod and Klaus Wagenbach in the mid-1950s, the Kafka Project is a non-profit volunteer organization, funded by donations, pooling resources, skills and knowledge to resolve a literary mystery.
Virtual Conference Session
Gained in Translation: The Collaborative Making of Amir Issaa’s Vivo Per Questo Into This Is What I Live For
Roundtable presented at the Diversity Transformation and Italian Studies (DTIS) Virtual Conference, February 24, 2023.
This roundtable discusses the collective translation and curation of Italian-Egyptian rapper Amir Issaa’s memoir Vivo per questo (Milan: Chiarelettere, 2017) published in English as This Is What I Live For: An Afro-Italian Hip-Hop Memoir (San Diego: SDSU Press, 2023).
The presenters have taken part in various aspects of the making of the book and address their contribution to this bilingual edition.
This session serves as a critical and pedagogical discussion of the book, its making and uses. Topics addressed include the role of collaboration, translation in the context of transcultural communication, youth culture, hip-hop studies, activism, critical race studies, diversity, inclusion, and equity practices in teaching and research.
Beginning - Clarissa Clò (San Diego State University), “Amir Issaa’s Afro-Italian Hip-Hop Memoir at the Intersection of Personal Story and Public History.”
12:20 - Donatella Melucci (Georgetown University): “Translation as Experiential Learning through Cultures, Migration, and Diversity.
22:45 - Stephanie Jed (University of California, San Diego), “Connecting through translation: this is what we live for.”
33:46 - Justin Abdel (New York University), “Translating Amir Issaa’s Prefazione for This Is What I Live For as a Cohort.”
41:13 - Jorge Hernandez (San Diego State University): “Translating Amir Issaa’s Prefazione for This Is What I Live For as a Cohort.”
52:27 - Roy Whitaker (San Diego State University), “‘Writing What We Want To Read’: Contemporary Theories and Methods of Hip Hop Translation.”
1:10:12 - Mariana Barrios (CSU-Long Beach), “Translating Amir Issaa’s Prefazione for This Is What I Live For as a Cohort.”
1:21:52 - Enrico Zammarchi (Gonzaga University), “Amir Issaa's Vivo per questo: Hip-Hop Pedagogy and Italian Studies.”
1:30:58 - Amir Issaa (hip-hop artist and educator), Vivo per questo/This Is What I Live For.
1:43:10 - Questions and discussion
German Course
German Lecturer Felicitas Jaima presents the DEI changes she made to her courses through the CIE grant she received last year.
Italian Courses
These videos are a brief overview of the innovation in accessibility and principles of Universal Design introduced in the first two semesters of Italian online asynchronous courses, ITAL 100A and ITAL100B, taught by Silvia Kading and Sonia Brighenti respectively in the Department of European Studies, to better serve the learning needs of SDSU diverse community of students.
Building accessibility into our courses is much more than just a legal requirement, good course design helps everyone. While in this process of increasing accessibility, the parallel goal was to integrate and enrich the content to reflect a more diverse and inclusive representation of contemporary Italian society, in line with the mission of the Italian Studies Program at SDSU.
The revisions were made possible thanks to a $4,000 mini grant from the Center for Inclusive Excellence Equity Program awarded in 2021.