Giambattista Basile: The Other Fairy Godfather
This conference will take place online via Microsoft Teams. Discussions will include Basile, his work, and the wider world of which he was a product.
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Alongside Francesco Straparola, Giambattista Basile is the most significant early author of fairy tales in Western Europe. Described by Jack Zipes as ‘the most talented and innovative of the fairy-tale writers in Europe’, Basile’s Lo cunto de li cunti is a seminal text, the influence of which – although contested – is immeasurable. It is also an important product of the Italian Renaissance, and Neapolitan culture in particular.
To mark the significance of Basile, the Chichester Centre for Fairy Tales, Fantasy and Speculative Fiction will hold this one-day conference to discuss Basile, his work, and the wider world of which he was a product.
Draft programme
NB: This timetable is meant to be read as UK time zone (British Summer Time, UTC+01:00)
10 a.m. – 10.30 a.m. Pre-Basile
- Introduction to Giambattista Basile, the person and the historical backdrop, by conference organiser Lorenza Gianfrancesco
10.30 – 11.30 a.m. Keynote
- Ruth B. Bottigheimer – Basile and Greek Mythology
11.30-11.45 a.m. Tea break
11.45-1 p.m. Basile – influences and impact
- Davood Khazaie – Women’s Resistance and Rebellion in Giambattista Basile’s Fairy Tales
- Nemanja Radulovic – A tale from Pentamerone and its Serbian variant
- Cristina Bacchilega – ‘Reanimating Basile’s Tale in a Neapolitan Film: Gatta Cenerentola‘
1-2 p.m. Lunch break
2-3.30 p.m. Basile: Structures and themes
- Benjamin Guyer, The Denial of Childhood: Mental Trauma in ‘The Young Slave’ and ‘Snow White’
- Assunta Vitale, PhD – The narrative frame of the Cunto: structure, collections and paradoxes
- Giulia Depoli – Neapolitan folktales between the 15th and the 17th centuries: Masuccio, Morlini and Basile
