Department of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese & LAS, University of Toronto

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A vibrant community exploring the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese & Latin American languages, cultures, histories and their diasporas. Join us!

Expanded programs, research opportunities, and connections that cross borders.

10/16/2026

💀🌼 Día de Mu***os returns to U of T for its 10th year!

Join ISPLAS on Tuesday, Nov. 3, to celebrate this Mexican tradition honouring the memory of loved ones who have passed away.

The celebration will feature a presentation of the traditional altar or “ofrenda” by students in SPA199H1, and a “papel picado” workshop led by Victoria Durán from Mexxiarts, introducing participants to the intricate art of Mexican paper cutting.

🗓️ Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026
🕐 1:00-3:00 p.m.
📍 The Coop, Brennan Hall, St. Michael’s College

Organized by ISPLAS in collaboration with Victoria College’s EDIA Office and the St. Michael’s College Student Union.

Everyone is welcome!

***os UofTEvents

10/14/2026

We are thrilled to announce the first Canadian screening of Valerio Ciriaci’s award-winning documentary Elvira Notari: Beyond Silence, organized by Dr. Teresa Valentini and Prof. Alberto Zambenedetti in collaboration with Ellen Moorhouse and the Extraordinary Women Series at Revue Cinema.

The documentary explores the remarkable life and groundbreaking career of Elvira Notari, widely recognized as Italy’s first and most prolific woman film director. Over a career spanning 25 years, Notari directed 60 feature films and hundreds of shorts and actualities, establishing Dora Film as one of Naples’s leading production companies. The screening will be introduced by an academic panel exploring different aspects of Notari’s life and work, including her relationship with feminist movements in Italy and Europe, the impact of the transition to sound cinema on her career, and the broader history of women in silent film. Bringing together the perspectives of scholars, film historians, and contemporary artists, Elvira Notari: Beyond Silence sheds new light on the work and legacy of this pioneering filmmaker. Through archival discoveries and creative reinterpretations, the documentary offers more than a biographical account: it celebrates the enduring influence of a visionary artist whose contributions continue to inspire new generations.

🗓️ Sunday, November 15
🕧 12:30 p.m. (screening in Italian with English subtitles)
📍Revue Cinema, 400 Roncesvalles Avenue, Toronto

10/13/2026

Join us for an exciting evening of Latin American music and dance with Salsa & Sabor! Discover the rhythms and cultural traditions of salsa, bachata, and merengue through interactive dance lessons. Whether you’re an experienced dancer or a complete beginner, come ready to move, learn, and have fun!

ISPLAS Cultural Series: Dancing

🗓️ Thursday, October 22
🕚 5:00–7 p.m.
📍 Romero Room, Loretto College 70 – St.Mary Street, 1st Floor

Discover how language, culture and community come together through an engaging cultural experience.

10/09/2026

Join us for the launch of Alice Parrinello’s monograph, “Q***ring the South: Case Studies with Emma Dante”(Peter Lang, 2026), which explores the work of Sicilian theatre and film director Emma Dante, recipient of the 2026 Lifetime Achievement Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale.

This book offers a q***r reading of the oeuvre of Emma Dante. It contextualises it within the longstanding anti-meridionalist North–South binary that has dogged Italian history and culture, arguing that Dante exemplifies a Southern and q***r epistemology that unsettles this divide and revalorises the South. The book examines this alternative understanding of the South in Dante’s work, focusing in turn on the poetics of human and nonhuman kinship, oddkin, and q***r families; haunting and temporality; and Southern cultural bodies (the “Opera dei Pupi” and the “femminelle”). Throughout, it situates Dante’s production within a broader genealogy of cultural texts and practices that are also both q***r and Southern. Working on and with Emma Dante – on her oeuvre and the expansive cultural network it generates – the book ultimately argues that q***rness, far from being the marginal ‘other’ of the Italian South, is situated at the core of its cultural, theoretical, and epistemological articulation.

The event will be chaired by Professor Luca Somigli, Emilio Goggio Chair in Italian Studies.

🗓️ Wednesday, October 14
🕒 3:30 p.m.
📍Carr Hall, Room 406 – 100 St. Joseph St.

Organized by ISPLAS and the Emilio Goggio Chair in Italian Studies

***rstudies

10/05/2026

When America came to Italy…

At the turn of the 20th century, a growing number of American travelers arrived in Italy, bringing with them new ideas about art, entrepreneurship, technology, scholarship, and modern life.

How did figures like Henry James, Isabella Stewart Gardner, Bernard Berenson, and Wilbur Wright contribute to the changing cultural landscape of Italy?

Join Dr. Luca Cottini, Professor of Italian Studies at Villanova University, to explore the rise of American influence in Italy from the 1880s to the 1920s.

“The American Influence: American Travelers in Italy at the Turn of the 20th Century”

🗓️ Thursday, October 15
🕓 4:00 p.m.
📍Carr Hall, Room 404 – 100 St. Joseph St.

Organized by ISPLAS and the Emilio Goggio Chair in Italian Studies.

10/02/2026

The Q***r Kinship International Conference is coming to U of T! 🌎

About 80 scholars, artists and activists from around the world will gather at on Oct. 16 and 17 for Q***r Kinship: Migrations, Diasporas, Communities.

The two-day international conference will explore q***r kinship, migration, diaspora and community, with conversations spanning q***r and Indigenous studies, transnationalism, decolonial approaches and migration.

The program features keynote speakers Joseph M. Pierce and Liana Cusmano, as well as special-guest Saif Ur Rehman Raja, alongside presentations and conversations with researchers, artists, activists and community members from around the world.

🗓️ Oct. 16–17
📍 Charbonnel Lounge and Carr Hall

🎓 Hosted by the Department of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese & Latin American Studies (ISPLAS)

The Toronto conference has received additional support from:

Vice-Dean, Research & Infrastructure Faculty of Arts and Science, University of Toronto

Mark S. Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, University of Toronto

Department of Language Studies and Italian Studies Program, University of Toronto Mississauga

Emilio Goggio Chair in Italian Studies, University of Toronto

Centre for Comparative Literature, University of Toronto

Read more on https://uoft.me/q***rkinship or link in bio.

***rKinship ***rStudies

09/29/2026

We are pleased to invite you to the first event of the 2026–2027 Goggio Lecture Series.
📚 Book Launch

“The Other Half of the Apple: Looking for Community Abroad”
Rosanna Turcinovich Giuricin

“Along the Way: The Stories I Leave with You”
Wilhelm Eisenbichler

Professor Konrad Eisenbichler will speak about the Julian-Dalmatian community in Toronto and present two volumes recently published in the Arpa d’or book series of the Club Giuliano Dalmato di Toronto. One volume explores the history and experience of the community, while the other is a personal memoir by a member of the community.

🗓️Thursday, October 1, 2026
🕓 4:00 p.m.
📍 Carr Hall, Room 404
100 St. Joseph St.

Organized by ISPLAS and the Emilio Goggio Chair in Italian Studies. Co-sponsored by the Frank Iacobucci Centre for Italian Canadian Studies.

09/22/2026

How does language learning change over time — and how can researchers capture that change?

Join us for the workshop “Longitudinal Research in Language Learning: Design, Documentation, and Data” with Prof. Charlie Nagle.

The workshop will explore how researchers can design studies that follow language learning over time, from deciding when and how often to collect data to organizing, documenting and sharing research data.

Participants will also work through practical examples and see how individual learning trajectories can vary.

🗓️Thursday, October 8
🕒 3:00 p.m.
📍 Northrop Frye Hall, NF205

No prior experience with R is required.

09/21/2026

Join us for the first event of this series of six events to explore and celebrate the diverse languages, cultures and traditions represented across the Department of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese & Latin American Studies.

Cultural Landscapes
🗓️ Friday, September 25
🕚 11 a.m.–1 p.m.
📍 Romero Room, Loretto College
70 St.Mary Street, 1st Floor

Discover how language, culture and community come together through an engaging cultural experience. This event launches the ISPLAS Cultural Series, running from September 2026 to March 2027.

All ISPLAS students, faculty and community members are welcome!

09/16/2026

From language learning and cultural experiences to research on fascism, publishing, Boccaccio and Italian feminist debates, there’s a lot happening at ISPLAS.

In our latest stories, discover the research, ideas and people behind some of the work happening across the Department of Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies.

📰Read the latest news at isplas.utoronto.ca
📩 Subscribe to the ISPLAS Newsletter — link in bio.

Address

91 Charles Street
Toronto, ON
M5S1K7

Website

http://isplas.utoronto.ca/

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