Calabretta-Sajder Receives Ragusa Foundation Grant

Ryan Calabretta-Sajder, associate professor and section head of Italian, recently received a Ragusa Foundation Grant to assist in the publication of the open-educational-resource version of his manuscript Beyond the Margin, or Within the Canon: The Novels of Amara Lakhous, which he intends to send to Yale University Press for consideration this summer.

In addition to the Ragusa Foundation Grant, Calabretta-Sajder won a publishing grant from the Arkansas Humanities Center in fall 2023 to have the volume available in a free, downloadable version. Additionally, he earned a Pandemic Recovery Grant to conduct archival research to complete the work. He worked on the Ragusa Foundation Grant while enrolled in the BIRDS Cohort (spring 2024), and is appreciative for all the feedback from his peers.

While Amrara Lakhous actively publishes in Arabic and Italian, his novels have been translated into numerous langauges, and Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio was adopted for the first-year writing seminar at Cornell University. 

Calabretta-Sajder’s project:

My current research project revolves around the transnational identity of Amara Lakhous’ novels through the following three products: 1) an academic manuscript entitled Beyond the Margin, or Within the Canon: The Novels of Amara Lakhous, 2) a Digital Humanities website dedicated to Amara Lakhous (and hopefully other diasporic authors and directors in the future), and 3) a video game available for play in both Italian and English connected to Lakhous’ Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio. This project aligns with the Ragusa Foundation and Prof Olga Ragusa’s research, as it approaches Lakhous’ novels through a transational lens incorporating multi-media products available to both academics and the general public alike for free. This project integrates both my research and teaching interests, as I will complete the first academic manuscript dedicated to Lakhous’ novels through a transnational theoretical lens, while simultaneously creating an interactive Digital Humanities website and videogame. 

This story also appeared in the University of Arkansas News publication.