Prof. Dr. Carmine Chiellino

Prof. Carmine Chiellino (University of Augsburg)

With his research on the perception, dissemination, and acceptance of intercultural literature in Germany, Carmine Chiellino (Prof. i. R. Dr. Dott, La Sapienza, Rome) has significantly influenced academic discourse on literary interculturality and also made a substantial contribution to it, including several standard reference works on German-language immigrant literature from its beginnings to the present.

Prof. Chiellino has developed new key concepts to enable an adequate description of intercultural literature; he has also clarified its main features and formulated the following intermediary goals for research in intercultural literature:

• Identification of a sample European corpus for use in a comparative system with intercultural literature from Africa and North America.
• Identification of core questions for the interpretation of intercultural literature.
• Insight into the aesthetic and creative dialogue between languages and cultures as an instigator of intercultural literature.
• Social and political effects of intercultural literature.

Chiellino is one of the few literary scholars engaged in the aesthetics of immigrant and intercultural literature in Germany. His current research includes, among other research interests:

• The themes of intercultural literature in Europe;
• The didactic mediation of intercultural literature;
• Theory of the intercultural novel;
• Intercultural autobiography; and
• A typology of evil in intercultural literature.

What makes Chiellino exceptional is that he is not only a literary scholar but also an author himself. He has been writing poetry in German since 1976 and has published ten collections of lyric poetry to date under the name Gino Chiellino. He was praised by Erich Fried, who said in a speech on the occasion of awarding the Adelbert von Chamisso Prize to Chiellino in 1987, “I did not believe that poets like Gino Chiellino actually existed. Poets who can write valid poetry in a language that is not their mother tongue are extraordinarily rare.”

Chiellino is one of the founders of the PoLiKunst Movement, an organization for polynational literature and art created in the 1980s by and for émigré writers and artists, and serves as editor of the series “South Wind German Gastarbeiter” (Südwind Gastarbeiterduetsch). In 2008, Chiellino founded the research group Parolavissuta (www.parolavissuta.de) for research on intercultural literature in Europe. From 2010 to 2013, he directed the Robert Bosch Foundation research project “The Didactic Mediation of ‘Chamisso Literature.’”

Carmine Gino Chiellino’s frequently cited works include:

• Liebe und Interkulturalität: Essays 1988-2000. (Love and Interculturality: Essays 1988-2000). Tübingen 2001.
• Interkulturelle Literatur in der Bundesrepublik: Ein Handbuch. (Intercultural Literature in the Federal Republic of Germany: A Handbook.) Stuttgart 2000, 2007.
• Fremde: Discourse on the Foreign. Toronto 1995.
• Am Ufer der Fremde: Literatur und Arbeitsmigration 1870-1991. (On Foreign Shores: Literature and Labour Migration, 1870-1991). Stuttgart 1995.
• Die Reise hält an: Ausländische Künstler in der Bundesrepublik. (A Pause in the Journey: International Artists in the Federal Republic of Germany). Munich 1988.
• Literatur und Identität in der Fremde: Zur Literatur italienischer Autoren in der Bundesrepublik. (Literature and Identity Abroad: On Literature by Italian Authors in the Federal Republic of Germany). Kiel 1985, 1989.

Some of Chiellino’s more recent work includes:

• "Schreiben in der Fremde." ("Writing while Abroad"). In: Kulturreport Europa liest: Literatur in Europa. Edition: 3/2010. Stuttgart: Ifa 2010, P. 76-80.
• "Über die Typologie des Bösen in der interkulturellen Literatur." (“On the Typology of Evil in Intercultural Literature”). In: Littérature(s) sans domicile fixe / Literatur(en) ohne festen Wohnsitz. (Eds.) W. Asholt / M.-C. Hoock-Demarle / L. Koiran / K. Schubert. Edition Lendemains. Tübingen: Narr Verlag 2010, P. 161-174.
• "Interkulturelle Liebe als Wahrnehmungsprozess: Zur Entwicklung der interkulturellen Literatur in Deutschland." (“Intercultural Love as a Process of Perception: Towards the Development of an Intercultural Literature in Germany”). In: Migrationsliteratur: Eine neue deutsche Literatur? Ein Dossier. (Ed.) Sibel Kara. Berlin 2009. www.heinrich-boell-stiftung.de