Marie-Curie Global Fellowship for Daniele Salerno in Cultural Memory in LGBT activism
Daniele Salerno has been awarded a 3-year Marie -SkłodowskaCurie global fellowship to study the role of cultural memory in LGBTAI+ activism, with a project called MEMORIGHTS. He will be based in Utrecht as of 1 September 2019 and will work together with Prof. dr. Ann Rigney’s ERC research group on the cultural memory of activism.
Since the Stonewall riots in New York (1969) and the marches organized to mark its anniversary, LGBT uses of cultural memory in activism for rights and civil resistance have spread globally through local adaptations. The project addresses three research questions: how do commemorations work as social settings for rights claims? What is the role of archives in activist struggles for rights? How do memorial spaces work as social settings for activism?
MEMORIGHTS
MEMORIGHTS focuses on two geo-political contexts: Latin America, with a focus on Argentina, and Europe, with case studies on The Netherlands and Italy. The project integrates different perspectives in memory studies by bridging perspectives from the Global North and the Global South. To this end, Daniele will spend 18 months at the Universidad de Buenos Aires (Prof. dr. Emilio Crenzel). MEMORIGHTS will also benefit from the collaboration of the International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam) and of activist organizations in Europe and Argentina.
About the project
LGBTQ activism is a key example of a transnational social movement. Activists create images, practices, texts, symbols, and narratives to shape their claims and make them socially visible; their cultural production builds on earlier social movements and struggles and may become inspiring sources for later generations.
Cultural memories of activism travel with and through activists and media, in time and space. The production, use, remediation, and recirculation of cultural memories in LGBTQ activism is the primary focus of the project. MemoRights addressed this question: how is cultural memory used as a resource in LGBTQ activism? The project engaged with this research question by analyzing commemorations, memorials, and archives as settings and tools in LGBTQ activism from a transnational perspective.
Daniele Salerno
Daniele Salerno holds a PhD in Semiotic Studies from University of Bologna and the Italian Institute of Human Sciences. From 2009 to 2017 he had been a post-doctoral research fellow at the “Umberto Eco” International Center for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and at the Department of Philosophy at University of Bologna, where he was also scientific co-secretary of the Centre for the Interdisciplinary Study of Cultural Memory and Trauma-TraMe.