Dr. Federica Passi CV

Current Position

Associate professor (since 2015) at Ca’ Foscari University Venice (Italy), Department of Asian and North African Studies.
Modern Chinese: Language, Literature and Translation 

Personal data

Date and place of birth: June 25, 1968, Verona, Italy
Languages: Italian (native), English (fluent), Mandarin Chinese (fluent) 

Education

1990-91 Mandarin Training Center, Taiwan Shifan Daxue, Taibei
1993 MA degree from Ca’ Foscari University Venice. Major: Chinese Language and Literature.
Dissertation title: “Human Rights Literature in Taiwan during the ‘80s: Lin Shuangbu e Yang Qingchu". Grade: 110/110 summa cum laude
1996 Ruhr University, Bochum (tutor prof. Helmut Martin); China (Beijing and Xiamen University); Taiwan (Taiwan Guoli Shifan daxue)
1998 Ph.D. in Far Eastern Studies from the Istituto Universitario Orientale of Naples. Dissertation title: “Taiwan New Literature: Japanese Occupation as a Forming Period of a Taiwanese Tradition”

Scholarships and grants

1990-91 for Mandarin Training Center, Taiwan Guoli Shifan Daxue, Taibei
1999 Grant for Young Researchers from MURST (Italian Ministry of University and Research) for the project “Narrative production during the Movement for a New Taiwanese Literature (1920-37)”
2009 for Charles University, Prague: exchange of academic staff (Erasmus)
2012 for Ruprecht-Karls Universitat Heidelberg, Institute of Chinese Studies: exchange of academic staff (Erasmus)

Teaching Activity

1999-2004 (teaching contracts with Ca’ Foscari University Venice): Chinese Language; Chinese Literature
2004-2015 (as University Lecturer): Chinese Language; Translation from Chinese/in Chinese; Chinese Literature and Translation (BA level); Technical and Scientific translation from Chinese; Specialized Translation from Chinese (MA level) 
2015-to present (as Associate professor): Chinese Language (BA level); Translation Chinese-Italian and Chinese-Italian Literary Translation (MA level) at Ca' Foscari University 

Memberships

AISC Italian Association for Chinese Studies
EATS European Association of Taiwan Studies
EACS European Association of Chinese Studies

Research Projects

- 2014-2017 Principal Investigator of the Funding of the Spotlight Taiwan Project (Ministry of Culture of the Republic of China, Taiwan), and coordinator of the activities
- 2016 participant to the Research project (Progetto d’Ateneo) titled “Interculturalità, formazione e generi letterari: proposta di un manuale di letteratura cinese per gli studenti della scuola secondaria” (principal investigator prof. Paolo Magagnin)
- 1999 Grant for Young Researchers from MURST (Italian Ministry of University and Research) for the project “Narrative production during the Movement for a New Taiwanese Literature (1920-37)”

Research areas

Modern and Contemporary Taiwanese Literature
Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literature
Translation from Chinese; Translation Studies 
Narratology
Children’s Literature

Main Conferences and workshops attended

- 2019 XVII AISC Biennial Conference, Venice. Presented paper: “La natura in parole: ziran shuxie a Taiwan tra locale e globale”
- 2019 XVI Annual Conference of the EATS, Nottingham. Presented paper: “Recognising Taiwan Literature: the struggle of the island in the world literature context” 
- 2018 International Workshop “Coherence and The Creation of Meaning: The Fictive, the Fictional and Mimetic Processes in Taiwan Literature”, Venice. Presented paper: “Coherence in Form: A Proposal for the Analysis and Interpretation of Two Modernist Fictional Works by Ouyang Zi and Shui Jing” 
- 2017 XVI AISC Biennial Conference, Milan. Presented paper: “Taiwan e le letterature cinesi: siti web come esempio di traduzione e consacrazione della letteratura” 
- 2017 International Workshop “In Search for Coherence”, Erlangen. Presented paper: “The ‘Violation of the Canon’: Analysis and Interpretation of two Modernist Short Stories by Ouyang Zi and Shui Jing” 
- 2017 XIV Annual Conference of the European Association of Taiwan Studies, Venice. Presented paper: “Translating Modernism: Wild Appropriation of Western Techniques or Successful Example of Cultural Adaptation?”
- 2016 Presentation at the final workshop of the "Progetto d’Ateneo" titled “Interculturalità, formazione e generi letterari: proposta di un manuale di letteratura cinese per gli studenti della scuola secondaria” (responsabile Paolo Magagnin), Venice. Presented paper: “L’esperienza possibile: alcune considera-zioni sull’insegnamento della letteratura e della sua storia ai nostri giorni”
- 2015 A Conversation with writer Li Ang (Incroci di civiltà, Venice)
- 2014 XXth Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies, Braga, Portugal. Presented paper: “Old and new literary genres and the redefinition of a literary hierarchy in post 1949 Taiwan: a re-reading of Ouyang Zi’s stories” 
- 2014 XI Conference of the European Association of Taiwan Studies, Portsmouth, England. Presented paper: “Genres negotiated and translated: a new look into the historiography of Taiwanese literature”
- 2013 Tenth Annual Conference of the European Association of Taiwan Studies, Lyon. Presented paper: “The role and importance of aborigines in the Creation of a Taiwanese Literature”
- 2013 XIV Conference of the Italian Association for Chinese Studies, Naples. Presented paper: “Assimilation from the West and Continuity with Tradition in the Modernist-Nativist literary debate in Taiwan”
- 2012 Ninth Annual Conference of the European Association of Taiwan Studies, Denmark. Presented paper: "Time, memory and the authenticity of language in a novel by Zhu Tianxin"
- 2011 Co-organizer and participant to the international workshop “Moon Sherbets: Children’s Literature from Eastern Asia”, Venice. Presented paper: “Chinese Children’s Literature in Italy: A Door Yet to be Opened”.
- 2011 XIII Conference of the Italian Association for Chinese Studies, Milan. Presented paper:  "Sentences, authors and cultures: reflections on the translation of sentence structures from Chinese to Italian"
- 2010 Seventh Annual Conference of the European Association of Taiwan Studies, Tuebingen. Presented paper: "Taiwan Starting a Modern Literature: Irony, Satire and Resistance in Fiction from the Japanese Occupation"
- 2010 “China Yesterday and Today: a Dialogue with Chinese Writers Hong Ying and Zhu Wen”, Venice
- 2009 International Conference "The Ways of Translation: Constraints and Liberties of Translating Chinese", Treviso. Presented paper: "Translation, Modernity and the Past: the Case of Zhang Ailing"
- 2009 International Workshop “Translating Wor(l)ds: Translation and Transcultural Dialogue in the Literary Experience of Ma Jian and Tawada Yoko”, Venice.
- 2008 Conference of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Ca’ Foscari University, Venice. Presented paper: “Irony and Satire in Taiwanese Writers during the Japanese Occupation”
- 2007 XI Conference of the Italian Association for Chinese Studies, Rome. Presented paper: “Shanghai-Taibei (and back): the Modernist Trend during the XX Century on the Two Sides of the Taiwan Strait ”.
- 2005 X Conference of the Italian Association for Chinese Studies, Venice. Presented paper: “Chess King, Word King: Issues Emerging from a Translation-oriented Analysis of the Novel Qiwang by Zhang Xiguo”
- 2001 VIII Conference of the Italian Association for Chinese Studies, Lecce. Presented paper: “Re-inventing the Motherland: The Research for a Cultural Heritage in Taiwanese Intellectuals during the Japanese Occupation”

Workshops, conferences, lectures on invitation

2019 Invited discussant at the ..... (Roma Tre Univ.)
2018 3rd World Congress of Taiwan Studies, Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Title of presentation: “Assessing the Study of Taiwan Literature in Europe: an EATS Outlook” 
2017 lecture in the “Vienna Taiwan Lecture Series”. Lecture title: “Taiwan literature: a question of definition” 
2016 International Conference “Sinophone Studies: New Directions”. Title of presentation: “Is Literary Historiography Still an Option? Major Implication and Prospects in Writing a Literary  Historiography of Taiwan at the Time of the Sinophone” (Harvard, 14-15 ottobre 2016)
2014 Lecture title “Letteratura Taiwanese: un tentativo di definizione“ as part of the Spotlight Taiwan Project (Ca’ Foscari)
2014 (Rome, Università Roma Tre) two lectures titled: “Letteratura Taiwanese: una definizione" and "Invito alla lettura del modernismo taiwanese" 
2014 (Erlangen, Germany): International workshop “Taiwanizing the World? Positioning Taiwan: Participation – Integration - impacts”. Presented paper: “Isolation and integration in the identity formation of Taiwan literature” 

Peer review and other academic appointments

- Co-organizer (with prof. Andreini) of the XVII AISC biennial conference (Venezia, 5-7 sett. 2019)
- Reviewer for “Sulla Via del Catai” (2019)
- Co-organizer (with prof. Carsten Storm) of the International Workshop “In Search for Coherence. The Fictive, the Fictional, and the Possible in Taiwan Literature”, second part, at Ca' Foscari University (October 2018)
- Co-organizer (with prof. Carsten Storm) of the International Workshop “In Search for Coherence. The Fictive, the Fictional, and the Possible in Taiwan Literature”, first part, at Friedrich-Alexander University di Erlangen-Nurnberg (March 2017)
- Local Organizer of the “EATS Annual Conference 2017” of the European Association of Taiwan Studies”, Ca’ Foscari, March 2017 (responsible for the conference theme: “Translating Taiwan: 1947–1987–2017”)
- Discussant of the literature panel at the XII conference of the European Association of Taiwan Studies (Cracow, 2015)
- Reviewer for Edizioni Ca’ Foscari (2015)
- Reviewer for the journal Archiv Orientalni (2014)
- Reviewer for the MA panel at the Annual Conference of the EATS (2013-)