With Danielle Hipkins and Monica Seger, my fellow editors of the annual Italianist Film Issue, we’re publishing a special 2021 issue on co-laboration, which features interviews, articles, and conversations between scholars, teachers, and film practitioners about fascinating projects. We separate out the word “co-laboratory” to recall the shared “co-labor” of working together, and also the experimental quality (laboratories!) of projects with many voices.

Thanks to this work, and to lots of pandemic conversations across the miles with friends and colleagues, I’m thinking increasingly about places where my teaching and research in Italian film studies and environmental humanities can cross: how to live collaborations across classrooms, disciplines, continents. This Translation Lab is a space to feature some collaborative work-in-progress.