© 2025 Beatrice Sica.

Beatrice Sica

For a number of years, starting in 2012, I organised the Italian seminars of the School of Modern Languages, Culture, and Society at University College London (UCL).

In 2019, thanks to the UCL Global Engagement Fund, I organised an international conference on the anthologies of Italian literature published outside the Italian peninsula, featuring Italian poet Rosita Copioli as special guest.

In 2022 and 2023, thanks to the UCL Dean's Strategic Fund and the UCL Global Cities Programme respectively, I organised various round tables and workshops on stories of assisted reproduction, sperm and egg donations, and non-traditional families, considering narratives for adults (2022) as well as children's literature (2023). These round tables and workshops addressed very timely issues that are dealt with very differently, depending on the country in question and its legislation. My innovative approach was to adopt a comparative stance (focusing on the UK, France, and Italy in particular) as well as an interdisciplinary stance, bringing together people from different disciplines and with different expertise, from inside and outside academia.

  • "La nascita e le famiglie: cosa raccontiamo ai bambini?" (Bologna, 20 June 2023). A round table with Milena Bernardi, Professor of Children's Literature at the University of Bologna; Maria Silvia Fiengo, co-founder of the "Famiglie Arcobaleno" association and "Lo Stampatello" publishing house; and psychotherapists Roberta Giommi and Valentina Berruti.
  • "Naissance, PMA, familles: Que doit-on dire aux enfants?" (Paris, 16 May 2023). A round table with psychoanalyst Serge hefez, illustrator and author Muriel Douru, and psychotherapist, specialised in infertility treatments, Sophie Ménégalli, che have written children's books addressing assisted reproduction and non-traditional families.
  • "Storie di procreazione medicalmente assistita" (Bologna, 17 June 2022): A workshop on stories of donor conception in Italian printed media, with Elena Tebano, journalist at Corriere della Sera; stories of assisted reproduction told by women who underwent fertility treatment, with author Maddalena Vianello (In fondo al desiderio. Dieci storie di procreazione assistita); and in Italian contemporary literature, with writer Alessandra Sarchi (Il dono di Antonia, 2020).
  • "Stories of Donors and Donor-Conceived Children" (London, 13 May 2022). An event with Sophie Zadeh, Associate Professor of Social Psychology at University College London, and freelance journalist and blogger Louise McLoughlin, author of You look like me, a podcast in which she tells about how she came to discover that she was donor-conceived and also to meet her donor.
  • "Dons, donneuses, donneurs: récits de procréation assistée en France et en Italie" (Paris, 6 May 2022). A workshop with Caroline Savi, who illustrated the recent changes in the French law regulating access to assisted reproduction and donor insemination; Manuela Spinelli, co-founder of the "Parents & Féministes" association, who talked about feminist approaches to assisted reproduction and donor insemination in France; and Carlotta Clerici, a playwright, author of Ce soir j'ovule / Questa sera ovulo [I am ovulating tonight], which came out in French and in Italian, in which she humurously tells about the difficulties in conceiving a child and undergoing fertility treatment.

© 2023 Beatrice Sica.