This collection, which transports readers from the age of manuscripts to the digital word, is a good demonstration not only of the current vitality of studies of Catalan language and literature, but also of the variety of interests and theoretical approaches and the diversity of origin of Catalan researchers. The studies are focused primarily on three thematic areas: a) culture and language between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries; b) one hundred years of Catalan literature: 1859-1959; and c) multilingualism and interculturality. The collected studies will prove to make a solid contribution to the unstoppable progress that Catalan philology has been making for decades.

The multiplicity of parallel identities that make up our personalities is a phenomenon in which our individual identitary choices merge with diverse collective identities. The present volume is a contribution to the field of Identity Studies, but from a clearly linguistic perspective. It unites several contributions which analyze discourses centered on national or regional identities – as for instance the Catalanity of the frontier city of Lleida, the connection between the natural environment and the conceptualization of deictic space, or the dialectics between center and periphery. Other chapters try to shed light on problems arising from the particular situation of Catalan as a non-state language. The contributions thus range from aspects of Cultural Studies on identities and their constituting discourses to Catalan linguistics and sociolinguistics.

In the bayous of Louisiana, Nicolette Renee Breaux is born into a cursed bloodline a mixture of darkness and light. Her mother, Michelle, exhausted from the life-threatening birth, does not realize then that Nikki will touch many and change much. But when Nikki is three years old and she predicts the death of a family friend, Michelle senses that her daughter is different and becomes afraid. After enduring a tumultuous childhood, Nikki flows through a lifetime of highs and lows, career changes, marriages, and jealousy, and she descends into a forbidden domain where suspicions mount and bodies fall. She pursues a sexually deviant lifestyle that is dangerous and erotic leading to an underground in which no desire is forbidden. A feisty young woman, Nikki has the penchant for developing only fatal-attraction relationships. Caught between truth and a cursed bloodline, she is confronted with a choice that will determine her destiny. Nikki comes face to face with a decision that forces her to see her own demons as well as an evil so strong she may not have the strength to endure.

The book is the final report of the researches, discussions, conversations around and about the Project PRIN Employability & Competences which took place on March 9th-­‐11th, 2017 within an International Conference at the University of Florence. It was the final event of the project PRIN2012LATR9N which aims were: «to design innovative programs for higher education, to promote personalized and learner-centered teaching and learning, to build on job competencies, to value talents to create new work opportunities, to support young adults during their employment emergency, as a response to socio economic crisis and as a citizenship action». The research activities concerned the main phases of the students’ academic life: career guidance upon entry, personalized teaching, career calling, professional vocation, profession building activities such as internships and work related experiences, and lastly job placement.