Thursday 29 February, 6pm
America in Italian Culture: The Rise of a New Model of Modernity, 1866-1943 (Oxford University Press) by Guido Bonsaver
Book presentation and conversation between the author and Professor David Ellwood
When America began to emerge as a world power at the end of the nineteenth century, Italy was a young nation, recently unified. The technological advances brought about by electricity and the combustion engine were vastly speeding up the capacity of news, ideas, and artefacts to travel internationally. Furthermore, improved literacy and social reforms had produced an Italian working class with increased time, money, and education. At the turn of the century, if Italy’s ruling elite continued the tradition of viewing Paris as a model of sophistication and good taste, millions of lowly educated Italians began to dream of America, and many bought a transatlantic ticket to migrate there.
By the 1920s, Italians were encountering America through Hollywood films and, thanks to illustrated magazines, they were mesmerized by the sight of Manhattan’s futuristic skyline and by news of American lifestyle. The USA offered a model of modernity that flouted national borders and spoke to all. It could be snubbed, adored, or transformed for one’s personal use, but it could not be ignored.
Perversely, Italy was by then in the hands of a totalitarian dictatorship, Mussolini’s Fascism. What were the effects of the nationalistic policies and campaigns aimed at protecting Italians from this supposedly pernicious foreign influence? What did Mussolini think of America? Why were jazz, American literature, and comics so popular, even as the USA became Italy’s political enemy? America in Italian Culture provides a scholarly and captivating narrative of this epochal shift in Italian culture.
Please book your place HERE
Please note: you can read the intro to the book HERE
Also, members of affiliated institutions (including for example all University of London colleges) may access the ebook for free, following this link https://academic.oup.com/book/51692
Guido Bonsaver is Professor of Italian Cultural History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Pembroke College. He studied at the universities of Bologna and Verona, and completed his Ph.D. while teaching at Reading University. Before arriving at Oxford in 2003, he taught at the universities of Sussex, Kent, and Royal Holloway London. In 2012 he was appointed Ufficiale dell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica by the President of Italy in recognition of his contribution to Italian culture. His research work centres on Italy’s post-unification cultural history, with a particular interest in literature and cinema. He has collaborated with a variety of media outlets such as BBC radio and television channels, RAI radio and TV channels, and various specialist and generalist journals.
He is the author of a number of publications among which are the monographs: Elio Vittorini (2000), Censorship and Literature in Fascist Italy (2007), Vita e omicidio di Gaetano Pilati (2010), Mussolini censore (2013); and the following co-edited books: with R. Gordon, Culture, Censorship and the State in Twentieth-Century Italy (2005); with E. Bond and F. Faloppa, Destination Italy: Representing Migration in Contemporary Media and Narrative (2015); and with A. Carlucci and M. Reza, Italy and the USA: Cultural Change Through Language and Narrative (2019).
David Ellwood is Senior Adjunct Professor at SAIS Europe. Since 2020, Professor Ellwood is a Fellow, Einaudi Foundation, Turin. Formerly he was associate professor of contemporary international history at the University of Bologna (until November 2012). Ellwood has served as president of the International Association for Media and History (1996-2002). He is a frequent contributor of articles and reviews to academic journals, policy forums and news outlets. PhD, Italian studies, University of Reading. He is the author of The Shock of the Century, a seminal text on American culture.