The Association for the Study of Modern Italy (ASMI) was founded in 1982 by Christopher Seton-Watson, to bring together individuals and organisations from the UK and abroad with teaching, research, professional or general interests in modern Italy from all disciplinary angles.
This conference is in honour of Denis Mack Smith (1920-2017), the English historian best known for his biographies of Garibaldi, Cavour and Mussolini, as well as for his single-volume Modern Italy: A Political History, who was named Grand Official of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 1996.
After the conference, the ASMI annual lecture will take place, starting at 7 pm. Marina Warner will give a talk entitled: “Devouring Your Own: Arrivants, Sicily, and the popular imagination”.
- Denis Mack Smith Conference, 2-6:30 pm [BOOK NOW]
- Marina Warner – Annual ASMI lecture, 7-8 pm [BOOK NOW]
Programme
14:00 Welcome – Philip Cooke
14:15-16:15 Session One (Chair Paul Ginsborg)
1. John Foot – Denis Mack Smith: an overview
2. Paul Corner – Denis Mack Smith and Fascism
3. Stephen Gundle (introduction to video) – The Denis Mack Smith and Renzo De Felice TV debate
16:15-16:30 Tea
16:30-17:50 Session Two (Chair Stephen Gundle)
1. Giuseppe Laterza: Denis Mack Smith and Laterza
2. Elena Bacchin – Risorgimento historiography: recent and future developments
18:00-18:30 Round Table (Chair Adrian Lyttelton)
19:00-20:00 Marina Warner – Annual ASMI lecture (Chair Philip Cooke)
“Devouring Your Own: Arrivants, Sicily, and the popular imagination”
The Genius of Palermo, the emblem of the city of Palermo, shows an old king with a fanged serpent suckling his breast. The inscription reads, Panormus… suos devorat alienos nutrit (Palermo devours its own and nourishes strangers).
Marina Warner will explore this powerful ambiguous symbol (which appears in several forms through the town), in relation to the historical role of Sicily, which Denis Mack Smith explored so richly. The centre of the Mediterranean, and a principal crossing point of peoples and cultures, the island is steeped in a mythologised history of revolutionary idealism as well as suffering from chronic entropy. With the arrival of many thousands of refugees who are seeking safety and a fulfilling life, has this strand in its collective character found new expression? Can the story of the Genio be told in a different key?
ASMI would like to thank the Italian Institute London, All Souls College Oxford and Peterhouse College Cambridge for their generous assistance.