A series of talks organised by ICI London and ASMI
It was the world’s first fascist movement and would have a lasting and ongoing impact in political and social life in many regions of the world. To discuss its meaning and consequences, the Italian Cultural Institute will host a series of conversations and discussions looking at new research and contemporary interpretations of Italian fascism. Themes to be discussed include violence, antifascism, Mussolini as a model for other strongmen, the fascist empire, Mussolini and his image, the March on Rome, Italian history and violence and the biographies of leading fascists and antifascists.
Thursday 13 May, 6pm
M. Son of the Century (Fourth Estate, translated by Anne Milano Appel)
Antonio Scurati in conversation with Maria Bonaria Urban, Amy King, John Foot and Philip Cooke
The conversation will be in English, with some readings in Italian and English
Antonio Scurati’s book offers a startling look into the fascist mindset, a portrait of unrelenting determination, and a work of historical fiction, which won its author the coveted Strega Literary Prize in 2019, has been translated in forty languages and is going to be adapted into a major TV series.
M Son of the Century tells the story of the rise of fascism from within the mind of its founder. Rich in historical detail, and interspersed with real documents and sources, this is a masterful work of historical fiction with urgent resonance for our time
Antonio Scurati was born in Naples in 1969 and lives in Milan. He is a Professor of Comparative Literature and Creative writing at the IULM University in Milan and a columnist for Corriere della Sera. He is the author of various novels which have won an array of literary prizes in Italy, and M: The Son of the Century is the first to be translated into English. The first in a quartet of novels about Mussolini and the rise of fascism, it was the winner of the 2019 Strega award and has been translated into forty languages.
Maria Bonaria Urban is Senior Lecturer in Italian language and culture at the Department of Italian Studies, University of Amsterdam. She is currently on secondment to the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR), as Director of Studies in History. She has written widely on Italian literature and film and is the author of Sardinia on Screen. The Construction of Sardinian Characters in Italian Cinema. Amsterdam-New York, Rodopi, 2013.
Amy King is a lecturer in Liberal Arts at the University of Bristol. In 2021, she published an article in Memory Studies analysing the commemoration of Fascist and anti-fascist martyrs in Italian communities of the United States during Mussolini’s early rule, which drew on research conducted during fellowships at the Kluge Center, Library of Congress, and the Immigration History Research Center Archives at the University of Minnesota. She recently presented this work as part of the British School at Rome’s seminar series. Amy is currently writing a monograph on the memory of the 1973 Rogo di Primavalle for Palgrave Macmillan’.
John Foot is Professor of Modern Italian History at the School of Modern Languages, University of Bristol. A renowned historian, Professor Foot spent twenty years in Milan in the 1980s and 1990s and specialises in twentieth century and contemporary Italian history on which he has published extensively. His publications include: Milan Since the Miracle; Calcio. A History of Italian Football; Italy’s Divided Memory; Pedalare! Pedalare!; The Man Who Closed the Asylums and, more recently, The Archipelago. Italy since 1945. Professor Foot is also a regular contributor to The Guardian, the Times Literary Supplement and History Today.
Philip Cooke is Professor of Italian History and Culture at Strathclyde University and Chair of ASMI. Among his recent publications: ‘Italian Resistance Historiography’, in A Homage to Stuart Hood (2020) and ‘Claudio Pavone all’estero’ in Mestiere di storico e impegno civile (2019).
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