Received from Dr. Samuel Agbamu (Reading) and Dr. Elena Giusti (Warwick)
Dates: 22nd – 24th June 2023
Location: Museum of Civilisations, 14 Piazza Guglielmo Marconi 00144 Roma Italy
Overview
This conference will interrogate the roles of the ancient Greek and Latin worlds in the formulation of Italian colonial discourses, and its impacts on the cultural landscape of postcolonial Italy and its former colonies. It will approach these subjects across three themes: Classics and Italian Colonialism; Italy, Classics and Postcolonialism; and Decolonising Classics in Italy. Each theme will have a number of research questions:
1. Classics and Italian Colonialism
i. How has research into Greek and Roman antiquity contributed to the formulation of Italian colonial ideologies?
ii. How has Classics in Italy supported projects to inscribe difference between ‘races’, nations, and religions, as well as between categories of coloniser and colonised?
2. Italy, Classics, and Postcolonialism
i. How have people colonised and formerly colonised by Italy encountered the classical tradition?
ii. How have the literary cultures of Italy’s former colonies interacted with postcolonial Italian literature?
3. Classics and Postcolonialism
i. How have classicists across the world sought to interrogate and undo the complicities between the discipline and the legacies of colonialism?
ii. How have researchers done the same with classics and legacies of colonialism in Italy and its former colonies?
Programme
Programme may be liable to change
Thursday 22nd June
Morning
9:00-9:30 Welcome and Introduction (Samuel Agbamu and Elena Giusti)
I. Classicists, Colonialism and anti-colonialism (9:30-12:30)
9:30-10:30 Chair: Elena Giusti (Warwick)
1. Sergio Brillante (Sorbonne Université – Paris) ‘Were Classicists Ever Anti-Colonialists? The Italian Case (1885-1938)’
2. Andrea Avalli (IISS ‘Ferraris Pancaldo’ Savona / Scuola Superiore di Studi Storici, San Marino) and Anna Maria Cimino (IIS Finale Ligure) ‘Daedalus’ wings: notes for an intellectual biography of Mariella Cagnetta’
10:30-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-12:30 Chair: Emilio Zucchetti (RHUL)
3. Alberto Cafaro (Siena) ‘Sicelioti e Siciliani a Tripoli: Emanuele Ciaceri e la (ri)colonizzazione della Tripolitania’
4. Eleonora Colli (Oxford) ‘“No Longer Able to Lean on Tradition”: The Impossibility of Classical Reception in Giorgio Caproni’
5. Giovanna Di Martino (UCL) ‘The Ancient Greek-Theatre Model under Italian Fascism. The Case of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus at the Ancient Roman Theatre of Sabratha (1937)’
12:30-2:00 Lunch Break
Afternoon
II. Postcolonial negotiations / receptions (2:00-5:00)
2:00-3:00 Chair: Samuel Agbamu (Reading)
6. Laura Viidebaum (NYU) and Mattia Roveri (Independent) ‘A study of the ancient Roman soldier: Flaiano’s Tempo di uccidere’
7. Amalie Elfallah (independent) and NiccolòAcram Cappelletto (independent) ‘Khouzam’s Alessandro Spina and his desert[ed] classics ‘d’oltremare’: Reflecting on an Italian [Post]colonial Consciousness of Libya’
3:00-3:30 Coffee Break
3:30-5:00 Chair: Mia Fuller (Berkeley)
8. Cristina Lombardi Diop (Loyola University Chicago) ‘Modernity and Antiquity: Fascist Imperial Temporality’
9. Rhiannon Welch (Berkeley) ‘Deceleration and Oceanic Worldmaking’
10. Uoldelul Chelati Dirar (Macerata) ‘Italian Classicising Imperialisms between Negotiation and Dispute. African Intellectuals and the Challenges of Colonial Narratives in the Horn of Africa (1895-1952)’
5:00-6:30 Griot performance by Bocar Niang (program to follow)
Friday 23rd June
Morning
III. Colonialist Archaeology (9:30-12:00)
9:30-10:30 Chair: Francesco de Angelis (Columbia)
11. Ketty Iannantuono (KHI) ‘Archaeology on the threshold of the Italo-Turkish war. The 1910 Italian archaeological mission at Ankara.’
12. Martina Derada (Italian Archaeological School in Athens) ‘The Italian Archeo-Military explorations in Anatolia: the beginning (1913)’
10:30-11:00 Coffee Break
11:00-12:00 Chair: Elizabeth Macaulay (Graduate Center, The City University of NY)
1. Alessio Galli (Italian Archaeological School in Athens) and Drusilla Firindelli (Italian Archaeological School in Athens) ‘Colonialism with and without colony. Federico Halbherr in Crete and in Libya’ 2. Leah Bernardo-Ciddio (University of Michigan) ‘A Ripple in Time: Adriatic Imperialism and Archaeology in Italy and Albania’
12:00-2:00 Lunch Break
Afternoon
IV. Material Receptions (2:00-3:00)
Chair: Cristina Lombardi Diop (Loyola University Chicago)
3. Elizabeth Macaulay (Graduate Center, The City University of NY) ‘The Balbo Column: A Patriotic Gift or a Fascist Ambassador?’
4. Francesco de Angelis (Columbia) ‘Arches, Mobility, and Modernity in Italy’s African Colonies’
3:00-3:30 Coffee Break
V. Postcolonial negotiations II – Material and Documentary Traces (3:30-5:00)
3:30-5:00 Chair: Sergio Brillante (Sorbonne Université – Paris)
5. *Dechasa Abebe (Addis Ababa) ‘Haile Silassie’s Dilemma to Choose from among the “Patriots”, “Collaborators” and “Exiles” while Recruiting Officials for his Government in the early 1940s’
6. Michele Bellomo (Milano), Vittorio Saldutti (Napoli Federico II), Emilio Zucchetti (RHUL) ‘Indro Montanelli’s Classicising Colonialism’
7. *Ali Ahmida (University of New England) ‘Forgotten Genocide, Eurocentric Historiography, and Decolonizing the Archives’
5:15-6:15 Tour of the exhibition “Museo delle Opacità”, organised by Rosa Anna Di Lella, Gaia Delpino and Matteo Lucchetti (Museo delle Civiltà)
8:00 Conference Dinner Pizzeria Tatà
Saturday 24th June
9:00-11:00 Workshops/Laboratori on the collections of the Museum with the participation of:
- Gaia Delpino, Rosa Anna Di Lella, Matteo Lucchetti (Museo delle Civiltà)
- Flaminia Bartolini (“Sapienza” Università di Roma)
- Lorenzo Declich, Stefano Maltese (ISMEO/Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma)
- Maria Cecilia Lovato (Università degli Studi di Padova)
- Research Group “Decolonizing Italian Visual and Material Culture”
- Biblioteca Hertziana, MPI (talks by Carmen Belmonte and Sara Vitacca)
11:15-11:30 Coffee Break
Education (11:30-12:30)
Chair: Eleonora Colli (Oxford)
8. Lola Bos (Amsterdam) ‘Epitome di Cultura Fascista (1935/1938): Education, Colonialism and the Latin Language in Fascist Italy’
9. Frederica Daniele (Trieste) ‘Italian colonialism in children’s literature and school textbooks from the ventennio fascista’
Closing Address (12:30-13.15)
Chair: Elena Giusti (Warwick)
10. Angelica Pesarini (Toronto) ‘Teaching to Transgress Colonial Spaces: Decolonial
Practices in the Classroom’
13:15-13.30 Final Remarks
*Remote participation
A live version of the programme can be accessed here
The event is supported financially by the Past and Present Society; the Institute for Classical Studies; and the University of Warwick Connecting Cultures funding scheme.
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