Mia Fuller
University of California, Berkeley, Italian Studies, Faculty Member
Research Interests:
The essay argues that former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and politician Matteo Salvini, who have garnered attention by praising Mussolini or framing his regime as benign, are not so much harbingers of a renewed, literal fascism... more
The essay argues that former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and politician Matteo Salvini, who have garnered attention by praising Mussolini or framing his regime as benign, are not so much harbingers of a renewed, literal fascism (notwithstanding scandalized media depictions and the wishes of a minority of Italians) as they are exploiters of widespread Italian dissimulations about fascist Italy’s most egregious actions in the colonies; during World War II; and in aid of the Holocaust.
Italian political factions, meanwhile, have not exactly struggled to control Italy’s national narrative in these matters – because Italy does not strive for a single narrative. There is, for example, no national museum describing either fascism or colonialism. Italians in general subscribe to divergent narratives on Right and Left, especially concerning Italy’s own internal conflict in 1943-1945, in the course of the war between Nazi and Allied Forces that simultaneously took place on Italian soil. Historiography has depended in good part on scholars and journalists from outside Italian pillar institutions (including universities) to counteract the cover-ups of ‘patriotic’ historians and authors who have downplayed Italian complicities in the Holocaust and atrocities in the colonies.
The essay summarizes Italy’s most grievous military actions in 1930s colonial Libya and Ethiopia – challenging stereotypes of Italians as martially under-motivated – in conjunction with the obstacles overcome by Italian scholars (Del Boca and Rochat especially) who documented these events despite limited access to archival materials, being attacked by veterans, harassed, and in one instance, charged with a crime against the Italian state.
Italian political factions, meanwhile, have not exactly struggled to control Italy’s national narrative in these matters – because Italy does not strive for a single narrative. There is, for example, no national museum describing either fascism or colonialism. Italians in general subscribe to divergent narratives on Right and Left, especially concerning Italy’s own internal conflict in 1943-1945, in the course of the war between Nazi and Allied Forces that simultaneously took place on Italian soil. Historiography has depended in good part on scholars and journalists from outside Italian pillar institutions (including universities) to counteract the cover-ups of ‘patriotic’ historians and authors who have downplayed Italian complicities in the Holocaust and atrocities in the colonies.
The essay summarizes Italy’s most grievous military actions in 1930s colonial Libya and Ethiopia – challenging stereotypes of Italians as martially under-motivated – in conjunction with the obstacles overcome by Italian scholars (Del Boca and Rochat especially) who documented these events despite limited access to archival materials, being attacked by veterans, harassed, and in one instance, charged with a crime against the Italian state.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Fascism, Museums, Italy, Agro Pontino, Mussolini, and 3 morePredappio, Villa Carpena, and Piana delle Orme
Research Interests:
Annotated bibliography on Italian colonialism in North and East Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, and Tianjin.
Research Interests:
The core of Asmara, Italy’s former colonial capital in Eritrea, is widely known as a unique repository of 1930s Italian architecture. In addition, its Italian food and other traces of the colonial era lend it the semblance, to foreign... more
The core of Asmara, Italy’s former colonial capital in Eritrea, is widely known as a unique repository of 1930s Italian architecture. In addition, its Italian food and other traces of the colonial era lend it the semblance, to foreign eyes, of a still-colonial city. This article describes this apparent colonial inertia with respect to Eritrean citizens’ and government’s interests in sustaining the illusion, and argues that they use their past as Italian colonial subjects – specifically, their postcolonial cultural capital - to fortify their sense of separateness from Ethiopians, and celebrate their independence from their African neighbor.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Architecture, Colonialism, Urbanism, Rationalism, Ethiopia, and 3 moreItaly, Libya, and Carlo Enrico Rava
Research Interests:
Many of the urban projects realized during the Fascist regime have remained part of the Italian landscape. Together with monuments and works of art, they are the surviving traces of Fascist imagery in contemporary Italy. Protected by... more
Many of the urban projects realized during the Fascist regime have remained part of the Italian landscape. Together with monuments and works of art, they are the surviving traces of Fascist imagery in contemporary Italy. Protected by preservation laws as part of the national cultural patrimony, these remnants have become the focus of a politically charged public debate. In this book, scholars and curators from different disciplines critically explore the afterlives of Fascist-era artifacts. Spanning from the iconoclasm that followed the fall of the regime on July 25, 1943 to the present day, and moving from mural paintings and mosaics to buildings, decorative arts, monuments, and sculpture, the essays explore Italy's transition from Fascism to the Republic and the dynamics of postwar de-Fascisization, revealing ruptures and continuities throughout the twentieth century. Applying the notion of "difficult heritage" to the Italian context, the volume addresses issues of restoration, display, and critical preservation of artifacts in public and institutional spaces, drawing comparisons with practices in other countries including Germany and the United States.
Research Interests:
Moderns Abroad Moderns Abroad analyzes the theory and practice of Italian architecture and urbanism in modern-era colonies in North Africa, East Africa, and the eastern Mediterranean. Introducing the history of Italian imperialism and the... more
Moderns Abroad Moderns Abroad analyzes the theory and practice of Italian architecture and urbanism in modern-era colonies in North Africa, East Africa, and the eastern Mediterranean. Introducing the history of Italian imperialism and the expectations that shaped it, the book analyzes Italian architects' theories of modernism with respect to Italy as well as its colonies; and describes how Italian administrators and planners developed Tripoli, Addis Ababa and settlements for migrant farmers in Libya and Ethiopia. In addition to introducing the history of Italian colonialism (1869-1943), the book discusses the symbolic geographies governing Italians' approaches to the colonies: Italian colonizers worked from different assumptions regarding Mediterranean and sub-Saharan African populations, assuming the former to be more akin to themselves, and the latter less so. Colonial governments initially took no interest in how Italians' buildings represented the colonial power, but by the late 1920s architects began to theorize colonial design, and these different assumptions about the local populations and their level of "civilization" influenced their design theories. Similarly, in the mid-1930s, planners and administrators began to develop strict ideologies of racial segregation in colonial cities, particularly in East Africa. The final chapters of this book bring these theories into juxtaposition with what was actually built in the colonial settings, illustrating how wide the gaps between theory and practice were. Moderns Abroad is the first book to present an overview of Italian colonial architecture and city planning. In chronicling Italian architects' attempts to define a distinctly Italian colonial architecture that would set Italy apart from Britain and France, it provides a uniquely comparative study of Italian colonialism and architecture that will be of interest to specialists in modern architecture, colonial studies, and Italian studies alike.