Italian Studies

Italian Studies

episodes

Interviews with scholars of Italy about their new books.

Myrto Garani et al., "The Oxford Handbook of Roman Philosophy" (Oxford UP, 2023)

March 9, 2024

The Oxford Handbook of Roman Philosophy

Myrto Garani, David Konstan, and Gretchen Reydams-Schils

Several decades of scholarship have demonstrated that Roman thinkers developed in new and stimulating directions the systems of thought they inherited…

Roseen Giles, "Monteverdi and the Marvellous: Poetry, Sound, and Representation" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

March 4, 2024

Monteverdi and the Marvellous

Roseen Giles
Hosted by Kate Driscoll

The marvellous, a key concept in literary debates at the turn of the seventeenth century, involved sensory and perspectival transformation, a rhetoric…

Obert Bernard Mlambo, "Land Expropriation in Ancient Rome and Contemporary Zimbabwe: Veterans, Masculinity and War" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

February 27, 2024

Land Expropriation in Ancient Rome and Contemporary Zimbabwe

Obert Bernard Mlambo
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In this highly original book Land Expropriation in Ancient Rome and Contemporary Zimbabwe: Veterans, Masculinity and War (Bloomsbury, 2022), Dr. Obert…

T. Corey Brennan, "The Fasces: A History of Ancient Rome's Most Dangerous Political Symbol" (Oxford UP, 2022)

February 21, 2024

The Fasces

T. Corey Brennan
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

"Fascism" is a word ubiquitous in our contemporary political discourse, but few know about its roots in the ancient past or its long, strange evolutio…

Mara Josi, "Rome, 16 October 1943: History, Memory, Literature" (Legenda, 2023)

February 20, 2024

Rome, 16 October 1943

Mara Josi
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

Today I talked to Mara Josi about her new book Rome, 16 October 1943: History, Memory, Literature (Legenda, 2023). Rome. Saturday 16 October 1943. Th…

Alexander Henry, "War Through Italian Eyes: Fighting for Mussolini, 1940-1943" (Routledge, 2021)

February 19, 2024

War Through Italian Eyes

Alexander Henry
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

There is a popular notion that the Italian armed forces of the Second World War were an inferior fighting force. Despite the vast numbers taken prison…

Why is Right-Wing Extremism so Widespread in Italy?

February 19, 2024

Why is Right-Wing Extremism so Widespread in Italy?

Marla Stone

In this episode of International Horizons, RBI director John Torpey interviews Marla Stone, a historian of Italian fascism at Occidental College, on t…

Anthony Kaldellis, "Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium" (Harvard UP, 2019)

February 13, 2024

Romanland

Anthony Kaldellis
Hosted by Mark Klobas

Though commonly used today to identify a polity that lasted for over a millennium, the label “Byzantine empire” is an anachronism imposed by more rece…

Matteo Millan, "The Blackshirts' Dictatorship: Armed Squads, Political Violence, and the Consolidation of Mussolini's Regime" (Routledge, 2022)

February 12, 2024

The Blackshirts' Dictatorship

Matteo Millan
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

On October 1922 Mussolini became head of the Italian government, a situation that would last for twenty years. That power was obtained was largely due…

Neil Bernstein, "The Complete Works of Claudian" (Routledge, 2022)

February 7, 2024

The Complete Works of Claudian

Neil Bernstein

Neil Bernstein's The Complete Works of Claudian (Routledge, 2022) offers a modern, accurate, and accessible translation of Claudian's work, published …

Marco Armiero et al., "Mussolini's Nature: An Environmental History of Italian Fascism" (MIT Press, 2022)

January 30, 2024

Mussolini's Nature

Marco Armiero, Roberta Biasillo, and Wilko Graf Von Hardenberg
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

In this first environmental history of Italian fascism, Marco Armiero, Roberta Biasillo, and Wilko Graf von Hardenberg reveal that nature and fascist …

Eugenio Refini, "Staging the Soul: Allegorical Drama as Spiritual Practice in Baroque Italy" (Legenda, 2023)

January 25, 2024

Staging the Soul

Eugenio Refini
Hosted by Kate Driscoll

As per William Shakespeare, ‘all the world’s a stage’. But what if the human soul was a stage too? What if the stage of the world and the stage of the…

Adrian Goldsworthy, "Rome and Persia: The Seven Hundred Year Rivalry" (Basic Books, 2023)

January 25, 2024

Rome and Persia

Adrian Goldsworthy
Hosted by Nicholas Gordon

For almost seven centuries, two powers dominated the region we now call the Middle East: Rome and Persia. From the west: The Roman Republic, later the…

Ian MacAllen, "Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022)

January 22, 2024

Red Sauce

Ian MacAllen
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), Ian MacAllen traces the evolution of traditional Italian-American cuisine…

Jessica Goethals, "Margherita Costa, Diva of the Baroque Court" (U Toronto Press, 2023)

January 20, 2024

Margherita Costa, Diva of the Baroque Court

Jessica Goethals
Hosted by Kate Driscoll

The Roman singer, courtesan, and writer Margherita Costa won prominence and fame across the courts of Italy and France during the mid-seventeenth cent…

Kyle Gervais et al., "Lucan and Flavian Epic" (Brill, 2023)

January 19, 2024

Lucan and Flavian Epic

Kyle Gervais, Randall Pogorzelski, and Sarah Graham-Shaughnessy

Roman imperial epic is enjoying a moment in the sun in the twenty-first century, as Lucan, Valerius Flaccus, Statius, and Silius Italicus have all bee…

Ali Abdullatif Ahmida, "Genocide in Libya: Shar, a Hidden Colonial History" (Routledge, 2020)

January 9, 2024

Genocide in Libya

Ali Abdullatif Ahmida
Hosted by Jeff Bachman

This original research on the forgotten Libyan genocide specifically recovers the hidden history of the fascist Italian concentration camps (1929-1934…

Peter J. Williamson, "Duce: The Contradictions of Power: The Political Leadership of Benito Mussolini" (Oxford UP, 2023)

January 9, 2024

Duce: The Contradictions of Power

Peter J. Williamson
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

Eighty years after the fall of Benito Mussolini, controversy remains about what his dictatorship represented. This reflects the different sides to the…

Seth Bernard, "Building Mid-Republican Rome: Labor, Architecture, and the Urban Economy" (Oxford UP, 2018)

January 7, 2024

Building Mid-Republican Rome

Seth Bernard
Hosted by Ryan Tripp

Building Mid-Republican Rome: Labor, Architecture, and the Urban Economy (Oxford University Press, 2018), offers a holistic treatment of the developme…

Roland Allen, "The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper" (Profile Books, 2023)

January 6, 2024

The Notebook

Roland Allen
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

We see notebooks everywhere we go. But where did this simple invention come from? How did they revolutionise our lives, and why are they such powerful…