Behind Paradise: a Provincial History of Italy's Mediterranean Empire

H-Mediterranean Tonight in Sacramento: Behind Paradise: A Provincial History of Italy’s Mediterranean Empire

Discussion published by Valerie McGuire on Thursday, February 18, 2016

Feb. 18, 2016

LIBRARY RESEARCH FELLOW PRESENTATION

“Behind Paradise: A Provincial History of Italy’s Mediterranean Empire”

The Tsakopoulos Hellenic Collection invites you to join us for a lecture by 2015-2016 Library Research Fellow

Dr. Valerie McGuire, New York University and Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow for the Mediterranean Region, Council of American Overseas Research Centers.

Summary:

"Today, Rhodes, Kos and other Dodecanese islands draw thousands of travelers annually by offering the iconic Greek island experience. Between 1912 and 1943, in contrast, the Dodecanese were under Italian occupation. As an increasingly important colony within Fascist Italy’s eastward expansion in the Mediterranean – what Mussolini ambitiously referred to as the conquest of Mare nostrum -- the population became subject to different state-building projects by the local administration. From education in the Italian language, to the adoption of imperial citizenship, to new job opportunities in the Fascist corporatist state, the local population faced a prolonged cycle of betrayal and reconciliation with their Italian rulers. This process culminated in the Second World War occupation of Greece by the Axis powers but it is arguably still active in the current construction of the European Union. While scholarship has typically dismissed Italian colonialism as ‘ragamuffin’ (the term is Lenin’s), the Dodecanese occupation bears witness to the breadth of Italian empire as well as its afterlife in identity, culture and memory."

Citation: Valerie McGuire. Tonight in Sacramento: Behind Paradise: A Provincial History of Italy’s Mediterranean Empire. H- Mediterranean. 02-18-2016. https://networks.h-net.org/node/8051/discussions/112340/tonight-sacramento-behind-paradise-provincial-history-italy%E2%80%99s Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-Mediterranean

Thursday, Feb. 18, 2016

Senator Nicholas Petris Room, Library 3023 (3rd floor)

Tsakopoulos Hellenic Collection, University Library

Schedule of Events:

7:00 – 8:30 p.m. presentation and discussion

The presentation is free and open to the public. Funding for the Library Research Fellowship Program has been made possible by a generous grant from the Elios Charitable Foundation.

Print out a parking permit (PDF document) to use for the evening.

For further information, contact George I. Paganelis at (916) 278-4361 or [email protected].

http://library.csus.edu/tsakopoulos/news.asp.html