This event is part of the New Work in the Arts & Humanities: Bodies of Knowledge series.

Italy has gone through a variety of phases over the past seventy years in trying to come to terms with its Fascist past. Yet this history still remains a painful one. All too often myth and wishful thinking take the place of dispassionate analysis and the facing of uncomfortable truths. In trying to reconstruct this history, deep archival research is essential. Two of the scholars who have published influential archivally based recent work that casts new light on the Fascist period engage in a conversation about how their findings from the archives have brought dominant narratives about this history into question. They discuss what they have found to be the most valuable sources in both the civil and ecclesiastical archives for shedding new light on this history, and they discuss the question of whether all relevant documents have been made available to scholars.

David Kertzer is professor of social science, anthropology, and Italian studies at Brown University (2000 Resident), and Mauro Canali is professor of contemporary history at the University of Camerino.

The event will be held in English and Italian with simultaneous translation available.

With the support of the United States of America Embassy to Italy.