A Friends of the Library Lecture.

With the accelerating presence of conspiracy narratives in modern politics in mind, this lecture analyzes wartime conspiracy narratives and myths promoted by the Fascist regime. Fascist propaganda evolved and drew on national as well as international, religious as well as secular, conspiracy theories. 

Between 1936 and 1945, Fascist conspiracy narratives shifted from a focus on an international communist plot to destroy the Catholic Church, murder clergy, and force the faithful into states of mortal sin to a conspiracy narrative close to that promoted by Nazism.

By the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Italian Fascism devised its own version of Nazi Judeo-Bolshevism, stressing Soviet/Russian barbarism and its plan for global destruction, as well as the plotting and racial pollution of the Jews who the Fascists claimed controlled the Soviet Union.

Marla Stone is the Andrew W. Mellon Humanities Professor at the American Academy in Rome.

The lecture will be held in English.

This Friends of the Library Lecture, to be presented in person at the Academy as well as on Zoom, is free and open to the public. To watch on Zoom, please sign up in advance. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

The Friends of the Library supports the Academy’s Arthur & Janet C. Ross Library through annual dues and special initiatives. The group also helps to raise awareness of the library’s resources through regular programs. Join online today!