In this discussion, Carlo Ginzburg, a widely admired and influential historian, will reflect on his life’s work and his contributions to the field of history, including his pioneering work in microhistory and the history of mentalities, in conversation with Emmanuelle Saada; a Q&A with the audience will follow.

Ginzburg is an Italian historian and a pioneer of the field of microhistory. He is best known for The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller (Il formaggio e i vermi, 1976), which examined the unique beliefs of Italian heretic, Menocchio. The book is a notable example of the history of mentalities, microhistory, and cultural history, and has been called “probably the most popular and widely read work of microhistory.”

His other books include The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries; Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath; The Judge and the Historian: Marginal Notes and a Late-Twentieth-Century Miscarriage of Justice; Clues, Myths, and the Historical Method; and Threads and Traces: True, False, Fictive.

Ginzburg has taught at the University of Bologna, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. He has been a senior fellow of Columbia’s Italian Academy since its inception. His interests range from the history of the Italian Renaissance and early modern European to historiography, art history, and literary studies.

Saada is professor of history and French and chair of the Department of French at Columbia.

The Eugene Sheffer Distinguished Speaker series was created by the family of Eugene Sheffer to honor his commitment to the Columbia Maison Française, which he directed from 1942 to 1966.