Intellectuals in Crisis: 1956 and the Italian Left
Patrick McCarthy Memorial Series on Intellectuals and Politics
Supported by the "Patrick McCarthy Fund" (http://www.jhubc.it/McCarthy/)
hosted by Professor
Mark Gilbert
Adrian Lyttelton
Professor of History 1979-1990, Senior Adjunct Professor of European Studies, Johns Hopkins University SAIS Bologna Center, Italy
PATRICK MCCARTHY MEMORIAL SEMINAR SERIES
INTELLECTUALS AND POLITICS
Patrick McCarthy was one of the leading scholars of contemporary Italian history of recent times and a major figure in the field of intellectual history of twentieth century Europe. He was also a distinguished member of faculty at the Bologna Center and an inspiration for many BC graduates. Upon his death, many of his former students contributed money to establish a memorial fund in his name. Without their past generosity, this series would not be taking place.
This seminar series aims to revive a tradition of studies in the humanities that has always been part of the BC’s mission. Studying International Relations requires knowledge of what makes other countries and other cultures tick. It requires knowledge of the mores, ideas and histories of societies around the world. Patrick McCarthy, who published books on the French writers Celine and Camus as well as on the politics of Italy, France and Germany, was an able interpreter of this cultural dimension to international affairs.
This seminar series will mostly – albeit with occasional detours – deal with Italy. Italy, along with Greece and, of course, Germany, was the West European country most divided by the Cold War and its intellectual history was marked by the choice between East and West, Communism or Catholicism. The intellectual conflicts of post-war Italy are perhaps the most intense in all Europe, but are less well known, in part for linguistic reasons, than the fervent ideological battles that took place in France.
In collaboration with the languages department, the seminar series will also be hosting several film nights in which classic "political" movies, in Italian with English subtitles, will be shown.
Overall, the seminar will help BC students grasp the immense cultural and political strains that have characterized Italian society in the post-war period.
ADRIAN LYTTELTON
B.A. (Honours) in Modern History, Magdalen College, Oxford University (1959); Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford (1960-68), Fellow of St. Anthony's College, Oxford (1968-75). Visiting professor at the American Academy in Rome (Fall 2003); visiting professor at the department of History, University of California, Berkeley (1997 and 2000); professor of European History, University of Pisa (1990-2000); associate of the Center for European Studies at Harvard University (1987); member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (1985-86); academic director of Research Institute, Bologna Center (1980-85); acting director, European program, SAIS Washington (Spring 1983); professor of History at the SAIS Bologna Center (1979-90); professor of Modern History at the University of Reading, UK (1976-79).
Author:
The Seizure of Power: Fascism in Italy 1919-1929 (1973, 2nd edition 1988, 3rd edition 2004) - Italian translation,
La conquista del potere (1974); editor of the volume on "Liberal and Fascist Italy" in the
Short Oxford History of Italy (2002); "Creating a National Past: History, Myth and Image in the Risorgimento" in
Making and Remaking Italy, (2001); "La dittatura fascista" in
Storia d'Italia (1997); "Society and Politics - 1860-1915" in
Oxford Illustrated History of Italy (1997); "The National Question in Italy" in
The National Question in Europe (1990); "Society and Culture in the Italy of Giolitti" in
Italian Art in the 20th Century (1989);
The Language of Political Conflict in Pre-Fascist Italy, Bologna Center Occasional Paper (1988); editor of
Italian Fascisms (1973).
