Diversity Italian Studies

Responding to long-standing issues of racism, lack of diversity, and colonial knowledge production in the corporate university space, the Yale Diversity & Italian Studies Working Group was founded by Serena Bassi and Federica Parodi in the Spring of 2020 amid renewed conversations about systemic racism following the murder of George Floyd.

 

The group strives to continue this work by showcasing Italian Studies scholarship which complicates the modern fiction that Italy is a monocultural and homogeneous nation-state. 

 

To do this, the series aims to broaden the scope of our studies beyond Italy’s borders, adopting a transnational approach that necessarily dismantles the canonical, white, and ethnocentric Italian Studies curriculum. The working group invites speakers from various fields, both within and beyond academia, to speak to broad questions of diversity relating to their research.

 

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Initially, the working group met online, alternating between a speaker series and reading group meetings on diversifying Italian Studies. From Fall 2021 to Spring 2022, we worked jointly with the UC Berkeley Italian Migration Studies Working Group, hosting hybrid events. As of Fall 2021, our speaker series is back in person. 

 

Our efforts are generously supported by the Yale Dean’s Fund, the Yale Center for Race, Indigeneity and Transnational Migration (RITM), and the Yale European Studies Council. Our events have attracted the attention of the field at Yale and beyond.