was created in 1978 and was the first such center in the United States.
The Center’s mission is
- to support Penn’s faculty and students in their research and pedagogy, while engaging the latest trends in Italian Studies, including topics of literature, music, theatre, art, film, history, politics, economy, and society;
- to broaden the impact of Penn-based Italian Studies beyond Penn’s campus;
- to foster relationships between Penn and the following constituencies: Philadelphia’s Italian-American community, governmental entities representing Italy in the U.S., research centers and cultural organizations promoting Italian issues in the U.S.
Research and teaching areas currently developed by the Center, in collaboration with the Italian Studies Unit of the Department of French and Francophone, Italian, and Germanic Studies (FIGS), include: the tre corone (Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio); the Renaissance and early modern periods; book and manuscript studies; performance and media studies; race and migration issues; and Mediterranean studies.
In the leftmost photo, Alessandro Vettori and Dacia Maraini discuss her novel, “In praise of disobedience’, during A Conversation on “In Praise of Disobedience” and Saint Clare of Assisi. In the center photo, “Machiavelli the Aristotelian” workshop’s participants and organizers are from left to right: Gabriele Pedullà, Alessandro Mulieri, William Connell, and Eva Del Soldato. In the rightmost photo, Amir Issaa presents on Power to Words: Identity in Contemporary Italy. Photographs courtesy of Eva Del Soldato.
Ann Moyer, Center for Italian Studies Director