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Overview

Pietro Dalmazzo

Combined Role


Affiliations
Affiliation
Combined Role in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures

Biography

I completed my bachelor in contemporary history at the University of Bologna, with a thesis on the relations between Italy and Kosovo during the war in Yugoslavia.

I continued my studies in Bologna with a Master in Historical sciences. During the master, I spent 6 months of study and research in Belgium (Ghent University) on a European grant. I completed the MA in 2018 with a thesis in World History, in which I tried to investigate the relationship between Italian travel literature and eastern Europe, specifically looking at how the image of Russia was shaped into specific patterns of representation in the Italian culture and how these patterns developed after the revolution in 1917. 

Conference Papers

Dalmazzo, P. (2022, August). 'Ottoman Empire and Italian imperialistic discourse, how the Italian literature represented the Ottoman rule in Albania in order to legitimate an imperialistic discourse.' Paper presented at TIOL2 seminar: 'Travellers in Ottoman Lands: the Balkans, Anatolia and Beyond' University of Sarajevo.

 

Dalmazzo, P. (2022, May). Italy and Eastern Adriatic through the autobiography of Beatrice Speraz. Paper presented at 3rd IASA International Symposium in Italy, 'Italian Diaspora(s): the manifestation and dynamic of the cultural Change' Lucca.

 

Dalmazzo, P. (2021, March). 'Use of memory in the cultural colonial claims, D'Annunzio and the use of the Venetian Empire.' Paper presented at GSAIS 2021, International Conference in Italian Studies 'Memory and Imagination in Italian Fiction and Non-Fiction' University of Toronto.

 

Dalmazzo, P. (2020, November).' Pre-Fascist Italian imperialistic discourse How Italian literature shaped eastern Adriatic in the years before the 1st World War.' Paper presented at ASMI POSTGRADUATE SYMPOSIUM 2020.

Dalmazzo, P. (2019, November). 'The voices of Italo-Albanians in the Italian colonial policies, 1890-1914.' Paper presented at SIS PG Colloquium 'Minorities Report. Italian Culture, Facing Otherness.' Durham University

Recent Publications

Dalmazzo, P. (2022) 'Paolo Orrù (a cura di), Percorsi/Contatti/Migrazioni/Dualimi. Nord/Sud e Mediterraneo nella lingua, nella letteratura e nella cultura Italiana, Firenze, Fraco Cesati Editore, 2021' Review, Bollettino 900.

 

Dalmazzo, P. Delpino, G. Di Lella, R. A. (2022) 'Collezioni critiche, Collezioni coloniali. Riflessioni sugli oggetti provenienti dall'ex Museo Coloniale di Roma' in 'Italia - Libia: i luoghi dell'archeologia, dagli archivi all'impegno sul campo. Italy-Libya: archaeological landscapes, from archives to fieldwork.' pp. 11-20, Rome: Scienze e Lettere.

Research project and interests

Founded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council's Northen Bridge Scholarship, my research project investigates the cultural representation of expansionism under Fascism, focusing specifically on the discursive construction of the Eastern Adriatic during the regime. The project undertakes an analysis of diverse sources, including travel literature, novels, journal articles and colonial exhibits, produced by Italian culture about the eastern Adriatic. This analysis adopts a thalassological perspective to examine the region and employs various postcolonial theories. These methodologies aim to illuminate how Italian fascist culture portrayed the Adriatic employing figures, narrations and motifs typical of colonial discourses. Through this case study, the research focuses on the distinctive aspects of Fascism's colonial discourse in Italy. It tries to offer a perspective on the functioning of Fascism as an ideology, capable of generating original arguments, representations and discourses to legitimate imperial expansion.

Seminars Organized

 'Unveiled Storages, the former Italian colonial Museum and its heritage' with G. Delpino and R. A. Di Lella (Museo delle Civiltà), Italian Studies, Durham University.

 

'The Many ends of the Italian Empire' with Valerie Mc Guire (University of Austin), Italian Seminar Series, Durham University.

Teaching activity

 

Lecturing in the following modules:

 

 

Working Papers

Dalmazzo, P. (February 2020) 'Italian Colonial literature: Mirko Ardemagni's account from Eritrea.' Mlac Postgraduate Work In Progress, Durham University.

Dalmazzo, P. (February 2021). 'Constructing a Colonial Reality Through the Transformation of Temporalities, Italian Travel Writing in the Eastern Adriatic.' Mlac Postgraduate Work in Progress, Durham University. 

 

Dalmazzo, P. (May 2021). 'Imperial Memory, Italian Literature and the Eastern Adriatic (1910 - 1921).' Centre for Modern Conflicts and Cultures, Durham University.

 

Dalmazzo, P. (December 2022). 'The Fascist Empire's time and eschatology in the Eastern Adriatic, a shifting border.' History Research Seminars, Aberystwyth University.

Research interests

  • Italian imperialism, Fascism, Euro-Orientalism, Colonialism, Mediterranean History, WWII, Colonial exhibits, Western Balkans.

Publications

Book review

Chapter in book

Conference Paper

Presentation

Working Paper