The Society for Italian Historical Studies issues an annual Newsletter for its membership. It discusses developments within the Society as well as general news of conferences, awards, fellowships and other information. The Newsletter also collects member updates regarding publications, papers presented, honors, and promotions.
Current Newsletter:
Carissimi colleghi:
The SIHS Executive Committee is excited to unveil, after a lengthy interruption, our 2024 newsletter. We are pleased to report that our field remains as prolific as ever, with members producing new publications and earning awards, fellowships, and other distinctions. As evinced by the list of recently completed and ongoing dissertations, we are also welcoming a rising generation of Italianists producing groundbreaking scholarship.
To ensure that the future of Italian history remains bright, we are launching a critical new initiative: the Emerging Scholars Fund. Our community, like so many others across academia, is confronted by the converging crises of underfunding, shrinking job opportunities, and precarious employment. In view of these contracting resources, the Emerging Scholars Fund will help defray the costs of attending our annual meeting for graduate students, part-time and contingent faculty, and independent researchers. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation here to support our colleagues. With your assistance, the SIHS can continue to be a place of collaboration and exchange for all scholars studying Italy and its past.
Our panels at the upcoming annual meeting of the American Historical Association (New York, Jan. 3rd-6th, 2025) showcase the dynamism of our discipline. The topics include, but are by no means limited to, medieval legal history, early modern diplomacy, aquatic approaches to modern Italy, and the visual culture of contemporary politics; a full list can be found here.
At our annual business meeting (5:30 PM-6:15 PM on Friday, Jan. 3rd in the Rendezvous Trianon at the New York Hilton, Third Floor), we will present for discussion and approval the first-ever SIHS Bylaws, drafted over the past year by the Executive Committee. Our goal is to create a more participatory and consultative process for governance, and more opportunities for all interested members to contribute to the Society.
At our annual business meeting, we will also announce the recipients of this year’s Marraro Prize, Reinerman Prize, Article Awards, and Senior Scholar Citation. We are grateful to all the prize committee members for their sterling service. Special thanks must go to Dominique Reill for her tireless promotion of emerging scholars through the article prizes, and to our web administrator, Noah Cole, for his sterling work on our website and social media accounts.
As ever, our business meeting will conclude with a reception, from 6:30-7:30 PM on Friday, Jan. 3rd in the New York Room (New York Hilton, Fourth Floor). We look forward to seeing you there and toasting our achievements this year. Ci vediamo a New York!
Sinceri saluti,
Joshua Arthurs, University of Toronto, President
Stefania Tutino, UCLA, Vice-President
James Palmer, Florida State, Secretary-Treasurer
Notes from Members
New Books from our Members:
Donatello Aramini, Sapienza University of Rome: La rivoluzione nazionale. I nazionalisti, il fascismo e la fine dello Stato liberale (1919-1927) (Sapienza University Press, 2023)
Luciano Cheles, Université Grenoble Alpes: Iconografia della destra. La propaganda figurativa da Almirante a Meloni (Viella, 2023)
Marie D’Aguanno Ito, George Mason University: Orsanmichele: A Medieval Grain Market and Confraternity (Brill, 2023)
Yvonne Elet, Vassar College: Urban Landscape in the Third Rome: Raphael’s Villa and Mussolini’s Forum (Edizioni Firenze, 2023)
Fernanda Gallo, University of Cambridge: Hegel and Italian Political Thought: the Practice of Ideas, 1832-1900 (Cambridge University Press, 2024)
Kathryn Jasper, Illinois State University: Bounded Wilderness: Land and Reform at the Hermitage of Fonte Avellana, ca. 1035-1072 (Cornell University Press, 2024)
Fr. Michael Mendl: Father Ernest Coppo and the Founding of the Salesian New Rochelle Province (Salesiana Publishers, 2024)
Nelson Minnich, The Catholic University of America: The History of Reformation Era Theology, co-edited with Kenneth G. Appold (Cambridge University Press, 2023)
Joseph Viscomi, Birkbeck, University of London: Migration at the End of Empire: Time and the Politics of Departure between Italy and Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2024); Co-authored with S. Green, S. Lähteenaho, P. Douzina-Bakalaki, C. Rommel, L. Soto Bermant, and P. Scalco, An Anthropology of Crosslocations (Helsinki University Press, 2024)
Awards and Fellowships:
Hannah Barker, Arizona State University: Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study
Carrie Beneš, New College Florida (with Laura Morreale, Amanda Madden, and Laura Ingallinella), NEH for the La Sfera Project (http://www.sferaproject.org/about/news)
Robert Clines, Western Carolina University: Bogliasco Foundation Fellowship; Folger Shakespeare Library Long-Term Fellowship.
Celine Dauverd, University of Colorado, Boulder: 2023-24 Fellow at Columbia University’s Italian Academy for Advanced Studies; Summer 2024 Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow, European University Institute, Florence
Yvonne Elet, Vassar College: a David R. Coffin Publication Grant in support of her above mentioned, Urban Landscape in the Third Rome.
Diana Garvin, University of Oregon: 2024-25 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship on “The Coffee Bean in the War Machine: A Global History of Italian Espresso.”
Kathryn Jasper, Illinois State University: Advancing Research and Creative Scholarship Award(ARCS); Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship
Brian Maxson, East Tennessee State University: Visiting Fellowship to the Seminarium Philologiae Humanisticae (summer 2025)
Maureen Miller, University of California, Berkeley: received the Jane K. Sather endowed chair.
Emanuela Patti, University of Edinburgh: Royal Society of Edinburgh Personal Research Fellowship for the project “David Rizzio: History and Myth Across Arts and Media.”
Sharon Strocchia, Emory University: Giles Constable Award and The Delmas Foundation.
Italian History Dissertations Defended or In Progress:
Stefania Baitella, “The Italian Jews and the Myth of the Nation: from Risorgimento to Fascism.” Sapienza University of Rome, in progress.
Noah Cole, “Ideologies of Factionalism in Late Medieval Italy” Florida State University, in progress.
Mateusz Marek Ratajczak, “The Pastoral Nature of the Debate before the Session XXII of the Council of Trent Regarding the Imperial Request fort the Concession of the Chalice.” The Catholic University of America, in progress.
Peter Michelli, “Bishops and the Angevin Transition: Continuity and Change in the Archdiocese of Bari.” UC, Berkeley, in progress.
Lee Morrison, “Suburbium: Urbanization and Monastic Neighborhoods in Genoa, 1180-1380,” Washington University in St. Louis, in progress.