UCL, Department of Italian
School of European Languages, Culture and Society
Wednesday, 19 March 2014, 6:00 p.m.
UCL, Italian Seminar Room, Foster Court 351
Valerie McGuire
(European University Institute)
Fascism’s Mediterranean Empire: Italian Colonial
Modernity in the Dodecanese Islands (1923-43)
From the time of conquest during the Italo-Turkish War (1912)
until the 1943 armistice when the nation was forced to relinquish all
claims to colonies abroad, Italy’s various radical ideologies held the
Dodecanese Islands up as the “pearl” of its Mediterranean empire.
Historians invest Italy’s expansion into these islands as merely strategic.
This talk rethinks that premise by discussing artifacts that characterize
Italian rule of the islands: public works of architecture; propaganda in
film; photography; travel literature; and programs to educate the nextisland generation in Italian language and Fascist culture. Fascist Italy’s
effort to refashion the legend of its ancient dominance of the
Mediterranean and foil its backwater reputation resulted in a unique
project of national and colonial modernity.
ALL WELCOME