On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the proclamation of the united Kingdom of Italy, the History and Humanities Department of John Cabot University is hosting a conference aimed at investigating the place of the Italian Risorgimento in global history. This conference aims to contribute to the growing scholarship of recent years reconfiguring our understandings of how Italian and European developments took place within larger global and regional frameworks along with their transnational, cross-regional significance.

Keynote speakers for the conference are Professor Emilio Gentile (Università di Roma "La Sapienza"), Professor Lucy Riall (Birbeck, University of London), and Professor Spencer Di Scala (University of Massachusetts, Boston). The conference will conclude with a round-table discussion led by the three keynotes.

Attendance is open to the public and there are no registration fees, but if you plan on attending, please register ahead of time at registrationglobal@johncabot.edu. Please write to the same e-mail for any questions.

Below is the conference program. We look forward to seeing you there.

Organizers: Luca de Caprariis, Gene Ogle, and Vanda Wilcox, Department of History and Humanities, John Cabot University.

The Risorgimento and Italian Unification in Global Perspective
John Cabot University
September 23-24, 2011

Friday, September 23

9:00-9:30 Coffee

9:30-9:45 Welcome

9:45-10:45 Keynote Speaker: Spencer Di Scala (University of Massachusetts, Boston)

11:00-12:45 Panel 1: An Inspiration to International Nationalists?: Reactions from Abroad Chair: Luca de Caprariis (John Cabot University)

Andrea Feldman (University of Zagreb) "Italian Prattle: Risorgimento Culture and the Formation of a Croatian Liberal"
Ann Tucker (University of South Carolina), "Confederate Nationalism and the Italian Risorgimento”
Lucia Ducci (Lorenzo de’ Medici Institute, Florence) "Italian Unification through the eyes of Ambassador George P. Marsh"

1:00-2:00 Break for Lunch

2:00-3:45 Panel 2: Special Relationships?: Britain and the Risorgimento
Chair: Shannon Russell (John Cabot University)

Nick Carter (University of Wales, Newport), "A Victorian affair? Britain and the Italian Risorgimento, 1848-1861"
Owain Wright (University of Worcester), "A Special Relationship? British Interactions with the New Italy, 1861-70"
Annemarie McAllister (University of Central Lancashire) “Italy Illustrated: Risorgimentolandscapes as presented to the English”

4:00-5:45 Panel 3: An End to "The Age of Revolutions"?: Republicanism, Radicalism and the Risorgimento
Chair: J. Casey Hammond (Singapore University of Technology and Design)

Marcella Sutcliffe (Newcastle University), "English Republicans, Mazzini and Italy’s Monarchic Turn"
Michele De Gregorio (Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota), "From the Roman Republic To The Paris Commune"
Carl Levy (Goldsmiths-University of London), "The Risorgimento, Italian Anarchism and the Italian Diaspora: 1860-1945"

6:00-7:00 Keynote Speaker: Emilio Gentile (Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’)

Saturday, September 24

9:00-9:30 Coffee

9:30-10:30 Keynote Speaker: Lucy Riall (Birbeck, University of London)

11:00-12:45 Panel 4: Culture Wars?: Global Catholicism and the Risorgimento Chair: Katherine Moran (University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point)

Ernest Greco (Roger Williams University, Providence), "The Risorgimento and Global Catholicism"
Anne O'Connor (National University of Ireland, Galway), "Irish Catholicism and the Italian Risorgimento"
J. Casey Hammond (Singapore University of Technology and Design), "Risorgimento Influences on the Modern European Image of St. Francis of Assisi"

1:00-2:00 Break for Lunch

2:00-3:15 Panel 5: Cosmopolitan Legacies?: The Risorgimento, Pluralism and Particularism
Chair: Andrea Feldman (University of Zagreb)

Katherine Moran, (University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point), "America’s Anti-Gothic Risorgimento: Social Order and Religious Pluralism in post-1870 U.S. Travel Writing" Slobodan Dan Paich (Artship Foundation, San Francisco), "Viva Verdi: The Rise of national opera houses as a symbol of enlightened cosmopolitanism"

3:30-5:15 Panel 6: The Risorgimento's Long Shadow?: Myth, Memory, and Modern Italian History
Chair: Vanda Wilcox (John Cabot University)

Rik Peters (University of Groningen), "Divina Providenza e necessità. Myth, history and constitution in the unification debates 1859-1861"
Ewa Kawamura, (Università degli Studi di Napoli "Federico II". ), "Typology of patriotic monuments of the Risorgimento in Italy and outside of Italy"
Gianluca Pastori (Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan), "Fifty years after. The conquest of Libya and the shadow of Risorgimento"

5:30-7:00 Summing Up: Roundtable Discussion

Emilio Gentile (Università di Roma ‘La Sapienza’)
Lucy Riall (Birbeck, University of London)
Spencer Di Scala (University of Massachusetts, Boston)

7:00-8:30 Reception