Staff profile

I am currently Assistant Lecturer in Italian Studies at Durham University. After graduating in Storia (BA) and World History (MA) at the University of Bologna, I completed a Ph.D in Italian Studies at Durham University (2024), under the supervision of Professor Katrin Wehling-Giorgi and Professor Charles Burdett.  

During my PhD I spent six months in Rome, working for the Museo delle Civiltà, specifically in the section of the museum housing the collections of the former Italian Colonial Museum. During my residency in Rome, I collaborated on Unveiled Storages, a project that led to the organisation of a temporary exhibition and a series of lectures, book presentations and panel discussions on the Italian colonial heritage. Here is the link to the project.

 

Research project and interests

Founded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council's Northen Bridge Scholarship, my Ph.D 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.

My research interests look at the history of Fascism and Italian Imperialism, Euro-Orientalism, the construction of otherness, colonial exhibitions and museums, the relationship between centre and periphery, travel literature, Italian expansionism in the Balkans and maritime history.

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.
• 'Publishing the Resistance, Third-Worldist Writing in Cold War Italy' with Professor Neelam Srivastava (Newcastle University), Durham Italian Studies Seminar Series.
• 'Monuments in Motion: Staging Fascist Imperialism' with Dr Carmen Belmonte (Roma Tre University), Durham Italian Studies Seminar Series.
• 'Italo Calvino and Japan, A Journey Through the Shallow Depths of Signs', book launch with the author, Dr Claudia Dellacasa (University of Glasgow), Durham Italian Studies Seminar Series.
• 'Architecture and the Novel as a Methodological and Theoretical Space in Inter-war Italy' with Professor Francesca Billiani (University of Manchester), Durham Italian Studies Seminar Series.

 

Teaching activity

 

Lecturing in the following modules:

• Centres and Margins across Italian Literatures and Media. 
• Narratives of Fascist and Post-War Italy.
• Renaissance and Baroque in Image and Word.
• Languages and Literatures of Italy. 

 

 

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.

   

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

Book review

• Dalmazzo, P. (2024). Bolette B. Blaagaard, Sabrina Marchetti, Sandra Ponzanesi, and Shaul Bassi, eds. Postcolonial Publics: Art and Citizen Media in Europe. Venezia: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2023. Pp. 292. Annali d'italianistica, 42, 713-714
• Dalmazzo, P. (2022). Paolo Orrù (a cura di), Percorsi/Contatti/Migrazioni/Dualismi. Nord/Sud e Mediterraneo nella lingua, nella letteratura e nella cultura Italiana, Firenze, Franco Cesati Editore, 2021, pp. 282. Bollettino '900, 2022(1-2),

Chapter in book

• Dalmazzo, P. (2024). The Ottoman Empire and Italian Imperial Discourse: How the Italian Literature Represented Ottoman Rule in Albania to Legitimate Its Imperial Ambitions. In I. Asceric-Todd, A. Smajić, J. Starkey, & P. Starkey (Eds.), Travellers in Ottoman Lands: the Balkans, Anatolia and beyond. Archaeopress. https://doi.org/10.32028/9781803278599
• Dalmazzo, P., Delpino, G., & Di Lella, R. A. (2022). Collezioni critiche. Collezioni coloniali. Riflessioni sugli oggetti provenienti dall’ex Museo Coloniale di Roma. In B. E. Barich, & L. Musso (Eds.), Italia-Libia: i luoghi dell'archeologia, dagli archivi all'impegno sul campo. Italy-Libya: archaeological landscapes, from archives to fieldwork (11-20). Scienze e Lettere

Conference Paper

• Dalmazzo, P. (2021, March). Use of memory in the cultural colonial claims, D'Annunzio and the use of the Venetian Empire. Paper presented at CFP GSAIS 2021 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN ITALIAN STUDIES Memory and Imagination in Italian Fiction and Non-Fiction
• 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 TIOL 2. Seminar Travellers in Ottoman Lands: the Balkans, Anatolia and Beyond, Sarajevo
• Dalmazzo, P. (2019, November). The voices of Italiano-Albanians in the Italian colonial policies, 1890 - 1914. Paper presented at SIS PG Colloquium - Minorities Report. Italian Culture, Facing Otherness, Durham University
• 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. (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

Working Paper

• Dalmazzo, P. The Fascist Empire’s time and eschatology in the eastern Adriatic, a shifting border