“Brava Gente”

Virtual Salons: Discourses on Black Italia
In collaboration with NYU Florence
“Brava Gente”
Italian Colonial Legacies and Historical Constructions of Race

Shelleen Greene, UCLA / University of Leeds
Angelica Pesarini, NYU
Francesca Melandri, novelist and screenwriter
Moderated by Candice Whitney, writer and translator

The episode will be broadcast on Casa’s Facebook Page and website

How can a nation address its colonial past if it struggles to recognize it? Italians have been considered as “brava gente”, or the decent ones, compared to the other European nations. In this event, Angelica Pesarini, Lecturer in Social & Cultural Analysis at NYU Florence, Shelleen Greene, Associate Professor, School of Theater, Television & Film at UCLA and Fulbright Scholar at the University of Leeds, and Francesca Melandri, author of Sangue Giusto and Eva Dorme, will discuss how race and colonialism are embedded within the nation’s identity formation. They will also explore how Italian colonial legacies are remembered and forgotten in Italy through media and film.

In ENGLISH with Italian subtitles.

About Virtual Salons: Discourses on Black Italia
How can one unpack the intersectional layers of race, identity and citizenship in Italy? Inspired by Professor Angelica Pesarini’s course at NYU Florence, Black Italia, each episode will provide leading scholars, writers, artists and activists an opportunity to dig deep into questions about race, racialization, identity, citizenship, and more in Italy. By the end of the series, viewers will learn: an overview of how race and identity exist in colonial and post-colonial Italy; how racialization impacts immigrants and youth of immigrants with Arab backgrounds; strategies used by artists and journalists of the Mediterranean to tell a story about Italy; the diversity of experiences of Afro-Italian women, as featured in Future, edited by Igiaba Scego; how Black Lives Matter Movement has impacted anti-racism activism and citizenship rights in Italy. This series will be co-facilitated by Candice Whitney, Writer, Translator, and Fulbright Researcher to Italy 2016-17 and Professor Angelica Pesarini, NYU Florence.