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History & Politics, Italian American Issues, Literature, Music, Theater & Dance

The Perfect Fascist

A Conversation with Author Victoria de Grazia

Date
Thursday, December 17, 2020
Time
5:00 pm

Overview

The Perfect Fascist
A Story of Love, Power, and Morality in Mussolini’s Italy

(2020, Harvard University Press)

Victoria de Grazia, author, Columbia University
in conversation with
Stefano Albertini, NYU

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

For this episode of Tutti a Casa! author Victoria de Grazia presents her latest book The Perfect Fascist: A Story of Love, Power, and Morality in Mussolini’s Italy (2020, Harvard University Press) in conversation with Stefano Albertini. The book recounts when Attilio Teruzzi, Mussolini’s handsome political enforcer, married a rising young American opera star, under the blessing of Mussolini himself. Yet only three years later, after being promoted to commander of the Black Shirts, Teruzzi renounced his wife. In fascist Italy, a Catholic country with no divorce law, he could only dissolve the marriage by filing for an annulment through the medieval procedures of the Church Court. The proceedings took an ominous turn when Mussolini joined Hitler: Lilliana Teruzzi was Jewish, and fascist Italy would soon introduce its first race laws. De Grazia’s landmark history captures the seductive appeal of fascism and shows us how, in his moral pieties and intimate betrayals, his violence and opportunism, Teruzzi is a forefather of the illiberal politicians of today.

Victoria de Grazia is Moore Collegiate Professor of History at Columbia University and a founding editor of Radical History Review. Her widely translated, prizewinning books include Irresistible Empire: America’s Advance through Twentieth-Century Europe and How Fascism Ruled Women. She has received the Woodrow Wilson, Jean Monnet, and Guggenheim fellowships and the Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome.

In ENGLISH.

Tutti a Casa! Live Chats About All Things Italian is the new radio-style, web-based talk show that Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò and the Department of Italian Studies at NYU are launching to bring into your homes the voices and flavors of live and entertaining talks around Italian matters that really matter: arts, movies, literature, politics, and a lot more.

This is our way to keep our community connected and continue to learn new things together in these times of challenge and pain, but also of opportunity. A new way to be together, and engaged on a common track of learning and discovery.

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