Fascism: The View From America

The Department of Transnational Italian Studies is delighted to announce the talk titled "Fascism: The View from America" by Visiting Assistant Professor Federico Sessolo.

The event is open to everyone in the campus community and will be followed by a Q&A session.

Abstract:

In 1922, Benito Mussolini seized power in Italy, claiming that his new movement, fascism, would restore the country to its ancient glory. His political experiment would later become a global phenomenon, spreading to Germany, Hungary, Spain, and Japan, and threatening long-established democracies, such as France, Great Britain, and the United States.

The talk will explore the reception of Italian fascism and Mussolini in the United States. By analyzing newspapers, newsreels, and books, Sessolo will demonstrate the longstanding American fascination with the strongman from Italy, often seen as a living embodiment of the American self-made man. Special attention will be given to the role played by Italian-American communities, American intellectuals, and Italian émigrés in shaping and debating the reception of Mussolini's regime in the United States. The talk will also investigate the artistic representations of Italian fascism in American literature.

Speaker's Bio:

Federico Sessolo is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Transnational Italian Studies at ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿. He specializes in 20th-century Italian literature, often adopting a transnational and transhistorical perspective. In 2025, he published his first monograph, titled L'alleanza dello spirito: Giuseppe Antonio Borgese e la famiglia Mann in America (1938-1952), for which he received the Polizzi Generosa International Prize.

He is currently developing his second book-length project, dedicated to the cultural exchanges among philosophers, writers, and artists in Lisbon, a major hub for the European diaspora towards the Americas, from 1938 to 1945.