The Department of Italian is renowned for its innovative and wide-ranging research, ranging from the medieval period to contemporary Italy. We foster an approach that integrates textual studies into broader cultural and material histories. Our key strengths are medieval and Renaissance studies, book history, twentieth and twenty-first century Italian history, literature, culture and film.

Research areas

The Department of Italian is renowned for its innovative and wide-ranging research, ranging from the medieval period to contemporary Italy. We foster an approach that integrates textual studies into broader cultural and material histories. Our key strengths are medieval studies, book history, twentieth and twenty-first century Italian history and memory, film studies (with a focus on stars and audiences), and cultural representations of Naples.

Key Research Areas:

• Dante and early lyric poetry: modern literary and political appropriations of Dante.
• Medieval and Renaissance Italian literature and culture: Boccaccio and the reception of his works; manuscript and early modern print culture; histories of reading; artists’ books.
• Twentieth-century history and memory: history of radical psychiatry: memory studies and oral history; the history and culture of sport; Milan since the war; political deportation; fascism.
• Italian popular cinema: stars and performance; the reception of Italian film in post-war culture; audience studies; masculinity studies.
• Late twentieth-century Italian culture: representations of Italy’s experience of political violence and terrorism in the anni di piombo; postmodernism and the Italian novel; women and violence.
• Naples in the cultural imaginary; postcolonial approaches to the Italian South

Projects

• Catherine O’Rawe is an investigator on the European Research Council-funded project Studiotec: Film Studios: Infrastructure, Culture, Innovation in Britain, France, Germany and Italy, 1930-60 (2019-24).The project involves researchers from the universities of Bristol, Southampton, and Queen Mary, London.
• John Foot held a Leverhulme Trust-funded project (Major Research Fellowship, 2018-2021) on Fascism and everyday life in Italy, with a focus on micro-history and the impact of violence at a local and family level.
• Tristan Kay held a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship on ‘The Poet and the Nation: Dante and the Idea of Italy’ (2020-21). The project explores the ways in which the figure of Dante has been used to articulate different forms of Italian national identity since Unification.
• Ruth Glynn held an AHRC Leadership Fellowship on Naples and the Nation (2018-2020). The project addresses cultural constructions of Naples and its relationship with the Italian nation-state in the Second Republic.
• Catherine O’Rawe held a British Academy Fellowship during 2017-18 for the project Stardom and Performance in Italian Neorealist Cinema, 1945-53 (2017-18). This focuses on the casting, performance, and labour of non-professionals, particularly children.
• The Department played a leading role in the Transnationalizing Modern Languages project, funded by the AHRC between 2014-17. Professor Charles Burdett (now Chair of Italian at Durham) was the PI, and TML examined the forms of mobility that have defined the development of modern Italian culture and its interactions with other cultures across the globe. It produced innovative impact case studies and an important policy document ‘Reframing Language Education for a Global Future’ (Sept 2018).
• Rhiannon Daniels held an AHRC Leadership Fellowship (2014-16) for her project on The Renaissance ‘Decameron’. This explores the cultural context of making and consuming a ‘modern classic’ in the first century of print and forms the basis of her monograph in progress.
• Ruth Glynn was interim Co-Investigator on the AHRC-funded research network exploring Women, Work and Value in Europe, 1945-2015(2014-16). The project brought together academics, interest groups and policy makers to discuss the relevance of past experiences for the challenges relating to women’s work and its value today.
• Catherine O’Rawe was Co-Investigator on the AHRC-funded project Italian Cinema Audiences 1945-60 (2013-16). This project mixed quantitative and qualitative research into Italian cinema-going in the post-war period, and has given rise to numerous events and publications, including an edited book (Bloomsbury, 2020).
• John Foot was funded by the Wellcome Trust (2011-14) to carry out a large-scale research project on Franco Basaglia and the Mental Health Reform in Italy, 1960-2009. A short video account is available here.

Associated Centres

• Centre for Medieval Studies: The Centre for Medieval Studies draws together the research interests of all staff and postgraduate students who work on the Middle Ages.
• Screen Research Cluster: an interdisciplinary group working in screen studies, a broad field that incorporates film, television and digital media technologies.
• Centre for Creative Technologies: The Centre for Creative Technologies provides a focus for colleagues across the Faculty of Arts working with or on creative technologies – whether analogue or digital – from film and print to gaming and VR.
  
• Bristol Hub for Gambling Harms Research: An interdisciplinary approach to understanding and tackling gambling harms.  
• Bristol Common Press: A working historical print shop located at the University of Bristol, founded in 2021.

Collaborations and Activities 

All staff in Italian at Bristol are habitually involved in national and international collaborations on research projects relating to Italian history and culture. We are active contributors to scholarly associations and disciplinary initiatives, and have recently served as Editor of the most significant disciplinary journals in the UK, including Italian Studies (Glynn), Modern Italy (Foot) and The Italianist (O’Rawe).

Our staff present regularly at academic conferences and give invited talks and workshops, in the UK and internationally.

We are actively involved in collaborations with other universities and scholarly organizations, and sit on advisory boards of research projects, journals, and research foundations. Beyond academia, we work with partners in schools, in the cultural sector, and the media. We have recently collaborated with The Italian Teachers Network; the Italian University of the Third Age; book artists and printmakers in Bristol and beyond; and the media. We have partnered with cultural organizations in Bristol and the southwest to organise public-facing events focused on Italy and its culture. Examples of our activities include:

• Dr Rhiannon Daniels is co-founder and co-director of the Bristol Common Press
• Prof. John Foot is a recipient of the Serena Medal, awarded by the British Academy for eminent services in the study of Italian history, and a regular contributor to media publications such as the TLS; History Today; London Review of Books; The Guardian; L’Internazionale.
• Prof. Ruth Glynn sits on the advisory committee of the Bogliasco Foundation and of the gender/sexuality/Italy online journal
• Dr Tristan Kay is Treasurer of the Society for Italian Studies for the UK and Ireland
• Prof. Catherine O’Rawe sits on the advisory boards of Quaderni d'italianistica, gender/sexuality/Italy, L'avventura: International Journal of Italian Film and Media Landscapes, and the Cinema, media and cultural studies series of the Italian publisher Meltemi