‘A new dispute on the New World’. Latin America through the Malaspina Shipment (1789-1794)

The Malaspina shipment was the most important mission realized in the New World in the modern era. During the around five years of navigation, the crew collected an unprecedented documentation about the demography, sociology, natural sciences, mineralogy, cartography and numismatics. The whole documentary collection, diffused subsequently among the greatest cultural circles of the Old Continent, contributed to produce an "imaginative vision" of the Latin-American society, of its culture, geography and political institution

La causa del Nuevo Mundo: Bonapartists in the Latin American Wars of Emancipation

Bonapartists revolutionary dreams did not end in Waterloo. Facing with the European Restoration, adventurism through Spanish colonies became an instrument for legitimizing the anti-absolutist ideal, shaping national patriotisms, and promoting insurrectionary practices. Participation in the struggle for independence in Latin America even contributed, I suggest, to the formation of an «anti-Bourbon international» which, in the following years, would take part in the liberal movements in the Mediterranean area and led the struggle against European monarchies. These experiences of entanglements ideologically and politically anticipated the emergence of patriotic brotherhoods that will characterize the struggle for liberties in the Atlantic world until the end of the 19th-century. Figures such as Lajos Kossuth or Giuseppe Garibaldi were they direct and legendary successor

Adventurers, Exiles, and Volunteers in the Atlantic World: Italians in Latin America (1789-1898)

Between 1789 and 1898, about a thousand people left the coast of the Italian Peninsula and moved to South America where they were involved in the ongoing revolutions, took part in the wars of independence and contributed to the construction of the new republics. Their biographical experience - in the forms of individual adventurism, political exile and military voluntarism - influenced the ideological formation of the various patriotism, activated new mechanisms of politicization and characterized the creation of trans-national political communities fully inserted in the dynamics of the XIX century globalization. Following a variety of migratory paths, these men turned the Atlantic world in a community of experiences characterized by deep connections between the Old World and the New Worl

Echoes of the American Revolution in the Risorgimento: Views from the Republican diaspora in the United States (1835-1860)

Echoes of the American Revolution widely resounded throughout the Risorgimento. Liberal and Republican writers overflowed with enthusiasm for the independence of the Thirteen Colonies, praising the moral virtues of the new nation, the adoption of advanced practices of political participation, and the establishment of a representative government. George Washington became a symbol of liberty; the US. constitution a benchmark for future written constitutions; the Congress a potential model for the creation of a national assembly. Even though historiography has long analyzed the influence of the American Revolution in pre-unification Italy, less attention has been paid to actors who experienced the United States. Italian émigrés, I argue, acted as cultural transfers, contributing to create, shape, and transmit narratives of the American Revolution focusing on three key-features: the Republican ethos of the founding fathers; the federalist system; and the pursuit of economic and religious freedom

I volontari del Risorgimento nelle guerre europee

La relazione verte sull'analisi storiografica del tema del volontarismo italiano del Risorgimento. A partire da una rassegna storiografica sul volontariato in armi del Risorgimento, la relazione esaminerà i nuovi filoni, nazioni e internazionali, di ricerca in materia per elaborare un’ipotesi interpretativa del combattentismo fuori dall’Italia nell’Ottocent

Corsari napoleonici nelle guerre d’indipendenza ispano-americane, 1810-1830

Negli ultimi anni, lo studio dei foreign fighters ha innovato le tradizionali interpretazioni sul processo di emancipazione ispano-americana. Tuttavia, mentre la storiografia ha privilegiato la ricerca sugli ejércitos libertadores, più marginale è stata l’attenzione attribuita alle forze navali insorgenti. Questo seminario esplora l’esperienza corsari bonapartisti che prestarono servizio sotto le bandiere dei patrioti creoli. Il focus analitico ricostruisce i cicli operativi della guerra di corsa, nonché le modalità tattiche e le visioni strategiche adottate per colpire la marina realista, difendere le fortezze costiere e contrabbandare armi, generi alimentari e schiavi tra golfo del Messico, mar dei Caraibi e Rio de la Plata. L’obiettivo è evidenziare la centralità del mondo marittimo nel determinare il successo della rivoluzione in America Latina, in una fase segnata da un’inedita crisi della sovranità imperiale e contraddistinta dalla coesistenza di molteplici centri di potere politic

Civilización y Barbarie. Repubblicanesimo Atlantico e Missione Civilizzatrice

Tradizionalmente, il repubblicanesimo ottocentesco è stato associato alle culture rivoluzionarie di liberazione coloniale, nazionale e imperiale. Tuttavia, i movimenti repubblicani agirono spesso in senso coloniale. Spinti da una cultura profondamente intrisa di nozioni di progresso civilizzatore, assunsero la missione teleologica di rigenerare l'umanità dalla tirannia politica, l'ignoranza religiosa e l'oppressione sociale, diffondendo i valori liberali tra popolazioni arretrate o retrograde. Negli anni Cinquanta, i governatori dello Stato di Buenos Aires e patrioti mazziniani elaborarono piani di colonizzazione della pampa meridionale tramite l’invio di legioni agricole-militari. L’obiettivo era di esportare la modernità atlantica nel ‘deserto’ argentino, ispirandosi alla civiltà dell’Antica Roma e in nome del Risorgiment

World History y Nuevas Perspectivas de la Historiografía

Introducción a la nueva historia globa

Voluntarios internacionales

Después del 18 de junio de 1815, alrededor de 700 veteranos de la Grande Armée participaron en la lucha por la emancipación de las colonias españolas en América. Impulsados por el espíritu aventura y un sentido de solidaridad cosmopolita, los napoleónicos se alistaron en los ejércitos libertadores de Simón Bolívar y José de San Martín hasta llegar a convertirse en generales, coroneles y jefes corsarios. Sobre los campos de batalla sudamericanos actuaron como actores transnacionales de la edad de las revoluciones, vinculando el Viejo Continente y el Nuevo Mundo a través del desarrollo de las prácticas militares. Estos combatientes compartieron también un conjunto de valores e ideales políticos que transformaron la causa anti-borbónica en una cuestión atlántica. Estas experiencias afectaron el curso de la independencia, así como en el nacimiento de las nuevas repúblicas americana

The underrepresentation of women in science: differential commitment or the queen bee syndrom?

We examined possible explanations for the underrepresentation of women among university faculty, in two different national contexts. In the Netherlands, a sample of doctoral students (N = 132) revealed no gender differences in work commitment or work satisfaction. Faculty members in the same university (N = 179), however, perceived female students to be less committed to their work and female faculty endorsed these gender-stereotypical perceptions most strongly. A second study, in Italy, replicated and extended these findings. Again, no gender differences were obtained in the self-descriptions of male and female doctoral students (N = 80), while especially the female faculty (N = 93) perceived female students as less committed to their work than male students. Additional measures supported an explanation in social identity terms, according to which individual upward mobility (i.e. of female faculty) implies distancing the self from the group stereotype which not only involves perceiving the self as a non-prototypical group member, but may also elicit stereotypical views of other in-group members