Successful Study Day on Cultural Exchange, Diplomacy, and Literature Between Italy and the United States
The Sorbello Foundation is pleased to announce the successful conclusion of the Study Day “Cultural Circulation, Diplomacy, and Literature between Italy and the USA in the Twentieth Century,” held on 28 November 2024 at Palazzo Sorbello in Perugia.
The event, organized jointly by the Fondazione Ranieri di Sorbello ETS and the Romeyne Robert and Uguccione Sorbello Foundation, highlighted several projects submitted to the 2024 edition of the Sorbello Fellowship, which supports early-career researchers working on the cultural relationships between Italy and the United States.
The Study Day was opened by Prof. Ruggero Ranieri, President of both Foundations, and was also livestreamed on the Fondazione Ranieri di Sorbello’s Facebook page. The initiative offered an important forum for discussing the diplomatic, cultural, and literary dynamics that shaped the transatlantic landscape throughout the twentieth century, bringing together international perspectives and interdisciplinary approaches.
The program unfolded across three thematic sessions:
- Cultural Circulation and Diplomacy, chaired by Prof. Alberto Stramaccioni (Università per Stranieri di Perugia), featuring presentations by Luca Abbattista (Columbia University) on the circulation of English-language books in Italy from the 1930s to the postwar years, and Angelica Radicchi (University of Genoa) on Italian “mondialists” and their networks in the 1940s and early 1950s.
- Soft Power and Cultural Intersections, chaired by Dr. Antonella Valoroso (Romeyne Robert and Uguccione Sorbello Foundation), with contributions from Giulia Crisanti (La Sapienza University of Rome), who explored the role of Italian food and gastrodiplomacy within American soft power, and Valerio Angeletti (Independent Scholar), who examined Rome’s representation in Eleanor Clark’s Rome and a Villa.
- Literature and Italian Identities Around the World, chaired by Prof. Ruggero Ranieri, with papers by Federico Sessolo (Bryn Mawr College) on Giuseppe Antonio Borgese as a poet navigating two worlds, and Claudio Staiti (University of San Marino) on the political and cultural trajectories of the Italian American Gino Speranza.
The Study Day concluded with an open discussion, offering space for reflections and future research directions. All contributions will be published in an upcoming volume of the Quaderni della Fondazione Ranieri di Sorbello.
This initiative reaffirms the Foundation’s commitment to promoting innovative scholarship on Italy–U.S. relations and to supporting young researchers engaged in the study of transatlantic cultural history.
