
Professor Guido Bonsaver
I have been teaching at Pembroke since 2003, after shorter spells at Sussex, Kent and Royal Holloway. My research interests have also moved around, from literature, to cinema and now to the cultural history modern Italy. I am intrigued by questions of cultural change and, indeed, in the last few years I have been working first on immigration in contemporary Italy and currently on the influence of U.S. culture in Italy. In my view, these topics address two of the most radical changes which Italian culture underwent since the country's unification in 1861.
UNIVERSITY EDUCATION
1992 PhD in Italian, University of Reading. Supervisor: Prof. G. Lepschy (FBA)
CURRENT EMPLOYMENT
2003 – University Lecturer in Italian, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages,
Oxford University; as of Oct 2010 Professor of Italian Cultural History;
Also Tutorial Fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford
UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION AND OTHER ACTIVITIES
Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages:
2007 – Co-ordinator of Italian Studies at Oxford (ISO), European Humanities Research Centre
(ISO is an interdisciplinary network of scholars working on Italy)
2012- Management Committee, The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH)
2009-12 Chairman of the Italian Sub-Faculty
2010-12 Dean, Pembroke College
Recent contribution to the subject outside the University
• Member of Executive Committee, Society for Italian Studies; AHRC Peer Review College; Jury of the Translation prize of the Society of Authors;
• Editorial Board: The Italianist; Letteratura e letterature; Italian Studies; Modern Language Review; Italian Studies in Southern Africa.
Media collaboration
• BBC World Service, BBC4, BBC Radio4
• Sight & Sound (film monthly of the British Film Institute)
• Corriere della Sera, Adige
MAIN PUBLICATIONS
Books:
• The USA in Italian Culture: The Rise of a New Transnational Model, 1861-1943 (under contract with Oxford University Press; planned publication 2022)
• Mussolini censore: Storie di letteratura, dissenso e ipocrisia (Rome, Laterza, 2013)
• Vita e omicidio di Gaetano Pilati: 1881-1925 (Florence, Cesati, 2010)
• Elio Vittorini: Letteratura in tensione (Florence, Cesati, 2008)
• Censorship and Literature in Fascist Italy (Toronto University Press, 2007) - American Association of Italian Studies Book Prize for 2007
• Kaos: Luigi Pirandello e i fratelli Taviani (Palermo, L'Epos, 2007)
Edited books:
• with A. Carlucci and M. Reza, Italy and the Usa: Understanding Cultural Change in Language and Narrative (Cambridge: Legenda, 2019)
• with B. Richardson and G. Stellardi, Cultural Reception, Translation and Transformation from Medieval to Modern Italy (Cambridge: Legenda, 2017)
• with Emma Bond and Federico Faloppa, Destination Italy: Representing Migration in Contemporary Media and Narrative (Oxford: Lang, 2015)
• with Martin McLaughlin and Franca Pellegrini, Sinergie narrative: Cinema e letteratura nell'Italia contemporanea (Florence, Cesati, 2008)
• with Robert Gordon, Culture, Censorship and the State in 20th Century Italy (Oxford, Legenda, 2005)
Recent articles:
• ‘The Royal Academy of Italy’, in Gaborik P. (ed.), Luigi Pirandello in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2021)
• ‘Turin Between French and U.S. Culture: The Film and Car Industries in 1904-1914’, in Bonsaver, Carlucci, Reza (eds), Italy and the USA: Understanding Cultural Change in Language and Narrative (Cambridge: Legenda, 2019)
• ‘Narratives of Resistance (and Revolution) in Modern Italy’, in Moroncini, Shecter and Vighi (eds), Resistance in Italian Culture from Dante to the 21st Century (Florence: Cesati, 2019), pp. 153-176
• ‘La fortuna del romanzo statunitense’, in Ferrando (ed.), Stranieri all’ombra del Duce. Le traduzioni durante il fascismo (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2019), pp. 277-289
• ‘The Dynamics of Cultural Change: A Theoretical Frame with Reference to Italy-USA Relations’,with Alessandro Carlucci and Matthew Reza, 900 Transnazionale/Transnational 900, 3.1 (2019), 107-130
• ‘ “Senti‘n po’, a Gregori Pècche…”: Shavelson’s It Started in Naples and Fellini’s La dolce vita between Italian and U.S. Culture’, in Bonsaver G., Richardson B. and Stellardi G. (eds) Cultural Reception, Translation and Transformation from Medieval to Modern Italy (Cambridge: Legenda, 2017), 331-351
• ‘De la censure politique à l’autocensure historique: le cas de la littérature italienne sous le fascisme’ in Laurent Martin (ed.), Les censures dans le monde, Presses Universitaires de Rennes: Rennes, 2016, 1-13
Professor Guido Bonsaver

I have been teaching at Pembroke since 2003, after shorter spells at Sussex, Kent and Royal Holloway. My research interests have also moved around, from literature, to cinema and now to the cultural history modern Italy. I am intrigued by questions of cultural change and, indeed, in the last few years I have been working first on immigration in contemporary Italy and currently on the influence of U.S. culture in Italy. In my view, these topics address two of the most radical changes which Italian culture underwent since the country's unification in 1861.
UNIVERSITY EDUCATION
1992 PhD in Italian, University of Reading. Supervisor: Prof. G. Lepschy (FBA)
CURRENT EMPLOYMENT
2003 – University Lecturer in Italian, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages,
Oxford University; as of Oct 2010 Professor of Italian Cultural History;
Also Tutorial Fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford
UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION AND OTHER ACTIVITIES
Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages:
2007 – Co-ordinator of Italian Studies at Oxford (ISO), European Humanities Research Centre
(ISO is an interdisciplinary network of scholars working on Italy)
2012- Management Committee, The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH)
2009-12 Chairman of the Italian Sub-Faculty
2010-12 Dean, Pembroke College
Recent contribution to the subject outside the University
• Member of Executive Committee, Society for Italian Studies; AHRC Peer Review College; Jury of the Translation prize of the Society of Authors;
• Editorial Board: The Italianist; Letteratura e letterature; Italian Studies; Modern Language Review; Italian Studies in Southern Africa.
Media collaboration
• BBC World Service, BBC4, BBC Radio4
• Sight & Sound (film monthly of the British Film Institute)
• Corriere della Sera, Adige
MAIN PUBLICATIONS
Books:
• The USA in Italian Culture: The Rise of a New Transnational Model, 1861-1943 (under contract with Oxford University Press; planned publication 2022)
• Mussolini censore: Storie di letteratura, dissenso e ipocrisia (Rome, Laterza, 2013)
• Vita e omicidio di Gaetano Pilati: 1881-1925 (Florence, Cesati, 2010)
• Elio Vittorini: Letteratura in tensione (Florence, Cesati, 2008)
• Censorship and Literature in Fascist Italy (Toronto University Press, 2007) - American Association of Italian Studies Book Prize for 2007
• Kaos: Luigi Pirandello e i fratelli Taviani (Palermo, L'Epos, 2007)
Edited books:
• with A. Carlucci and M. Reza, Italy and the Usa: Understanding Cultural Change in Language and Narrative (Cambridge: Legenda, 2019)
• with B. Richardson and G. Stellardi, Cultural Reception, Translation and Transformation from Medieval to Modern Italy (Cambridge: Legenda, 2017)
• with Emma Bond and Federico Faloppa, Destination Italy: Representing Migration in Contemporary Media and Narrative (Oxford: Lang, 2015)
• with Martin McLaughlin and Franca Pellegrini, Sinergie narrative: Cinema e letteratura nell'Italia contemporanea (Florence, Cesati, 2008)
• with Robert Gordon, Culture, Censorship and the State in 20th Century Italy (Oxford, Legenda, 2005)
Recent articles:
• ‘The Royal Academy of Italy’, in Gaborik P. (ed.), Luigi Pirandello in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2021)
• ‘Turin Between French and U.S. Culture: The Film and Car Industries in 1904-1914’, in Bonsaver, Carlucci, Reza (eds), Italy and the USA: Understanding Cultural Change in Language and Narrative (Cambridge: Legenda, 2019)
• ‘Narratives of Resistance (and Revolution) in Modern Italy’, in Moroncini, Shecter and Vighi (eds), Resistance in Italian Culture from Dante to the 21st Century (Florence: Cesati, 2019), pp. 153-176
• ‘La fortuna del romanzo statunitense’, in Ferrando (ed.), Stranieri all’ombra del Duce. Le traduzioni durante il fascismo (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2019), pp. 277-289
• ‘The Dynamics of Cultural Change: A Theoretical Frame with Reference to Italy-USA Relations’,with Alessandro Carlucci and Matthew Reza, 900 Transnazionale/Transnational 900, 3.1 (2019), 107-130
• ‘ “Senti‘n po’, a Gregori Pècche…”: Shavelson’s It Started in Naples and Fellini’s La dolce vita between Italian and U.S. Culture’, in Bonsaver G., Richardson B. and Stellardi G. (eds) Cultural Reception, Translation and Transformation from Medieval to Modern Italy (Cambridge: Legenda, 2017), 331-351
• ‘De la censure politique à l’autocensure historique: le cas de la littérature italienne sous le fascisme’ in Laurent Martin (ed.), Les censures dans le monde, Presses Universitaires de Rennes: Rennes, 2016, 1-13