D’AVANZO Matteo

EDUCATION

November 2021 – (exp. Dec 2025): PhD candidate (ABD) in History at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa jointly with Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales- INALCO, Paris. Tentative Thesis title: “Ethiopia and the Jews: Beta Israel, European Jewry in the framework of Colonialism and the Holocaust”. Supervisors: Prof. Ilaria Pavan – Prof. Alessandro Guetta.

March 2020: Department of International Studies, University of Milan (Italy), Master’s Degree in Political Science and Government, Mark: 110/110 cum laude.

FELLOWSHIP

Dec. 2024 – Visiting DAAD Researcher at Hiob Ludolf Center for Ethiopian and Eritrean Studies, University of Hamburg, Germany.

Apr-May. 2024 – Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia.

Jan. 2024 – The Bernard & Audre Rapoport Fellow at the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, OH, US.

Sept. 2023 – Fellow at the École française, Rome.

9-12 July 2023 – Max and Hilde Kochmann Summer School, Centre for German-Jewish Studies, University of Sussex, UK.

April – June 2023: Visiting research student at the Holocaust Research Institute at the Royal Holloway University of London, UK. Mentor: Prof. Dan Stone

October 2022 – March 2023: Visiting Research Fellow at the Vidal Sassoon International Centre of study of Antisemitism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Mentor: Prof. Manuela Consonni.

EMPLOYMENT

Dec. 2021- Nov. 2023: Teaching Assistant in History and Institutions of Muslim Countries at the University of Milan, Italy.

December 2020 – November 2021: Teaching Assistant in Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Milan, Italy.

July 2020 – April 2022: Supervisor of the Editorial staff for the regions MENA, Africa and Asia and member of the editorial staff of NAD Journal (edited by University of Milan).

FUNDING

June 2023 – European Association for Jewish Studies, Conference Grant Programme in European Jewish Studies 2023/24, co-applicant with Prof. Andrea Schatz – King’s College, London (£ 7.500,00). Conference on “Jews and Colonialism: Communities and Networks on the African Continent” held on May 13-14, 2024 at King’s College London, UK.

SCHOLARSHIPS. (June 2025) HUJ Short International Visit Grant, (Oct. 2024) DAAD Short Term Grant, (May 2024) Leo Baeck Fellowship (Declined), (Dec. 2023) EAJS Small Research Grant, (June 2023) Bando Vinci 2023 – Université Franco-Italienne, (June 2023) Ermenegildo Zegna Founder’s Scholarship, (May 2023) American Jewish Archives Fellowship, (March 2023) Research Grant – Centre de recherche Français à Jérusalem (two months – suspended), (March 2023) Yad Vashem Scholarship (Research grant), (June 2022) Research Grant – Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah, (June 2022) ASMEA Research Grant, (November 2021 – October 2025) Full doctoral scholarship, (April 2021) Azrieli Scholarship (Declined), (January 2020) University of Haifa scholarship for Hebrew Intensive Program, (November 2019) Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies scholarship covering accommodation, (June 2019) University of Milan scholarship to write the dissertation abroad (5 months).

CONFERENCES (selected)

1. 14-16 Dec. 2025 – Jews and Colonialism: The Military Side. Presenting on “Liberators or Patrons? South African–Ethiopian Jewish Relations After the Fall of Italian Fascism” – 57^th Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies, Washington D.C.
2. 4-15 Aug. 2025 – Workshop on Nazi Propaganda in Occupied Eastern Europe and the Colonial World – USHMM, Washington D.C., US. Speaker on “Totalitarian Encounters: Nazi Propaganda in Italian Fascist Colonies”.
3. 25-28 June 2025 – European Conference on African Studies (ECAS), Charle University, Prague, CZ. Panel Organizer and Speaker on “Ethiopian Colonial Refugees in British Mandate Palestine (1935-1948)”.
4. 5-7 June 2025 – XII Convegno nazionale della Società Italiana di Storia Internazionale (SiSi), University of Padua, Italy. Panel Organizer and Speaker on “Internazionalismo Ebraico e Diplomazia Sanitaria in Ethiopia” [Eng. Jewish Internationalism and Health Diplomacy in Ethiopia].
5. 14 Apr. 2025 – Military Connections and Interactions between Italy and South Africa in the 20th Century, Military History Conortium, Online. Speaker on “South Africa and the 1935 Ethiopian Invasion: Responses to Italian Fascist Colonialism”.
6. 26-28 Feb. 2025 – African and South Asian Histories of the Holocaust, Trinity College, Cambridge University, UK. Speaker on “Ethiopia at the Crossroads: Refugees, Colonialism, and the Holocaust”.
7. 4-5 Feb. 2025 – Jewish Urban Landscapes in Mid-20th Century Europe, The Netherlands Institute at Athens (NIA), Athens, Greece. Speaker on “Navigating memory: Holocaust landscapes in Italian travel guides”.
8. 1-3 July 2024 – 40th Annual Conference Of AIS – 12th Annual Conference Of EAIS. Israel and Israel Studies: The European And International Perspective – Charles University, Faculty Of Arts, Prague, Czech Republic – Speaker on “Disjointed Bonds: Exploring Israel and Sub-Saharan Africa Dynamics”.
9. 13-14 May 2024 – “Jews and Colonialism: Communities and Networks on the African Continent”, King’s College London, UK. Conference Organizer and Speaker.
10. 16-19 October 2023 – Fifth International Graduate Students’ Conference on Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University, Worcester, US.
11. 13 Sept. 2023, Cantieri di Storia – SISSCO, Università degli studi di Cagliari, Italy, Panel’s organizer “1973-2023. La guerra dello Yom Kippur e le ripercussioni su Israele e Palestina”, Speaker “Da oppositori a maggioranza: i mizrahim dopo la guerra del 1973”.
12. 9 June 2023, Conferenza SISI, Università degli studi di Napoli – L’Orientale, Italy. Panel’s organizer “1973-2023. L’Africa e la guerra dello Yom Kippur” and speaker “In bilico tra Israele e Palestina: l’Organizzazione dell’Unità Africana di fronte alla Guerra del 1973”.
13. 30 May 2023 – Storie in Corso – SISSCO, Università degli studi di Pisa -Scuola Normale Supeiore, Italy. Speaker on PhD project “La comunità degli ebrei di Etiopia dal colonialismo fascista al riconoscimento ufficiale (1936-1973)”
14. 16 May 2023 – Seminar at the Wiener Holocaust Library, London, UK. Speaker on “Holocaust or Indifference? The history of the Ethiopian Jews under Italian fascist rule”.