This is the second of two international conferences: Rome (Bibliotheca Hertziana, December 4-5, 2025) and New York (Italian Academy, March 26, 2026).

These two conferences originate from a collaboration among the research unit Decolonizing Italian Visual and Material Culture of the Weddigen Department of the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History, the Contemporary History section of the German Historical Institute in Rome, and the Italian Academy of Advanced Studies in America, Columbia University, New York, with the generous support of the Ragusa Foundation for the Humanities.

Co-sponsors:
German Historical Institute in Rome
Bibliotheca Hertziana
Ragusa Foundation

Operning Remarks:
Barbara Faedda (Executive Director, Italian Academy)

Organizers:
Carmen Belmonte (Università degli Studi di Padova/ Bibliotheca Hertziana – MPI, former Fellow at the Italian Academy)
Nicola Camilleri (Maynooth University/ Università Roma Tre, former Fellow at the Italian Academy)
Bianca Gaudenzi (Università degli Studi di Firenze/ Wolfson College, University of Cambridge)
Laura Moure Cecchini (Università degli Studi di Padova)

PROGRAM

09:30 – 10:00 Registration and welcome coffee

10:00 – 10:30 Welcoming remarks
Barbara Faedda (Italian Academy, Columbia University)
Carmen Belmonte (Università degli Studi di Padova/ Bibliotheca Hertziana – MPI, former Fellow at the Italian Academy) and Nicola Camilleri (Maynooth University/ Università Roma Tre, former Fellow at the Italian Academy)
Petra Terhoeven (German Historical Institute in Rome) and Tristan Weddigen (Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History)

10:45 – 12:15 Panel I: Colonial Objects on the Move
Chair: Nicola Camilleri (Maynooth University/ Università Roma Tre, former Fellow at the Italian Academy)

Lauren Bartone (University of California, Berkeley), Cotton Dreams: From New Orleans to Palermo and Back Again

Angelo Caglioti (Barnard College), Portable Knowledge: Travel Guidebooks, Scientific Instruments, and the Production of the Imperialist Self

12:15 – 1:15 Break

1:15 – 3:30 Panel II: Consuming the Empire
Chair: Bianca Gaudenzi (Università degli Studi di Firenze/ Wolfson College, University of Cambridge)

Diana Garvin (University of Oregon), Pitching Coffee to Sell the War

Andrew Denning (University of Kansas), Fiat Africana: Motor Vehicles, the Colonial Imaginary, and Materializing Empire

Ignacio Galán (Barnard College), ‘Nomad’ Equipment: Furnishing the Empire

3:30 – 4:00 Break

4:00 – 5:30 Panel III: Afterlives of Colonial Objects
Chair: Carmen Belmonte (Università degli Studi di Padova/ Bibliotheca Hertziana – MPI, former Fellow at the Italian Academy)

Brian McLaren (University of Washington), The Culture of Italian Colonial Printed Material: Between Document and Index

Shauna LaTosky (University of Northern British Columbia), The Lure of the Labret in (Post)colonial Imaginaries

Final discussion
Moderator: Laura Moure Cecchini (Università degli Studi di Padova)

Attend remotely on Zoom: https://columbiauniversity.zoom.us/j/93014447485?pwd=nQGWt98X6PkxJzmTwVbkcHp9rRSCS4.1 (Meeting ID: 930 1444 7485; Passcode: 903818)