Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 14 hours ago
60 Years: Fascism Seminar Revisited
mosseprogram.wisc.edu/rome
9 January 2025
Alessandra Tarquini, Donatello Aramini, Silvia Lucciarini, Frank Mecklenburg, "Opening Remarks"
Sponsored by:
George L. Mosse Program in History
American Academy in Rome
Sapienza Università di Roma
Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism
Leo Baeck Institute
Alessandra Tarquini is professor of contemporary history at Sapienza University of Rome. She is the author of several essays and books on the Fascist regime, intellectual history, and antisemitism, including: Storia della cultura fascista (2016); Italian Intellectuals and International Politics (eds. with Andrea Guiso, 2019); Sinistra italiana e gli ebrei. Socialismo, sionismo e antisemitismo dal 1892 al 1992 (2019); and A History of Italian Fascist Culture (2022). She is the scientific coordinator of the permanent seminar on contemporary history at the department of social and economic sciences at the Sapienza University of Rome. In 2021 she edited The European Left and the Jewish Question: between Zionism and Antisemitism.
Donatello Aramini is Assistant Professor in Contemporary History at the Department of Political Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome. He was visiting professor at the Freie Universität Berlin in 2023 and Mosse-Friends Fellow in 2011 and 2022 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He taught the History of contemporary Italy and the history of journalism at the Roma Tre University and University of Cassino. He is a member of the editorial board of Mondo contemporaneo. Rivista di storia and Giornale di storia. His research examines nationalism, Fascism, racism and the history of historiography. He is the author of the books George L. Mosse, l’Italia e gli storici (2010) and La rivoluzione nazionale: I nazionalisti, il fascismo e la fine dello Stato liberale (1919-1927) (2023). He has co-edited with Skye Doney and Laura Ciglioni the special issue of the Journal of Contemporary History “George L. Mosse, Nationalism and the Crises of Liberal Democracies” (2021) and the book La contemporaneità del passato. Studi in onore di Renato Moro (2021). In 2023 co-edited a special issue of Mondo contemporaneo on the centenary of the March on Rome. He is currently working on a monograph on the myth of Rome in Fascist Italy.
Silvia Lucciarini is Associate Professor of Sociology of Economic and Labour Processes in the Department of Social and Economic Sciences (DiSSE) at Sapienza Università di Roma.
Frank Mecklenburg is the Mark M. and Lottie Salton Senior Historian, Director of Research and Chief Archivist at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York. He received his Dr. phil. in Modern German History in 1981 from the Technische Universität Berlin. In 2000, he was involved in the LBI’s move to the Center for Jewish History, as well as in the establishment of a joint archives facility with the Jewish Museum Berlin. Since 2007, the holdings of the LBI Archives are being digitized, DigiBaeck is available online open access. For the 80th anniversary of the year 1938, a team of archivists, librarians and IT people created the 1938Projekt.org a day-by-day calendar with 365 entries from the archival collections of the LBI and contributing institutions.
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In 1963, historian George L. Mosse led a landmark seminar at Stanford University, bringing together scholars from diverse disciplines and countries to analyze the history of Nazism and Italian Fascism, just eighteen years after World War II. Their discussions defined the early parameters of European fascism amidst the post-war era’s intellectual landscape.
Sixty years later, the George L. Mosse Program in History organized a multi-day conference from January 9 to January 12, 2025, to reassess fascism in the context of contemporary European movements. More than thirty scholars from the US, Europe, the UK, and Israel gathered to critically examine and redefine “fascism” in light of present-day populist, anti-democratic, illiberal, and authoritarian ideologies.
The 2025 seminar revisited earlier scholarly interpretations of far-right movements, initiated by figures like Mosse a generation earlier, while also reinterpreting fascism through the lens of current geopolitical and cultural realities. This approach expanded upon and revised existing understandings of the concept, while fostering new insights and historiographical directions. Following the seminar, the Mosse Program plans to publish two companion volumes: Fascism Then, featuring annotated proceedings from the original 1963 seminar, and Fascism Now, based on the 2025 seminar.
60 Years: Fascism Seminar Revisited
mosseprogram.wisc.edu/rome
9 January 2025
Alessandra Tarquini, Donatello Aramini, Silvia Lucciarini, Frank Mecklenburg, "Opening Remarks"
Sponsored by:
George L. Mosse Program in History
American Academy in Rome
Sapienza Università di Roma
Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism
Leo Baeck Institute
Alessandra Tarquini is professor of contemporary history at Sapienza University of Rome. She is the author of several essays and books on the Fascist regime, intellectual history, and antisemitism, including: Storia della cultura fascista (2016); Italian Intellectuals and International Politics (eds. with Andrea Guiso, 2019); Sinistra italiana e gli ebrei. Socialismo, sionismo e antisemitismo dal 1892 al 1992 (2019); and A History of Italian Fascist Culture (2022). She is the scientific coordinator of the permanent seminar on contemporary history at the department of social and economic sciences at the Sapienza University of Rome. In 2021 she edited The European Left and the Jewish Question: between Zionism and Antisemitism.
Donatello Aramini is Assistant Professor in Contemporary History at the Department of Political Sciences, Sapienza University of Rome. He was visiting professor at the Freie Universität Berlin in 2023 and Mosse-Friends Fellow in 2011 and 2022 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He taught the History of contemporary Italy and the history of journalism at the Roma Tre University and University of Cassino. He is a member of the editorial board of Mondo contemporaneo. Rivista di storia and Giornale di storia. His research examines nationalism, Fascism, racism and the history of historiography. He is the author of the books George L. Mosse, l’Italia e gli storici (2010) and La rivoluzione nazionale: I nazionalisti, il fascismo e la fine dello Stato liberale (1919-1927) (2023). He has co-edited with Skye Doney and Laura Ciglioni the special issue of the Journal of Contemporary History “George L. Mosse, Nationalism and the Crises of Liberal Democracies” (2021) and the book La contemporaneità del passato. Studi in onore di Renato Moro (2021). In 2023 co-edited a special issue of Mondo contemporaneo on the centenary of the March on Rome. He is currently working on a monograph on the myth of Rome in Fascist Italy.
Silvia Lucciarini is Associate Professor of Sociology of Economic and Labour Processes in the Department of Social and Economic Sciences (DiSSE) at Sapienza Università di Roma.
Frank Mecklenburg is the Mark M. and Lottie Salton Senior Historian, Director of Research and Chief Archivist at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York. He received his Dr. phil. in Modern German History in 1981 from the Technische Universität Berlin. In 2000, he was involved in the LBI’s move to the Center for Jewish History, as well as in the establishment of a joint archives facility with the Jewish Museum Berlin. Since 2007, the holdings of the LBI Archives are being digitized, DigiBaeck is available online open access. For the 80th anniversary of the year 1938, a team of archivists, librarians and IT people created the 1938Projekt.org a day-by-day calendar with 365 entries from the archival collections of the LBI and contributing institutions.
+
In 1963, historian George L. Mosse led a landmark seminar at Stanford University, bringing together scholars from diverse disciplines and countries to analyze the history of Nazism and Italian Fascism, just eighteen years after World War II. Their discussions defined the early parameters of European fascism amidst the post-war era’s intellectual landscape.
Sixty years later, the George L. Mosse Program in History organized a multi-day conference from January 9 to January 12, 2025, to reassess fascism in the context of contemporary European movements. More than thirty scholars from the US, Europe, the UK, and Israel gathered to critically examine and redefine “fascism” in light of present-day populist, anti-democratic, illiberal, and authoritarian ideologies.
The 2025 seminar revisited earlier scholarly interpretations of far-right movements, initiated by figures like Mosse a generation earlier, while also reinterpreting fascism through the lens of current geopolitical and cultural realities. This approach expanded upon and revised existing understandings of the concept, while fostering new insights and historiographical directions. Following the seminar, the Mosse Program plans to publish two companion volumes: Fascism Then, featuring annotated proceedings from the original 1963 seminar, and Fascism Now, based on the 2025 seminar.
