I am an Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa. As a historian of modern Italy, Germany, and France, I examine totalitarianism from below by exploring the everyday experience of terror under authoritarian regimes. My first book manuscript, Agents of Betrayal: A Comparative History of Fascist and Nazi Spies, 1927-1945, draws on previously unexplored police records and court trials to tell the stories of the largely forgotten spies who enforced Nazi and Fascist repression. My second book project, Making Fun of the Fascists: Humor Against the Leader Cult in Italy, France, and Germany, 1922-1945, conceptualizes humor as a form of resistance to authoritarianism. I compare anti-fascist satire in Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Vichy France, exploring forms of humorous opposition ranging from popular jokes to print publications and comic radio broadcasts. Throughout, I argue that laughter functions as a multifaceted and multilingual form of transnational resistance: a psychological weapon, a defense mechanism, a morale booster, and a means of countering the false propaganda of authoritarian leaders.
I was previously a British Academy Newton International Fellow at Durham University, an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow at University College Dublin, and a visiting lecturer at the John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines at Cornell University. I earned my doctorate in History from Cornell (2021), winning the Messenger-Chalmers Prize for the Best Dissertation on Human Progress & the Evolution of Civilization and publishing in the Journal of Modern Italian Studies, S:I.M.O.N. Shoah: Intervention. Methods. Documentation, and The Space Between: Literature and Culture 1914-1945. I have two Masters of Arts in Contemporary History from the Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne University (2012 and 2013), an additional diploma from the excellence program of the École normale supérieure in Paris (2015), and a Bachelor of Arts in History from the University of Padua, Italy (2011).
I have taught courses in history and academic writing on a broad range of topics, including the history of modern Europe, American capitalism, wartime humor, and antiracism. I have also taught Italian as a foreign language. I greatly enjoy helping students craft compelling arguments, engage with momentous historical events and issues, and tell their own meaningful stories. I am strongly committed to creating a diverse and inclusive teaching environment. At Cornell, I was deeply invested in community engagement, volunteering with underprivileged children and non-English speakers in the Ithaca, NY area. Additionally, I am committed to racial justice issues and antiracist pedagogy. One of my courses—“The Antiracist Workshop: Race and Writing in America and Europe”—explored antiracist theory and practice across a range of historical periods and contexts on both sides of the Atlantic, culminating in a final public history project on the role of the Underground Railroad in Ithaca. To explore this project’s website, click here. To learn more about my courses, click on the Teaching tab.
Curriculum Vitae
To see my CV, please click below.
Designed by Paul Rinaldi