Rome (David
Forgacs)
This will look at San Lorenzo, a district bounded on all four sides, first
developed and settled in 1884-6. Its history is punctuated by various
events which have left visible remains, like a series of archaeological strata,
on the built environment, including the events of 1943 (the Allied bombing
on 19 July and the deportation of Jews by the SS on 16-18 October), the extreme
left politics of the 1970s and the recent episodes of neo-fascist racist violence.
This study will investigate (i) the legacy of these events in places, individual
memories and public commemorations; (ii) other forms of memory related to
the social and demographic changes in the district over three generations.
Naples
(Nicholas Dines)
An examination and comparison of memories of the aftermath of the November
1980 earthquake and the month-long public celebrations following the local football
team’s first championship title, the scudetto, in May 1987. The study
will focus on the Montecalvario-Avvocata district, which was seriously damaged
by the earthquake and became a focal point for the celebrations. What role does
memory play in the representation of two emotionally diverse episodes? How are
the events represented in ‘official’ memorials in the local media?
How is the city remembered in such extraordinary circumstances and how is the
appropriation of public space perceived?
Messina
(John Dickie)
This will deal with memory of the earthquake of December 1908, which almost
completely destroyed Messina and Reggio Calabria, killing between 80,000 and
100,000 people. It will study (i) commemorative rituals and monuments; (ii)
transmission of survivors’ memories to the present; (iii) the self-image
of Messina today: do its inhabitants feel they
live in a ‘ghost city’?
Venice-Marghera
(Laura Cerasi)
This study will analyse industrialisation and deindustrialisation in Porto
Marghera from the 1930s to the 1990s. How was its identity affected by industrial
development? What urban projects were involved in the growth of Marghera? How
did questions of national identity intersect with those of industrial growth
and the strategic nature of Venice? These questions will be connected to the
memories of this extraordinary period – of factories, urban growth, industrial
decline – and to representations of Marghera versus the historic city across
the causeway.
Milan
(John Foot)
Milan’s industrial neighbourhoods grew rapidly in the 1890s, played a part
in the economic miracle of the 1960s and went through rapid deindustrialisation
in the 1980s and 1990s. Immigrants were attracted to these zones first from
the outlying countryside, then from the South of Italy and finally from outside
Europe. The study will focus on two zones – Bovisa, in the ‘old periphery’
of Milan, and Pero, part of the city’s large industrial hinterland –
and will ask how memories of industrialisation and deindustrialisation view
the past, what differences there are between immigrant and non-immigrant memories,
what role nostalgia plays in memory narratives and how industrial change can
be traced, visually and otherwise, within the urban environment.
©
UCL 2002 |
