Hilary Term 2026

 

Hilary Term 2026 

Guide to all Italy-related events 

 

In order to provide you with a useful guide, the following list comprises all events organised by ISO and other Italy-related associations: 

 

 

— ITALIAN STUDIES AT OXFORD (ISO) —

 

http://www.italianstudies.ox.ac.uk

 

We are pleased to announce a conference on contemporary Italy, in memory of Professor Patrick McCarthy (1941-2007)

 

Italy as Bellwether

Politics, Culture, and Europe’s Futures

 

Thursday, 19 February 2026

at Pembroke College, Oxford in the Harold Lee Room

 and online

 

Organised by Guido Bonsaver (Oxford), Aida Hozić (Florida), and Erik Jones (EUI)

Supported by ISO, Pembroke College, and the University of Florida

 

This conference honours the memory of Patrick McCarthy—Pembroke alumnus, Johns Hopkins SAIS Bologna professor, and a penetrating scholar of European politics, culture, and political economy. McCarthy's work cut across disciplines and genres, moving from literature to economics with a keen eye for liminal figures, the politics of sexuality and language, and the intersections of sport, culture, and power.

 

The contradictions of Italian politics, McCarthy demonstrated, repeatedly foreshadowed Europe’s future. Today, under Giorgia Meloni, Italy again stands at the centre of continental and transatlantic debates. By highlighting Italy in this bellwether role, the conference seeks to carry Patrick McCarthy’s insights into the present, asking what Italy’s trajectory reveals about the future of European democracy and its place in the Atlantic order.

 

Programme

 

13:30 – Arrival and registration

14:00 – Introductions: Guido Bonsaver, Aida Hozić, Erik Jones

 

14:30 – Culture and society roundtable (Guido Bonsaver, chair/discussant)

• Prof. Stephen Gundle (Warwick) – ‘Culture and politics’
• Prof. Charlotte Ross (Oxford) – ‘Meloni’s populism’
• Prof. David Ellwood (Johns Hopkins, Bologna) – ‘Italy’s soft power’
• Prof. Felia Allum (Bath) – ‘Italian mafia, civic society and the state’

 

16:00 – Refreshment Break

 

16:30 – Politics roundtable (Aida Hozić, chair/discussant)

• Prof. Federica Genovese (Oxford) – ‘Italian public opinion’
• Prof. Kalypso Nicolaïdis (Oxford) – ‘Italy in Europe’
• Prof. John Harper (Johns Hopkins, Bologna) – ‘Italy and the USA’
• Prof. Erik Jones (EUI, Florence) – ‘The future of transatlantic relations’

 

18:00 – Drinks reception

 

For more information or to join online, please write to italianstudies@area.ox.ac.uk.

 

 

 

— ITALIAN RESEARCH SEMINARS — 

 

The Sub-Faculty of Italian’s Italian Research Seminars take place on Mondays at The Taylor Institution (Room 2) and via Teams. See the dates below for the timing of each session. Please e-mail italian.res-sem@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk if you have any questions!

 

Week 2 (26 January) — 12 PM

 

Luigi Pinton (Oxford), ‘Relationality without Empathy? Form, Translation, and Rewriting in Francesco Pacifico’s Class’

 

Week 3 (2 February) — 12 PM

 

Anca-Delia Moldovan (Warwick), ‘Piero Vettori and the Noble Art of Olive Growing: Botanical Knowledge as Environmental and Economic Strategy in Sixteenth-Century Tuscany’

 

Week 4 (9 February) — 12 PM

 

Eleonora Gallitelli (Udine), ‘The Italian Translations of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets (1944-2013): Appropriations, Rewritings and Reception’

 

Week 6 (23 February) — 12 PM

 

Becky Walker (Oxford), ‘The End of Ends: Elsa Morante and Eschatology’

 

Week 7 (2 March) — 12 PM

 

Elena Sottilotta (Cambridge), ‘Seeking Wonder in the Long Nineteenth Century: Women, Folklore and Fairy Tales from a Transnational Perspective’

 

Week 8 (9 March) — 5:15 PM

 

Lisa Sampson (UCL), ‘Theatre and cultural politics in the Academies of the Venetian Republic’

 

 

 

— EARLY MODERN ITALIAN WORLD SEMINAR SERIES —

 

This interdisciplinary seminar hosts papers and discussions about any aspect of Italian culture and society in the period 1400-1800. Seminars are held on Tuesdays at 4:30pm at St Edmund Hall. For more information, visit the seminar’s website at https://italianhistory.web.ox.ac.uk/early-modern-italian-seminar.

 

Week 1 (20 January) 

St Edmund Hall, Old Dining Hall

 

Caroline Callard (EHESS, Paris), ‘Sovereignty, Spirituality, and the Subsoil in the Duchy of Savoy’

 

Week 3 (3 February)

St Edmund Hall, Old Dining Hall

 

Alexandros Hatzikiriakos (Sheffield), ‘Sonic identities and cohabitation in Venetian Crete (1453-1669)’

 

Week 5 (17 February)

St Edmund Hall, Old Dining Hall

 

Melissa Calaresu (Cambridge), ‘The Romes of Thomas Jones (1742-1803)’

 

Week 7 (3 March)

St Edmund Hall, Doctorow Hall

 

Monique O’Connell (Wake Forest), ‘Polyphony or Cacophony? Tumult and Order in the Political Culture of Venice’s Empire during the Italian Wars’

 

 

 

— EARLY MODERN WORLD SEMINAR —

 

Rector’s Drawing Room, Exeter College

Tuesdays, 2 – 3:30 PM

 

Week 2 (27 January)

 

Maartje van Gelder (Amsterdam), ‘Daily Bread: Thinking Comparatively about Food Protests, Social History, Gender, and Archival Politics’

 

 

 

— ENVIRONMENTAL HUMANITIES RESEARCH HUB —

 

Seminar Room 63, Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities

Thursdays, 12 – 1:30pm

 

Week 2 (29 January)

 

Andrew Matthews (UC Santa Cruz), ‘Shifting Landscapes and Shape Changing Trees: Political Geomorphologies of Pastoralism and Tree Care in Italy’

 

 

 

— KHALILI RESEARCH CENTRE SEMINARS —

 

KRC Lecture Room, Khalili Research Centre (3 St John St, Oxford OX1 2LG)

Thursdays, 5:15pm

 

Week 2 (29 January)

 

Federica Gigante (Oxford), Book Launch, ‘Islamic Objects in Seventeenth-Century Italy: Ferdinando Cospi, the Bologna Collection and the Medici Court’

 

 

— MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY SEMINAR –

 

Room 20.402, Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities

Tuesdays, 5pm

 

Week 4 (10 February)

 

Ilaria Favretto (Kingston), ‘Revisiting Labour Protest: Cultures of Conflict and Italian Workers since 1945’

 

 

— ITALIAN FILM SEMINAR –

 

Oriel College (Various rooms; see below for details)

Thursdays, 6 – 9pm

 

Wearing Political Masculinity: Gian Maria Volonté in Postwar Italian Film  

 

This film series studies the late Gian Maria Volonté, a chameleonic actor who became the face of the hyper-politicized Italian cinema of the 1960s and 1970s. In a remarkably short period of time (1967-76), Volonté matured his performances of gun-slinging spaghetti western villains into sophisticated portrayals of murderous police commissioners, reactionary journalists, progressive civil servants, naive provincial intellectuals, and cunning seasoned politicians. Absent Marcello Mastroianni’s Dolce Vita glamour or the pomp of commedia all’Italiana’s Vittorio Gassman, Volonté was a new kind of actor, embodying heroes and villains alike and expressing the political battles and social tensions that characterized postwar Italy. With this series, we reflect upon the socio-political transformations undergone by the bel paese after the Second World War and look to discuss the place that masculinity and its performance within the political world held within these changes. Volonté's most important roles, particularly in the oeuvre of Elio Petri, Marco Bellocchio, and Francesco Rosi, express Italian cinema’s dialogue with postwar, gendered civic engagement and with Italy’s evolving democratic structures. 

 

Each screening will be in Italian with English subtitles and followed by a casual discussion. We welcome participation from colleagues across any faculty. Join the mailing list for regular updates. 

 

For more information, please email the organisers: Angelica Rossi-Hawkins (angelica.rossi-hawkins@history.ox.ac.uk) or Cesare Vagge (cesare.vagge@nuffield.ox.ac.uk). 

 

Week 2 (5 February)

Macgregor Room

 

Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto / Investigation of a citizen above suspicion

Elio Petri, 1970 

 

Week 3 (12 February)

Macgregor Room

 

La classe operaia va in paradiso / The working class goes to heaven

Elio Petri, 1971 

 

Week 4 (19 February)

Macgregor Room

 

Sbatti il mostro in prima pagina / Slap the monster on page one

Marco Bellocchio, 1972 

 

Week 6 (26 February)

Macgregor Room

 

A ciascuno il suo / To each his own

Elio Petri, 1967 

 

Week 7 (5 March)

Harris Lecture Theatre

 

Il caso Mattei / The Mattei affair

Francesco Rosi, 1972 

 

Week 8 (12 March)

Harris Lecture Theatre

 

Todo Modo / One way or another

Elio Petri, 1976 

 

 

 

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For further information, please contact italianstudies@area.ox.ac.uk

or visit our website, www.italianstudies.ox.ac.uk.