Ricerc@Sapienza

This project intends to analyze some of the social and cultural dynamics affecting the forms and the evolution of racist thinking and discrimination as a whole. In particular, focus will be placed on ideology. The project intends to study the impact these forms had on the knowledge imparted at what then was the Regia Università ¿La Sapienza¿ in Rome, by tracing the biographies of many persons having passed their exams or ¿ on the contrary - having been purged based on such racist thinking, especially following the racist laws passed in Italy in 1938. La Sapienza, itself the hallmark of the Fascist regime, is a good case study in order to understand the ways in which racist and ant-Semitic ideas spread within - and entered - Italian culture and universities.
This project intends to retrace the life paths of all the faculty staff (from full professors to lecturers) who promoted - or opposed - racist theories, racist ideologies and their spreading, and were struck by the racial laws and considered dismissed from their jobs with a newsletter issued on September 8, 1938.