Ricerc@Sapienza

This research will be the first study to highlight, nationally and internationally, in an historical perspective, the pioneering and innovative diplomatic role played by Bruce Springsteen as a complex contemporary American "sound ambassador" - as a sort of "Born in the USA" Ambassador - in the current international political and social landscape, particularly in Italy. In Rock Around the Bloc: A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, T. W. Ryback writes that the conflict between the Soviet-block governments and their young people can be "measured in watts and decibels rather than megatons". In a similar perspective, in Rocking The Wall: Bruce Springsteen: The Untold Story of a Concert in East Berlin That Changed the World, E. Kirschbaum suggests that Bruce Springsteen's concert in East Berlin on 19 July 1988 played a role in the Cold War¿s quiet end. Particularly, in the political context of the Italian 1980s, representing a sort of a Born in the U.S.A. Ambassador at the end of the Cold War era, with his Italian epic, Springsteen's darkness also represented the "dark side," that is, the crisis of the Italian main political cultures Atlanticist, Catholic, and Communist, which tried to connect with him.
On January 10, 2017, in occasion of "A Conversation with Bruce Springsteen" moderated by Founding Executive Director of the GRAMMY Museum, prof. Robert Santelli, the Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music was established at Monmouth University (NJ). Representing one of the strategic and executive steps in the context of the prestigious Affiliation of Sapienza University with the GRAMMY Museum -promoted by the Music Making History Research Unit (MMHSapienza) directed by prof. Marilisa Merolla- this innovative research will highlight the pioneering and international role of Sapienza University of Rome in the studying of political and social processes using sound as a historical source.