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.
The work we propose here intends to bridge a gap in historiography, putting itself at the crossroads between the examination of ideology and practice. The choice of a specific context, i.e. the La Sapienza University, and of the relevant biographical profiles, allows to focus the ways by means of which the anti-Semitic rhetoric was welcome, took strength and spread among the intellectuals, while assessing the effects of the application of these laws, both amongst its victims and amongst the non-Jews which took advantage of them.
The theme of racial laws, something the historians have written much about and which features several contribution on historiography as well (E. Collotti, M. Baiardi, 2011; A. V. Galimi, 2014; A. Foa, 2010, G. Rigano, 2010), will be tackled, starting from a specific cultural and work environment, i.e. the University in Rome. The context, the biographies and of the life paths are the main keys to be used in order to understand the scope of the racial laws. Such an understanding must consider anti-Semitism, discrimination and then those faculty staff which saw the racial laws as an opportunity for their careers, taking advantage of the fact that their Jewish colleagues had been fired. Our project can very well be integrated in a research field which entered Italian historiography only recently. The connection between Italian racial laws and academia is a theme that has been tackled only partly and only since the mid-1990s (on this, please see: A. Ventura, 1996; R. Finzi, 1997; V. Galimi, G. Procacci, 2009; I. Pavan e F. Pelini, 2009).
The existing literature in the field tackles historical research about the relations between culture and politics, especially concerning the fallout of ideology and legislation when discrimination is concerned within a totalitarian system. Considering this issue from another viewpoint yet, the debate on anti-Semitism usually identify and stigmatize the presence of such prejudice, as it was for example the case in Nazi Germany, only within some political and social milieus. The book by Claudia Koonz, titled The Nazi Conscience, did away with such a lazy and unfounded belief, showing how anti-Semitism and racism, present in specific cultural forms, where ingrained within the consciousness of the German people during the rise of the Nazi party. The studies carried out by George Mosse on the birth of racism in Europe and on the cultural origins of the Third Reich confirmed the existence of pre-existing situations and conditions being favorable to spread discrimination-based theories and practice. The background of mass politics as it was during the 1900s made all of this more manifest and self-evident: mobilizing millions of men and women, the usage of cultural theories and references, the constant education of those individuals inserted within the massification of society. The role of education and the importance of knowledge are crucial in such a framework and they are traced back to specific professionals. Nothing in what was to be the path to build nations and to define a new man able to trace the horizon for the whole of humanity remained neutral or was taken for granted.
Concerning the application of anti-Semitic laws within the Sapienza University, general study and researchers are still lacking on the field. This is particularly true when final data on specific contexts, life paths and on the number of full professors, assistants, adjunct professors and other aides having been effectively purged, as well as on joining or opposing the Italian racial laws are needed. Specific studies have been carried out only on single faculties, departments or professors, such as those by Dell'Era [2004 e 2008] or Franceschi [2004].
Our project intends to study the degree by which those ideas inspiring discrimination-based policies were present and common. On the other hand, this project aims to retrace the biographies and the life and the intellectual paths of those who ended up as victims of the racial laws as well as the faculty staff members of the Sapienza University that opposed their application.
Such a situation is a very complex mosaic and our research group intends to map and manage it by means of a digital database, itself able to give a complete view of those sources being inside and outside the University. Besides that, our research group intends to retrace the general cultural context of the aforementioned University in order to assess the application of the Italian racial laws and the life paths of those intellectuals and scholars that were buffeted or overwhelmed by the winds of racism. Biographies can, in such cases, become an access key or a window to better understand and assess the more general dynamics of the relation between culture and power.