A Darker Shade of Whiteness - Dashow

09/02/2026

DaShoW at ESPRit 2026, Brussels | 9–11 September

Dr. Matteo Brera will present “Periodicals as Diasporic Worlds: Italian-Language Newspapers and the Spatial Pedagogy of the Jim Crow South” at the 14th annual conference of the European Society for Periodical Research, held at the Royal Library of Belgium on the theme “Periodicals and the World”.

The argument: Italian-language newspapers in the U.S. South were not mirrors held up to a segregated society. They were worlds in their own right — shared symbolic environments that translated a racialized geography into legible norms of conduct, teaching migrants where they could belong and how to manage their visibility; racial awareness, learned as a spatial practice through print.

The paper forms part of the panel “Longitudinal Landscapes Across Literary Journals” with Francesca Billiani (University of Manchester), Monica Jansen (Utrecht University), and Maria Bonaria Urban (University of Amsterdam).

This is the final conference output of DaShoW’s strand on the spatiality of the Italian-language press.

Program: clic.research.vub.be/esprit-conference-periodicals-and-the-world

08/27/2026

[registration link below]
Book launch | "The Apostle of Tennessee"
Wednesday, September 23, 2026, 6:00 p.m.
Bishop Dougherty University Center, Chancellor’s Suite, Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ

Joe Pagetta, Director of Communications at the Tennessee State Museum in Nashville, TN, presents “The Apostle of Tennessee: The Indefatigable Life and Ministry of Father Aloysius Orengo” (Vanderbilt University Press), in conversation with Dr. Matteo Brera, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Research Fellow at the University of Padua and Seton Hall University.

Father Aloysius “Luigi” Orengo arrived in Nashville from Italy in 1848 and spent a working lifetime on the roads of Tennessee, building churches in Franklin, Columbia, Pulaski, East Nashville, Tracy City, Gallatin, Humboldt, Brownsville, Grand Junction, Covington, Jackson, and McEwen. Until this book, his story had never been told at length.

Orengo was also among the first Italians to move through the U.S. South — decades before the mass migration DaShoW studies. The parishes and networks he built ran along the same routes that Italian-language newspapers and Catholic print culture would later follow.

Part of the Robert Tarte Lecture Series. Hosted by the Alberto Italian Studies Institute. Sponsored by DaShoW, the University of Padua, Seton Hall University, and the European Commission, with the support of Catholic Studies at Seton Hall.

Free and open to the public. Register here or via the QR code on the right-hand side below: https://events.shu.edu/event/49299-robert-tarte-lecture-series-the-apostle-of-tennessee

08/15/2026

Il Bo Live, the online magazine of the University of Padua, has published a long interview with DaShoW PI Matteo Brera, by Francesca Boccaletto, on how Italian migrants in the U.S. South learned to think of themselves as white — and on the newspapers that taught them.

The finding at the center of the project is that these papers functioned as schools of paper. Alongside articles on the teaching of Italian, they carried serialized fiction, columns on manners and household hygiene, and guidance on welfare and civic conduct. Together they amounted to an informal curriculum: the tricks for becoming white.

The interview covers the recovery of Il Monitore del Sud, printed in New Orleans in 1849 by Augusto Natili, a Mazzinian exile and physician from Pisa, in a multilingual print district working in French, Italian and Spanish; the case for reading Italian American history regionally rather than community by community, following Stefano Luconi; Il Gladiatore of Birmingham, published in Italian, English and Sicilian; the pro-fascist Columbus-Balbo Review; and two archival cases — Castelli, 1894, and Baragona, 1931 — in which the press connected distant places and drew hard racial lessons for its readers.

It closes on the project’s public history work: the Primo Bartolini marker in Nashville, and a second marker now being pursued on Decatur Street in New Orleans, with the American Italian Research Center and Tulane University.

Read it here: ilbolive. unipd.it/it/news/societa/secolo-fa-sud-stati-uniti-italiani-bianchezza

08/13/2026

From Fanano to Nashville — and back.

On Friday, August 7, 2026, DaShoW PI Dr. Matteo Brera spoke in Fanano in the Modena Apennines about the life of Primo Bartolini (1889–1959): the first foreign-born resident of Tennessee to enlist in the U.S. Army during the First World War, co-founder of the Nashville Conservatory of Music, and the first white faculty member to teach at both Fisk University and Tennessee A&I. Last October, DaShoW helped unveil a historical marker in his honor in Nashville.

Among those in the room was a great-grandnephew of Bartolini, and the afternoon became an occasion to expand knowledge of still-unexplored aspects of his biography.

The talk accompanies the exhibition “La salvaguardia delle diversità culturali. L’emigrazione dall’Appennino modenese negli Stati Uniti,” at the Sala degli Scolopi in Fanano until 19 October 2026 — promoted by Unimore’s Department of Law and CRID, in collaboration with the Accademia “Lo Scoltenna” and the Municipality of Fanano, and built with more than 150 students from local schools.

Da Fanano a Nashville e ritorno. Venerdì 7 agosto, Matteo Brera ha ricostruito a Fanano la figura di Primo Bartolini, emigrato a Nashville nel 1908. La mostra alla Sala degli Scolopi resta aperta fino al 19 ottobre 2026.

Read more: msca-dashow.com/news

Visit Fanano Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza - Unimore Appennino Modenese Università di Padova Seton Hall University European Commission Ministero della Cultura The Charles and Joan Alberto Italian Studies Institute Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Geografiche e dell'Antichità - Unipd Fisk University Tennessee State University

08/13/2026

Grazie a Visit Fanano for covering Friday’s talk. It was a privilege to tell Primo Bartolini’s story in the town he left in 1908 — and to see so many families of emigrants in the audience. The exhibition at the Sala degli Scolopi runs until October 19: it is well worth the trip up the mountain.

Seconda conferenza sul circolo dedicato all’Emigrazione dall’Appennino Modenese negli Stati Uniti.

Oggi il Prof. Matteo Brera ha presentato la figura di Primo Bartolini, che da Fanano è diventato un personaggio di Nashville, nel Tennessee!

Prossimo evento mercoledì 12 agosto con Massimo Turchi e Raoul Corsini sui cercatori d’oro Italiani (e Felix Pedro, Felice Pedroni) in Alaska.

08/07/2026

🎥 Now on YouTube: relive the unveiling of the historical marker honoring Primo Bartolini!

On October 4, 2025, DaShoW joined the Metro Nashville Historical Commission, the City of Fanano (Italy), the Consulate General of Italy in Detroit (represented by the Honorary Consul Christopher M. Caputo) and Primo Bartolini's family in Nashville to unveil a new historical marker honoring his life and legacy.
Bartolini, born in Fanano, Italy, in 1889, moved to Nashville in 1908. He was the first foreign-born Tennessean to enlist in the U.S. Army during World War I, co-founded the Nashville Conservatory of Music, and became the first white faculty member to teach at both Fisk University and Tennessee A&I State College (now Tennessee State University) — two historically Black institutions. He also wrote hundreds of poems on love, nostalgia, and patriotism, and remains a powerful example of Italian American cultural integration in the South.

🎬 Watch the full ceremony here: https://youtu.be/gut211UH4SM

Thank you to everyone who made this moment possible: the Metro Nashville Government, the Honorary Consul of Italy in Tennessee, the University of Padua, Seton Hall University's Alberto Italian Studies Institute, the Nashville Metro Archives, and the Nashville Public Library Foundation.

📍 511 Rep. John Lewis Way S, Nashville, TN



European Commission Consulate of Italy in Detroit Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Geografiche e dell'Antichità - Unipd Nashville Public Library Foundation The Charles and Joan Alberto Italian Studies Institute Seton Hall University Metro Nashville Visit Fanano Università di Padova

Il viaggio del Comune di Fanano a Nashville per onorare la figura d...

07/25/2026

Dr. Matteo Brera has published a new peer-reviewed article: "A Pedagogy for Crossing the Color Line: Italian-Language Newspapers in Alabama and Louisiana, 1894–1938."

Published in the special issue Education and Migration in North America (1837–1983) of the Rivista di Storia dell'Educazione.
Read it in full, for free, on our website: https://www.msca-dashow.com/publications

Education and Migrations in North America (1837-1983) Andrea Mariuzzo, Carmen Petruzzi, Luana Salvarani 3-7 PDF (Italian) DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/rse-20137

07/10/2026

DaShoW at I***E 47 | Athens, 15–18 July 2026

How did migrant newspapers teach? At the International Standing Conference for the History of Education (I***E) in Athens, Dr. Matteo Brera (Università di Padova / Seton Hall University) presents “Serialized Fiction, Anti-Fascist Print Culture and Pedagogies of Resistance in Italian-Canadian Migrant Communities (1938–1940).”

The paper reads anti-fascist Italian-language newspapers in interwar Canada, above all La ‘Voce degli Italo-Canadesi,’ as informal educational spaces. Alongside political commentary, the serialized novellas of Luigi Spada and Estella (Teresa Noce) served as a covert curriculum of moral instruction, critical reading and political literacy, countering both Fascist overseas schooling and clerical pedagogy.

The talk is part of DaShoW’s wider research into the educational role of the Italian-language press across North America, extending the project’s analysis of migrant print culture beyond the US South — and reinforcing a central argument: ethnic newspapers were not merely sources of information, but active instruments of education, socialization and identity formation.
Presented in the panel Educational Sources of Migration: Autobiography, Print Culture, and Intellectual Mobility in Italian Transnational Contexts (1890–1950).

Sponsored by the CIRSE - Centro Italiano per la Ricerca Storico-Educativa migration group

🔗 https://ische.org/

07/02/2026

🎉 A major milestone for DaShoW! We're proud to share that Dr. Matteo Brera has published "A Pedagogy for Crossing the Color Line: Italian-Language Newspapers in Alabama and Louisiana, 1894–1938," one of the project's first major peer-reviewed research outputs.

The article reveals how the Italian-language press in the US South worked as more than a source of news: it functioned as an informal educational institution, teaching language, civic values and behavioural norms while helping immigrants negotiate the racial order of the Jim Crow South. It shows how these newspapers became educational spaces where ideas of citizenship, racial identity and belonging were actively shaped and transmitted.

The article appears in the new special issue of the Rivista di Storia dell'Educazione, Education and Migration in North America (1837–1983), edited by Andrea Mariuzzo, Carmen Petruzzi and Luana Salvarani – a collection exploring education and migration across North America from a historical perspective, and an ideal home for this work.

Congratulations to CIRSE - Centro Italiano per la Ricerca Storico-Educativa on the new issue! 👏

📖 Read it here: https://rivistadistoriadelleducazione.it/index.php/rse/issue/view/1064

Education and Migrations in North America (1837-1983) Andrea Mariuzzo, Carmen Petruzzi, Luana Salvarani 3-7 PDF (Italian) DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/rse-20137

05/25/2026

[link below] 🌍 Today: 3rd CIRSE Seminar on the History of Education and Migration!

The research group "Mobility and Migration in the History of Education" invites you to its third virtual meeting today, May 25th, 2026, from 4:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. CET.

This afternoon, four leading scholars will dive into the archival sources, political experiences, and educational footprints of Italian communities across the United States, Argentina, and Turkey.

📚 Program Lineup:
• Stefano Luconi: Le fonti per ricostruire l'esperienza politica degli italiani negli Stati Uniti

• Luana Salvarani: Accertamenti: strumenti linguistici, filologici e lessicografici per comprendere le fonti storico-educative

• Paula Alejandra Serrao: Fonti per una storia transnazionale dell'educazione italiana all'estero: il caso argentino

• Francesco Pongiluppi: Tra nazionale, transnazionale e plurilinguismo. Fonti e problemi storiografici nella ricerca sulla presenza scolastica italiana in Turchia


✨ Coordinated by Andrea Mariuzzo

Participation is free and open to all faculty, researchers, and students.

💻 To join: https://meet.google.com/rhm-fijj-hio or scan the QR code on the flyer attached below!