Rethinking Eighteenth-Century Italian Culture and Its Transnational Connections

FAIN: RZ-287012-22

California State University, Long Beach Foundation (Long Beach, CA 90840-0004)
Clorinda Donato (Project Director: December 2021 to present)

Virtual planning activities and travel to conduct fieldwork in Naples leading to a book on Italian engagement with the literary, cultural, and intellectual discourses of the 18th century. (12 months)

This NEH Planning International Collaboration Grant will fund two working group meetings of eighteenth-century scholars of the Italian peninsula to plan an interpretive volume of studies in English on the rethinking of eighteenth-century Italian culture and its transnational connections. With its emphasis on transmissions and reciprocities across borders, the transnational perspective has been redefining the parameters of eighteenth-century studies for the past twenty-five years. It is the goal of our project to establish a strong foothold for Italy in the cultural panorama of the transnational eighteenth century, altering our erroneous sense of a field that appears to be British and French driven. A comprehensive assessment of the significant shift in our understanding of the role of Italy in the global eighteenth century is lacking. Our project seeks to rectify this gap.