Antiquated Renaissance City-States built walls around their cities, while Southern Italy led Europe into nation-state era

Tom Verso (July 03, 2012)
Scholar ‘par excellence’ Barbara M. Kreutz writes: “Southern Italy has been largely ignored by most non-Italian historians of medieval Europe…they typically glance south only briefly to consider the Normans, and thereafter have largely concentrated on developments from Rome northward (“Before the Normans” p. xxiii)”. Further, I would argue that such neglect of the history South of Rome is not limited to “medieval Europe” or “non-Italian historians”. Historians of Italian descent in the American university system have no peers when it comes to the neglect of southern-Italian American Patria Meridionale history – a neglect so comprehesive and pervasive that it borders on a cultural conspiracy against the near seventeen million Americans of southern-Italian descent.


 Preface

Instead of a conference about bias against southern-Italian Americans in the media, I would like to see a conference about bias in the American university system against southern-Italian Americans – with special emphasis on the bias that Italian American scholars have against the history of their own people.

Comments

i-Italy

Facebook

Google+

Select one to show comments and join the conversation