Authoritarian Spectacles in Inter-War Europe


This interdisciplinary conference will combine keynote papers, film screenings, and short presentations with panel discussion to develop a comparative view of spectacle and performance culture in Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union under Stalin in the years from 1925-1945.

 

Drawing on archival film footage and new historical interpretations we will explore the cultures of spectacle and the aestheticization of politics in three authoritarian systems of 20th century Europe.  Featuring keynote speakers: Patrizia Veroli, LUCE Archive Italy, and Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi, UC Santa Barbara, Sociology

 

Dancing Italian Fascism: Bodies, Practices, Representations

Patrizia Veroli, Lucs Archive, Italy

 

Body and Performance: Spectacular Totality in Fascist Italy

Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi, UC Santa Barbara, Sociology

 

Tradition and Ritual in Fascist Italy

Cynthia Polecritti, UCSC, History

 

Stalinist USSR

Peter Kenez, UCSC, History

 

Modes of Address in Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will

Margaret Morse, UCSC, Film