Emanuela Scarpellini, born in Bologna, Italy, in 1958. Ph.D. from the University of Milan. Associate Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Milan.
Fellow (1 September 2010 – 31 January 2011)
Food and Consumption in Italy in a Historical and Transnational Perspective
In line with my previous works, I will study cultural and economic changes in everyday life in Italy and Europe over the last century, using food and its rituals, traditions, technologies, space, and so on, as a frame with which to evaluate more general phenomena. I want to show how material culture associated with consumption has structured society and defined the boundaries of class, gender, generations and regional differences; how it has had repercussions in the world of art and literature and has inspired government policies; how it is a cultural construct that allows us to observe societies from a very special angle, and to discover hitherto unknown and perhaps surprising aspects. My aim is to show how food, material goods, ordinary habits and technologies are key issues in shaping and inventing boundaries, cultural identities, social inclusions/exclusions, and even national or transnational heritage.
Emanuela Scarpellini, L’Italia dei consumi. Dalla Belle Époque al nuovo millennio [Consumption in Italy: from the Belle Époque to the new millennium] (Roma-Bari: Laterza 2008).
Emanuela Scarpellini, (edited with C. Cavazza), Il secolo dei consumi. Dinamiche sociali nell’Europa del Novecento [The century of consumption: Social dynamics in 20th-century Europe] (Roma: Carocci, 2006).
Emanuela Scarpellini, “Shopping American-Style: The Arrival of the Supermarket in Postwar Italy”, Enterprise & Society, vol. 5 no. 4, December 2004.
http://www.dssds.unimi.it/dipartimento/docenti/scarpellini/scarpellini.htm