A lecture by
Giorgio Bertellini
(University of Michigan and Tiro a Segno Professor of Italian American Studies, NYU)
Educated in philosophy and film studies in Italy and New York City, Giorgio Bertellini is a historian of film and visual culture particularly interested in how silent American and European cinemas turned racial, national, and gender differences into entertaining visual and narrative resources. His work addresses questions of transnational stardom and cultural history, as well as the relationship between silent films and their neighboring arts and media.
He is the author of Emir Kusturica (Editrice Il Castoro, 1996 expanded edition 2010) and of numerous essays on silent film aesthetics and reception. He has also served as editor of The Cinema of Italy (Wallflower Press, 2004; repr. 2007) and Silent Italian Cinema: A Reader (Libbey; forthcoming 2010); and as coeditor, with Richard Abel and Rob King, of Early Cinema and the 'National' (Libbey, 2008). His work has been supported by the Michigan Society of Fellows, the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, the Fondazione Bellonci, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies (Harvard).
His first American monograph, Italy in Early American Cinema: Race, Landscape, and the Picturesque (Indiana UP, 2009), is based on the work that was a co-winner of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Dissertation Award. His next project, Divo/Duce: Masculinity in 1920s America, is a study of film and political stardom that addresses the simultaneous rise to fame of Rudolph Valentino and Benito Mussolini in 1920s America.
Part of Classic & Contemporary Italian Cinema: Screenings & Discussions.
New York City, NY; NYC