I am delighted to announce another new project for 2014 – and this one comes with lectures and a lot of experience from another Australian friend based in Florence.

Starting with a Get-Together meal on the night before the course we invite you to join Professor Ian J Bickerton, Ph.D who teaches in Florence at CEA Global Education for four months during the spring semester – and already provides a similar course to this one for his students.

Ian has had so many requests from the parents of students to get a “mini-me” version of the lectures that their children have been going to that we have decided to offer five evening sessions from his course – that will cover part of the syllabus – and we hope others will join us to review and study our own attitudes towards the country that we all – ultimately – love so  dearly!

There will only be a limited number of places available,  ten to fifteen people, as we want this to be a small friendly interactive class.

During the Course we will see snippets of films and review our own impressions of Italy – maybe garnered from our Childhood reading – as well as our changing impressions when we have got to know and feel the reality of Italy.

We will have four sessions during May -all starting at 6pm over an apertitivo , with two hours on the subject then an opportunity to watch a related film.

The individual  sessions will consist of Ian giving an illustrated (powerpoint) lecture followed by a period of questions and discussion.

The lectures will be somewhat informal as he will encourage input from participants as we go along – and whenever you think of questions – please Ask!.

Some of the people we shall be talking about include Mark Twain,Bernard Berenson, Isabella Stewart Gardner, Sacco and Vanzetti, Enrico Caruso, Roman Villas, La Foce, Puccini , Mrs Radcliffe,- For the Brits perhaps Aldous Huxley , DH Lawrence and E.M Forster – and of course both England and America claims Henry James and John Singer Sargent !!

Our location will at my apartment in Piazza del Carmine 28 – from 6pm Thursday evenings from 24th April and throughout May 1st, 8th, 13th, and finally Monday 19th May.

We will need to know as soon as possible what the level of take-up will be – so please contact me if you think that the following course could be of interest to you.

ITALY IN THE ANGLO-AMERICAN IMAGINATION

Italy is not just a country, it is a civilization—a culture, admired, envied and imitated by many, especially Americans and the British.

Italy is also an idea in the minds of Americans.

Since its unification in 1861, Italy has loomed large in the US consciousness as a source of Western culture and as a point of reference for defining what it is to be an American.

In this course we will identify some of the factors that have shaped the many and diverse ideas Americans have held about Italy, and ask, how accurately do they reflect the realities of Italy and the actual relationship between the United States and Italy over the past century and a quarter?

We will explore the impact of Italian migration to the United States (over 4 million Italians migrated to the US between 1880 and 1914) and the experience of Americans in Italy in the two tumultuous World Wars of the twentieth century in shaping American foreign policy towards Italy and the attitudes of Americans towards Italians at home and abroad.

We will trace the transformation of Italy from an enemy combatant to a loyal U.S. and NATO ally following World War II.

Time allowing, we plan to make an educational excursion to the beautifully maintained American War Cemetery in Florence. and other Allied War graves in the Region

This course explores how Americans – and the British and Australians – have viewed and related to Italy and Italians since the late nineteenth century.

Integrating historical studies, diplomatic and military relations, literary analysis, and film and cultural studies, Italy in the Anglo-American Imagination examines the complexities of American and British attitudes—often idealized, sometimes derogatory—toward Italy, Italians, and Italian-Americans.

The course explores the evolution of American relations with Italy and how these altered relationships contribute to an understanding of US foreign relations, and to the debates about personal and national identity which have preoccupied Americans over the past century and a half.

Examining the evolving demographic, diplomatic and military relationship between Italy and the United States will help you understand the role the US has played in shaping modern Italy and the importance of Italians in American politics and society.

It will also suggest how the American experience and perception of Italy and Italians has contributed to the formation and formulation of your own national, and to some extent personal, identity.

The course is organized chronologically and thematically.

As mentioned above – there is a lot of local interest in this course so we hope that it will be full and interactiv

The dates  are Thursday evening at 6pm until the final session on Monday 19th

 Piazza del Carmine 28 – from 6pm Thursday evenings from 24th April and throughout May 1st, 8th, 13th,and finally Monday 19th May

A generous aperitivo will be provided.

We hope delegates will attend for each of the evenings of the course – but if you cant make every time as long as we know to expect you you can pay on the night a fee of €35

+ fee for the minivan for the optional trip to the American Cemetery – if there is interest in a trip to see this.

For a brochure about the course to download Italy in the Anglo-American Imagination4 ( this brochure has been amended for the new dates and will be uploaded shortly )

 About Ian Bickerton 

Ian J. Bickerton was born in Perth, Western Australia, and educated at the University of Adelaide in South Australia, where he gained his B.A. with Honors in History. He received his M.A. at Kansas State University before completing his Ph.D. in United States history at the Claremont Graduate School, California. He has been a member of the School of History at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, for the past forty-two years.

He is one of the few American trained U.S. diplomatic historians in Australia.

Ian J Bickerton is a highly experienced and successful lecturer and teacher at the tertiary level. He is one of the few American trained U.S. diplomatic historians in Australia.

He has taught the history of the modern U.S.A., the history of US foreign relations, US immigration history, and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict to undergraduate and graduate students in the Faculty of Arts at the UNSW.

In the past two years during the Spring semester he has taught a course to US students in Florence, “The American Perception of Italy” (at Cultural Experience Abroad).

He has also taught at the University of California Santa Barbara, the University of Missouri at Kansas City, and he has lectured widely in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and Israel.

In 1982 he was invited to attend the prestigious Salzburg Seminar in American Studies.  He has twice been a Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies and The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.

He has frequently appeared on TV as commentator on current events in Middle East and U.S. Middle East policy.

He is currently Honorary Associate Professor in the School of Humanities at UNSW.

Bickerton’s most recent publications include: A History of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 6^th edn. (Pearson, New Jersey, 2009), The Arab-Israeli Conflict (Reaktion, London, 2009), Unintended Consequences: The United States at War (Reaktion, London, 2007), with Kenneth Hagan, and The Illusion of Victory, the True Costs of Modern War (Melbourne Univ. Publishing, Melbourne, 2011).