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Talk by Dr. Fabiana Loparco

Thu. Jul. 28 12:30 PM - Thu. Jul. 28 01:30 PM
Contact: Larissa Wodtke l.wodtke@uwinnipeg.ca
Location: 2C16

A talk presented by the Centre for Research in Young People’s Texts and Cultures

“WWI and the Homefront in the Italian Children's Magazine Corriere dei Piccoli: Representations and Idealization of the Battlefront and Nationhood”

Dr. Fabiana Loparco, Dalarna University, Sweden

Thursday, July 28, 2016
12:30-1:30 PM
Rm. 2C16

This presentation aims to explore the warring education of children in Italy during WWI on the pages of the most important Italian children’s magazine, the Corriere dei Piccoli. Analysing stories and comics published from 1914 to 1918, Dr. Loparco will examine the magazine’s educational messages, which instructed children about the values of sacrifice, duty, and homeland in order to build a “militarized childhood.” The patriotic representations in the Corriere dei Piccoli altered the ethical nature of the war. By ignoring the reality of battlefields, comics, on one hand, described WWI as a harmless, funny game, while tales, on the other hand, described the war as a “training of courage” and a “birthplace of heroes.” Dr. Loparco will also demonstrate that the particular interpretation of the conflict proposed by the Corriere had the intent of unifying the nation around common ideals that would have shaped and reinforced a national identity for the children of the young Italian kingdom.

Bio:

Fabiana Loparco obtained her Ph.D. in History of Education at the University of Macerata (Italy) in 2015. Currently, she is a teaching assistant in the Italian Department of Dalarna University (Sweden). Her research focuses on the history of Italian and English children’s literature and children’s magazines in the 19th and 20^th centuries, war propaganda in children’s magazines during WWI, the first Italian socialist magazines for children, primary school education under fascism, and the history of Italian teachers’ associations. She is the author of The Corriere dei Piccoli and World War I.