Location: Central European University, Gellner Room, V., Budapest, Nádor utca 9

This lecture will address the relationship between memories of Italian Jewish women written between the second half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century in Italian cities. Similar to the general Italian identity, which is mainly urban, identities of Italian Jews and their memoirs are shaped by and speak about the city where they were born and raised. But the perspective from which the city is defined is gendered. Even for those women like Amalia Rosselli and Natalia Ginzburg, who defined themselves politically, the city preserves traits of a private, familiar sphere and is not directly linked to a grand narrative and grand politics as it is in Primo Levi's The Periodic Table.

Dr. Silvia Cresti, born and raised in Basle, Switzerland, earned degrees from different European Universities and received her Ph.D. in German Studies from the University of Pisa. Prior to joining the Institut für Judaistik at the Freie Universität Berlin, she taught German history at the University of Florence. Currently, she is completing a book on Jews and citizenship in France, Germany, and Italy.