BLACK
ITALIA
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world
--Nelson Mandela
NEXT SESSIONS JULY 3• JULY 10 • JULY 17 (2023)
thanks our alumni for being a part of the Change
Highlights 2021 Edition
5 Weekly Sessions- 95 Participants
(70 Faculty, 12 Graduate Students, 8 Post-Doc, 3 High School Teachers, 2 Independent Scholar
24 Afro-Italian Guests 2 Special Events
Highlights 2022 Edition
4 Weekly Session- 70 Participants
Highlights Full Immersion Week End 2023
37 participants
Highlights Summer Session 2023
65 participants
with the collaboration of
Dr. Paolo Frascà
Assistant Professor
University of Toronto (Canada)
An important task for academics in the Humanities is asking ourselves which voices are missing from the hi/stories we teach, and why. The Teaching Black Italy course for professors provides an opportunity to begin repairing a number of important shortcomings.
Dr. Kombola Mussa
Lecturer
Cardiff University (UK)
As a Black researcher, I must also add that by the end of course I (finally) felt that I was not alone. This experience was deeply empowering.
Dr. Debora Bellinzani
Ph.D. Candidate in Italian
University of Wisconsin (USA)
The group of the invited guest speakers was large and made the experience lively and tight to the real contemporary world; in order to make the classes even more lively and close to us, at the end of every talk we were invited to interact with the guests and to ask them questions.
Dr. Luisanna Sardu
Assistant Professor
Manhattan College (USA)
As a Latino woman who grew up in Italy and as a professor of Italian Studies, I would recommend this workshop to anyone who is grappling with the meaning of diversity in Italian culture in comparison with diversity in the United States, and to those who wish to reframe their Italian course to be more inclusive and diverse.
Dr. Elena Minelli
Lecturer
University of Bath (UK)
This course also gave me the great opportunity to work with colleagues from different Institution, including Universities based in the USA. The network we have established is the basis for our fruitful and future collaboration.
Patti Gunther
Teacher
W.H. High School (USA)
I would recommend the course to both K-12 and college teachers of Italian language and culture.
Dr. Carolina Travaglia
Professor
H.W.S. College (USA)
We took ‘Teaching Black Italy’ in order to make sure that the Black Italian community becomes part of our teaching from day one in ‘Italian 101’
"Teaching Black Italy" is a one-week refresher online course for teachers which explores the historical and contemporary presence of the African diaspora in Italy.
Participants will learn about the origins of Black Italy and the diverse composition, culture, stories of Black Italians in different historical times, frameworks and topics (see the 12 units).
This course is not designed to provide just information but to offer pedagogical tools to diversify and decolonize your syllabi and/or to support you in designing syllabi on Black Italy and to help you providing a selected didactic tools and methodology that can also help you save time searching for materials and resources.
3 Reasons to Join Us
DIVERSIFY
YOUR SYLLABUS
This course prepares teachers to devote entire syllabi to the Afro-Italian experience, or to add a seldom-taught complement to a wide range of curricula. Courses on the Black diaspora, modern Europe, gender studies, and other interdisciplinary fields can gain an invaluable extra dimension by introducing elements of Black Italy.
EXCLUSIVE
MATERIALS
As long as educational publishing has not yet published enough diversified and rich textbooks and video materials,
our comprehensive video library puts more than 1,000 minutes of insightful, enriching filmed material at your disposal. We also provide a curated collection of online documents, blogs, videos, and audio resources.
Our digital platform supports your exploration of Black Italy after the course is complete, and its optional messaging feature puts you in touch with selected members of the Afro-Italian community for further research or for videoconferencing with your students.
JOIN
A COMMUNITY
This course more than just providing information, wants to offer a transformative pedagogical experience and a full immersion in the little-known Italian Black community for the first time.
A team of researchers, but also experts and insiders of the Afro-Italian community will surely create an informal training environment but, above all, a community of teachers who, like you, care about racial justice and social change, as well as educating new generations.
We are guided in significant part by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s timeless question “Can the subaltern speak?” To which we reply “Yes, and well.”
MAKING VISIBLE
THE INVISIBLE
Italy’s first television show with a majority-Black Italian cast, Zero, made its international debuted on Netflix in April, 21, 2021. The show was conceived and written by Antonio Dikele Distefano (see New York TIMES ), whose bestselling novels have made him one of Italy’s most prominent authors. The time has never been better to study and teach the experiences of one of the world’s most.
Like him there is a whole Afro-Italian generation who are establishing themselves in Italy, unknown in the mainstream but popular in digital culture and among young Italians. Africans have lived in the Italian peninsula for millennia, but the modern Afro-Italian community has rarely been the subject of academic study, either in Italy or abroad.
The Black Italian community is as diverse as the country itself. This course seeks to communicate that diversity as fully as possible, and to respect at all times the rights of individual subjects to fully control the terms of their narratives. We may be united by ethnicity and to a lesser extent by history, but each of us is defined by a rich nexus of interrelationships, and not solely by our status as Afro-Italians. Accordingly, this course presents the Afro-Italian experience in all its complexity, and not through the lens of a single issue, theme, or framework.
Our team of researchers and insiders is drawn from the Afro-Italian and African diaspora community in Italy. Each team member is dedicated to providing a supportive and responsive learning environment. You and your fellow participants will constitute a community of your own, one dedicated to more effective teaching, greater understanding, positive social change, and deeper education for current and future generations. And of course, Lecturers, Instructors, PhD Students are welcome to join this community.
SUMMER WEEK 2024
$ 299
JULY 8-9-10-11-12
2 HOURS PER DAY
This course seeks both to convey information and to provide an immersive pedagogical experience. Each unit features interdisciplinary elements that expand its appeal to a broad range of fields. Each unit is also designed to respond to the specific needs of the course’s participants.
SEE SOME CURRENT COURSES ON BLACK ITALY IN NORTH AMERICA.
UNIT 1
UNIT 2
UNIT 3
UNIT 4
UNIT 5
UNIT 6
2021 EDITION SPECIAL GUESTS
UNIT 7
UNIT 8
UNIT 9
SUMMER SESSION 2024
from JULY 8th, 2024 to JULY 12th 2024
Course session is from MONDAY to FRIDAY
from: 11.00 AM to 1.00 PM EST Time
8 AM-10 AM Pacific Time
17-19 Italia Time
PRICE $ 299
This is a Zoom Synchronous course, if you miss a class we will provide
a recording if all the participants will agree.
Most of the Video Materials are in Italian subtitled in English
The course is in Italian.
Thank You to be a part of this transformation
To enroll at Teaching Black Italy after the payment
send an email at contact@blackitalia.info