Role
Dr Fantoni teaches both Italian language modules and modules on Italian history, cinema and culture (thematic). He also gives lectures in History and Media. Dr Fantoni is responsible for the year abroad programme for Italian.
Career overview
Before coming to Nottingham Trent, Dr Fantoni taught at Strathclyde University, Glasgow (2009 - 2013); at the Centro Promozione Italiana, Edinburgh (2012/13) and at secondary school level in Italy (2006 - 2009).
Research areas
Dr Fantoni gained a PhD in 2013 in Twentieth Century Italian History / Cultural Studies / Film Studies. His doctoral thesis is entitled Red Screens: The Cinematographic Production of the Italian Communist Party (1946 – 1979). His doctoral research concerned the production of propaganda films and documentaries by the Italian Communist Party (PCI) between 1946 and 1979. The research focused simultaneously on the historical and political context, the specific production context, the film texts and their critical and popular reception. Dr Fantoni has an MPhil (by research) on the political and social entrenchment of the Italian Communist Party in the upper Valdarno, a small area in central Tuscany, between the 1940s and the 1970s. His Tesi di laurea (vecchio ordinamento) at the University of Florence focused on the CGIL (Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro) the communist-socialist trade union.
Dr Fantoni's current research areas are: History of the Italian left, Italian post-war cinema, the use of cinematic texts in historical research, the public and political use of history.
Opportunities arise to carry out postgraduate research towards an MPhil / PhD in the areas identified above. Further information may be obtained on the NTU Research Degrees website https://www.ntu.ac.uk/research/research-degrees-at-ntu
External activity
Dr Fantoni is a member of the Association for the Study on Modern Italy (ASMI) and co-organized the ASMI2014 annual conference "The Italian Crisis, Twenty years on"(London, Italian Cultural Institute, 21 – 22 November 2014).
Sponsors and collaborators
Publications
Brotherhood of Arms: Atlanticism, Patriotism and Sublimation of War in 1950s Italian War Movies, Fantoni G in T. Cragin ed., Resistance, heroism, loss: World War II in Italian literature and film. The Fairleigh Dickinson University Press series in Italian studies. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018, 21 - 38.
‘We all miss you’: Enrico Berlinguer in post-Berlin Wall Italy, Cooke, P and Fantoni G, Twentieth Century Communism, Issue: 11: Memory and Nostalgia, Autumn 2016, 130 - 146.
A very long engagement: the use of cinematic texts in historical research, Fantoni G in J Carlsten and F McGarry eds., Film and History, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, 18 - 31.
After the fall: politics, the public use of history and the historiography of the Italian Communist Party (1991 – 2011), Fantoni G, Journal of Contemporary History, 2014, 49 (4), 815 - 836.
La Mineraria lavori o lasci lavorare: myth and memory of a struggle in Tuscany, Fantoni G, Modern Italy, 2011, 2 (16), 195 – 208.