For my final paper I want to look at the exploitation of archaeology for modern agendas. I am interested in exploring how antiquity aligns with contemporary politics and how this can be both good and bad for site preservation. Specifically I will look at how Benito Mussolini, from 1924-1940, used Roman archaeology to promote fascism. I will consider how classical architecture (urban heritage) lends credence to radical ideology, the intersection of present and past urbanism (Mussolini’s selective demolition projects), and the parallel between Mussolini’s and Augustus’s building projects.
Selected Bibliography
Arnold, Bettina. “The Past as Propaganda,” Exploring the Past: Readings in Archaeology, edited by James M. Bayman and Miriam T. Stark, (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 2000).
Díaz-Andreu, Margarita and Timothy Champion. Nationalism and archaeology in Europe, (Boulder: Westview Press, 1996).
Dyson, Stephen L. In Pursuit of Ancient Pasts: A History of Classical Archaeology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006).
Fuller, Mia. “Building Power: Italy’s Colonial Architecture and Urbanism,” Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 3, No. 4, (Nov 1988) 455-487.
Galaty, Michael L. and Charles Watkinson. Archaeology Under Dictatorship, (New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2004).
Kohl, Philip. “Nationalism and Archaeology: On the Constructions of Nations and the Reconstructions of a Remote Past,” Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 27 (1998) 223-246.
Kohl, Philip L. and Clare Fawcett. Nationalism, Politics, and the Practice of Archaeology, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
Kostof, Spiro. “His Majesty the Pick: The Aesthetics of Demolition,” in Streets: Critical Perspectives on Public Space, edited by Zeynep Celik, Diane Favro, Richard Ingersoll, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994).
Minor, Heather Hyde. ”Mapping Mussolini: Ritual and Cartography in Public Art during the Second Roman Empire,” Imago Mundi, Vol. 51, (1999) 147-162.
Mras, George. “Italian Fascist Architecture: Theory and Image,” Art Journal, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Autumn 1967), 7-12.
Nelis, Jan. “Constructing Fascist Identity: Benito Mussolini and the Myth of Romanita,” Classical World, 100.4 (Brussels: 2007).
Visser, Romke. “Fascist Doctrine and the Cult of the Romanita,” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 27, No.1, (Jan 1992) 5-22.
Wagener, A. Pelzer. “A Classical Background for Fascism,” The Classical Journal, Vol. 23 No.9, (Jun 1929), 668-677.
Mussolini.ppt