Dr Fernanda Gallo

Associate Professor in 19th Century Mediterranean History
Fellow and Director of Studies in History and Politics at Homerton College
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I am an historian of Modern Italy and the Mediterranean with a particular interest in the transnational intellectual exchanges across the Mediterranean and the interconnections between Northern and Southern European political thought in the long nineteenth century. I am Faculty representative in the History and Politics Management Committee and I direct studies for History and Politics students at Homerton College. I am Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
 
 
My first book, Dalla patria alla Stato. Bertrando Spaventa, una biografia intellettuale (Laterza, 2013) [From Patria to the State: an Intellectual Biography of Bertrando Spaventa] looks at the intellectual biography of the main exponent of nineteenth-century Italian Hegelianism, focusing in particular on the political context of the Risorgimento from 1810s to 1880s. My second monograph, Hegel and Italian Political Thought: The Practice of Ideas, 1832-1900, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming in September 2024, examines how Italian intellectuals have rethought the idea of the rebirth of the Italian nation through the lens of Hegel’s reception in Italy. It does so by adopting a transnational approach, focussing on how the ‘amalgamation’ of Hegel’s ideas with Italian culture led to a rethinking of historical and political concepts that greatly influenced the intellectual history of modern Italy and, indeed, of Europe as a whole.

I am currently working on two new projects. The first is a history of the revolutions in Southern Europe between 1780s and 1860s (Italy, Greece, Spain, and Portugal), exploring the interconnections between constitutions, liberalism and imperial dominations in the region from a gender perspective. The second project investigates Antonio Gramsci's political thought within his Italian intellectual context. 
 
I have studied, researched and worked in Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and the UK. After graduating at the University of Naples Federico II, I have spent research periods at the University of Heidelberg and Tuebingen and attained my PhD at the University of Lugano (Switzerland) in 2015. Before joining the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge in 2019, I have worked at Queen Mary University of London and at the University of Bath. My research has been supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici and the Baggiolini Foundation.
 
I am involved in several international research projects such as "SPAZId’TALIA. Material and immaterial spatiality of the Italian national construction from the Cisalpine Republic to the end of Fascism", in collaboration with the École française de Rome (Jan 2022 - Dec 2026); the SINERGIA project "Milan and Ticino (1796-1848). Shaping spatiality of a European Capital", funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (July 2018 - August 2022); and the Research Network for the History of the Idea of Europe. At Cambridge, I coordinate the Mediterranean History Research Cluster (2021-2023). I am also member of the board of the Institute for the Study of Ideas of Europe and founding member of the Society for Political Studies. I was appointed by the Italian Minister of Cultural Activities as a member of the National Committee for the celebration of the Bicentenary of the birth of Bertrando Spaventa (1817-2017).
 
 
 
Teaching

I lecture and supervise for the History Tripos Part 1 papers papers O8 Modern Europe, 1789-1914, and the History of Political thought papers T1 and T2.

For Part 2, I teach the Specified Subject "Rethinking Europe from the Mediterranean Shores, 1796-1914". I also teach the MPhil Option "The Modern Mediterranean"

I welcome undergraduate, MPhil and PhD dissertations on Modern Italian and Mediterranean intellectual and political history

Contact

Tags & Themes

Address
Homerton College
University of Cambridge 
Hills Road 
CB2 8PH
Email
fg371@cam.ac.uk
Links
Geographical

Key publications

MONOGRAPHS:
 
Hegel and Italian Political Thought: The Practice of Ideas, 1832-1900, Cambridge University Press (Ideas in Context), September 2024
 
Dalla Patria allo Stato. Bertrando Spaventa, una biografia intellettuale, Roma: Laterza, 2013

EDITED VOLUMES:
 
Mediterranean Europe(s): Rethinking Europe from its Southern Shores, edited with Matthew D’Auria, Routledge, 2022
 

Gli hegeliani di Napoli. Il Risorgimento e la ricezione di Hegel in Italia, La Scuola di Pitagora editrice, Napoli, 2020

Ethos Repubblicano e Pensiero Meridiano [Republican Ethos and Meridian Thought], edited with F. Frediani Reggio Emilia, Diabasis, 2011

 
JOURNAL ARTICLES AND BOOK CHAPTERS:
 
'The United States of Europe and the ‘East(s)’: Giuseppe Mazzini, Carlo Cattaneo, and Cristina Trivulzio di Belgiojoso', in M. Hewitson and J. Vermeiren (eds.), Europe and the EastHistorical Ideas of Eastern and Southeast Europe, 1789-1989, Routledge, 2023
 
with M. D'Auria, 'Ideas of Europe and the (Modern) Mediterranean', in F. Gallo and M. D'Auria, Mediterranean Europe(s): Rethinking Europe from its Southern Shores, Routledge, 2022
 
‘A transnational perspective on Constant’s Commentaire sur l’ouvrage de Filangieri and the Risorgimento, 1826-1860’, in T. David, P. Eichenberger, L. Haller, T. Straumann, C. Wirth (eds.), Transnationale Geschichte der Schweiz - Histoire transnationale de la Suisse, Zurich, Chronos Verlag 2020

with Axel Körner, ‘Challenging Intellectual Hierarchies. Hegel in Risorgimento Political Thought: An Introduction', Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 24/2 (2019).

‘The Rise of the Ethical State in Italy: Neapolitan Hegelians and Risorgimento Political Thought, 1848-1876’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 24/2 (2019).

‘The Shaping of European Modernities: The Renaissance and the Neapolitan Hegelianism, 1848- 1862’, History, 103/356 (2018)

Other publications


'La costruzione dell’identità nazionale e le interpretazioni del Rinascimento nell’hegelismo napoletano', in G. Vacca and M. Musté (eds.), 'Bertrando Spaventa tra coscienza nazionale e filosofia europea', Rome, Viella, 2018

‘La sfida alla “Supremazia Protestante”: Le origini della modernità e l’Hegelismo napoletano’, Giornale critico della filosofia italiana, n. 3, 2017

‘Gli Hegeliani di Napoli e il Risorgimento. Bertrando Spaventa e Francesco De Sanctis a confronto, 1848-1862’, LEA. Lingue e Letterature d’Oriente e d’Occidente, n. 6, 2017

‘Francesco De Sanctis interprete del Rinascimento’, Rivista di Letteratura italiana, n. 1, 2017

‘Philosophical revolution and the shaping of European consciousness: Bertrando Spaventa’s “La filosofia italiana nelle sue relazioni con la filosofia europea”’, Phenomenology and Mind, n. 8, 2015

‘Il manoscritto “De Anima” di Bertrando Spaventa’, Logos. Rivista di filosofia, n. 6, 2011

‘Introduzione: Ethos Repubblicano e Pensiero Meridiano’, with F. Frediani, in F. Gallo and F. Frediani (eds.), Ethos Repubblicano e Pensiero Meridiano, Reggio Emilia, Diabasis, 2011.

‘Dalla religione civile al sentimento religioso: il Commentaire sur l’ouvrage de Filangieri di Benjamin Constant, in F. Gallo and F. Frediani Ethos repubblicano e pensiero meridiano, Reggio Emilia, Diabasis, 2011

‘Dialogo intorno all’educazione civica’, in R. Forlenza and I. Belloni, Questioni civiche. Forme, simboli e confini della cittadinanza, Reggio Emilia, Diabasis, 2010