About this Event
By comparing for the first time two popular missionary films, the British Protestant Livingstone (1925) and the Italian Catholic Abuna Messias (1939), this study shows similarities in how they construct the 'antislavery argument' and significant differences in how the films address colonial agendas. These visual narratives belong to two different imperial histories and imaginations; however, one scene in the earlier British film is reproduced almost identically in the later Italian one. This scene has a pivotal part in the plot of both films; it portrays the missionary protagonist freeing an enslaved man. Such a scene emphasizes the missionaries' fight against domestic slavery.
At first, the repetition of such a scene might be explained as about the traditional repertoire of missionary films from these years; however, this study argues that it underlines not only the Italian fascist government's political aim to explain colonialism and warfare with the justification of fighting human trafficking, but also the intent to create an image of the antislavery struggle on the British model.
Leonora is Sixth Year Interdisciplinary Dissertation Fellow at the CSSJ. She successfully defended her doctoral dissertation in March, 2022. She was recently awarded the Brown Dean’s Faculty Fellowship for the next academic year, consisting of a position of Visiting Professor in the Italian Studies department. Leonora will teach the seminar Race on Film. Italian Colonial and Empire Cinema in the Fall semester, 2022. Her academic focus intersects Comparative Ethnic/Racial Studies concerning a transnational perspective that addresses cinematic reconstructions by colonial governments and religious groups during 1910-1945. Her doctoral dissertation devotes particular attention to the rhetoric of British and Italian colonial propaganda in the form of nonfiction films, mainly ethnographic, documentary, and missionary films, portraying colonial subjects from colonized African territories. This comparative work endeavors to shed new light upon the similarities between the Italian and British "imperial imaginations," as well as their stark differences. The films' constructions of "race," "slavery," and "colonial subjects" are at the core of Leonora's study.
This is a hybrid event. Zoom link available after registration.
CSSJ Fellow Presentations:
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
The Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice, CSSJ Seminar room, Providence, United States
USD 0.00