The Fresno State Library presents “Where Monsters Are Born: Documenting a Fascist Revival successful the Streets of Rome, 2018-2019,” an accumulation that critically examines the emergence of neo-fascism successful Italy done the lens of ocular and spatial propaganda. The accumulation volition tally from Jan. 27 to March 22 astatine the library’s Pete P. Peters Ellipse Balcony Gallery, and is escaped and unfastened to the nationalist during regular room hours.
The accumulation opens with a presumption and reception astatine 3 p.m. connected Jan. 27 astatine the Fresno State Library, and features materials collected by Dr. Brian J. Griffith during his clip successful Rome connected a Fulbright Fellowship. Visitors volition brushwood posters, stickers, handbills and banners, galore of which were “harvested” straight from the streets of Rome by Griffith during his clip successful Italy.
According to Griffith, a historiographer astatine Fresno State, the accumulation offers an unsettling look astatine the strategies employed by Italy’s neo-fascist groups to insert their views into the nationalist sphere, including design, selective representation and humanities revisionism, to normalize far-right ideologies and signifier nationalist consciousness.
Griffith emphasizes the value of recognizing and resisting these ideologies, peculiarly arsenic Western democracies grapple with the emergence of extremist movements. “In caller years, we person seen authoritarian ideas progressively infiltrate the nationalist sphere. By knowing the strategies these groups use, we tin amended combat their spread,” Griffith said. “The accumulation illuminates the ocular and spatial tactics utilized by far-right groups to propulsion their authorities into nationalist spaces, challenging america to critically prosecute with the ways propaganda shapes our worldviews and the authorities of memory.”
The accumulation rubric is drawn from the words of Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci, who wrote successful his “Prison Notebooks”: “The aged satellite is dying. The caller 1 is dilatory to appear. And successful this interregnum, monsters are born.”
Griffith’s probe focuses connected however fascism, governmental unit and far-right populism undermine antiauthoritarian principles. He is simply a module subordinate successful the Department of History astatine Fresno State and curator of this exhibition. The materials helium collected successful Rome, which bespeak the past of Italy’s far-right movements, were donated to the Center for the Study of Political Graphics successful Los Angeles. The accumulation besides includes reproductions of these items.
For much accusation oregon inquiries astir the exhibition, visit library.fresnostate.edu oregon interaction Dr. Brian J. Griffith astatine brianjgriffith@csufresno.edu.
