Roman Modernities

Walter Benjamin's last uncompleted work, The Arcades Project, employs nineteenth-century Paris as a paradigmatic model to understand the shocking experience of modernity. Benjamin considers Haussmann's radical transformation of the French capital's cityscape in the 1850s and 1860s as the equivalent of a psychical shock, and thus mirrored in Baudelaire's oeuvre. Our project revisits Benjamin's approach in order to reflect on the cultural implications of Rome's modernisation. First, Rome's singularity is gathered together by its status as symbolic city for several traditions (classical, Christian, Italian). Second, unlike Paris, Rome's confrontation with modernity is not sudden but progressive: beginning with the aftermath of Rome's centrality to the new national state, it witnesses a significant acceleration with the violent Fascist reconfiguration of the cityscape in the 1930s, and continues in successive post-war decades through a process that is described, among others, by Pier Paolo Pasolini.

By gathering scholars from different fields of expertise (literary and film studies, philosophy, history, art history and visual culture, gender and postcolonial studies, architecture, urban studies, psychoanalysis, cultural theory), our project moves within a quintessentially inter-/multidisciplinary perspective to reassess traditional studies on Rome in the light of contemporary theory. Whereas existing scholarship stresses Rome's antiquity and its mythical imaginary (for bibliographical references see the Case for Support), analysing its confrontation with modernity as a linear chronological movement and as a process of loss of previous alleged identities, our project aims to investigate the city as a field of tensions, where verticality is privileged over horizontality, synchrony over diachrony, plurality and multiculturalism over fixed identities, and rhizomatous structures over linearity.

The concepts guiding our project (Multistability, Trauma and Shock, Modernity and Post-modernity, Fragment, Survival, Synchrony, Anachronism, the Uncanny) should encourage an innovative and challenging analysis of the theme, by emphasising interchange between historical and documentary approaches (CROMA and the National Archive at Rome) to theoretical ones (BSR, ICI).

By exploring ways of narrating, portraying and displaying Rome's plural legacies and frequent metamorphoses, the network also aims to develop new conceptual tools of relevance for scholars, professionals, artists and institutions engaged in the preservation and interrogation of cultural heritage, museum studies and the reconfiguration and further development of urban spaces.

Located across two academic institutions (Warwick and UCL), the network directly arises from the research interests of the P.I. and the Co-I., who both continue to extend the field of Italian Studies by the engagement with interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives, and from international academic and non-academic partnerships throughout the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany (ICI Berlin, British School at Rome, the Rome National Archive and the CROMA).

All research events will be public and several formats will be adopted (conferences, workshops, seminars, exhibitions, roundtables and film screenings specifically tailored for non-specialised audiences). Dissemination will involve several media, among which we can foresee two co-edited books, two monographic issues of refereed journals and a multimedia blog.

The project is aimed at encouraging new ways of approaching the study of Rome, and the historical and social changes it embodies. We seek to investigate the practical policies for displaying, disseminating and promoting cultural heritage, and ideas of the 'city' as a field of historical, social, cultural tensions that lead to new forms of cohabitation. As such, the beneficiaries of the project will be widely varied, and it will prospectively impact upon the many strata of a complex and layered city such as Rome, both during the life cycle of the network and beyond.

- Immediate Impact

With the collaboration of our partners, key institutions and government bodies in Italy, the UK and Germany that have a strong interest in cultural mediation, the events of the network will produce direct results that benefit UK and international urban policy makers. This will be achieved through an on-going approach to Rome that emphasises the material variability and affective impact of the lived city experience. The conflicts and tensions raised by Rome's existence as a city of migrants alongside the continuity of its cultural heritage and its implications for economic stability via tourism and a growing populace will trigger debate and discussion on space and population management that will have reach across the European continent. This will be directed to UK cities, especially London and in the Midlands, as we extend events into these locations.
The events and the results will involve contributions from the public and third sectors, where invited attendance from charities such as Islington Giving to the events in London will encourage our comparative approach of the capital cities. Beyond the benefits for our direct partners, whose participation will further their international presence at a time when financial difficulties are putting pressure on such cultural institutions to close down, the events of the network will moreover impact upon museums and artistic spheres. Our aim is not to simply discuss representations of Rome in academic spheres, but instead to invite artists and museologists to further discussions and to inspire and promote new approaches to the city.
In order to achieve the aims of the network, public involvement and contribution is imperative. We aim to familiarize a wider audience with the theoretical outcomes of our work via public roundtables and open talks, but moreover to engage with and learn from original, perspectives so as to forge innovative modes of perceiving Rome. Every section of the Network will be open to the public, whose attendance will be encouraged via wide publicity and key events tailored to encourage discussion between a vast range of participants (see 'Pathways to Impact').

- Long term Impact

The direct impact of our research network will achieve long term results predominantly through the dissemination of research. This will seek a wide and ranging audience through a range of media, from academic to popular print, and through the conference website (see section g on 'Dissemination' in the Case for Support). The network will also include a working strategy for the staff of the partner institutions to develop their skills in international mediation, media technologies (website designing, multimedia pages), publicity and non-academic dissemination.
The network will moreover reach a wide set of beneficiaries in the long term through the further work which it inspires, in particular artistic and governmental regulatory spheres, thanks to the presence of representatives from them throughout the events. In the long term, the capital cities of Italy and the UK will both be forced to develop and evolve according to the pressures of modernity, so the importance of this research will remain valid over the next years. As such, it is hoped that the network will continue to impact upon both the public sector and creative outputs of the United Kingdom and beyond throughout subsequent years.