Despite the pandemic situation, I was able to complete some of the research objectives listed in my project. I have adapted my work program to the constraints imposed by the health restrictions. In particular, I decided to concentrate my research on anthropological facial casts. I accumulated enough archival material and thoughts to design a book. I finalized this project before the end of the fellowship and took the necessary steps to find a publisher. The German publisher De Gruyter accepted my application for open access publication. I had the opportunity to study the collection of 350 facial casts of Lidio Cipriani and his archives preserved in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology of Florence.
The reading of the anthropologist’s travel notebooks allowed me to reconstruct almost daily how he practiced casting.
- During the period of the project, I participated in five conferences and seminars:
‘Fabriquer ‘l’italianité’: culture visuelle et matérielle à la croisée des visual studies et de l’anthropologie (XIXe- XXe siècles)’, seminar, Communautés imaginées et mise en images des communautés: cultures visuelles et matérielles des nationalismes, Université Paris-Cité, October 14th 2022.
‘Fabbricare le alterità: agency, visual e material culture’, conference, Bibliothèque Hertziana, Max-Planck-Institut für Kunstgeschichte, Rome, May 17th 2022.
‘On Facial Casts Forms and Authority’, Plaster face casts and the Heritage of colonialism and Racial Science, Knir Colloquium, Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome, October 18-19th 2021, organized by Fenneke Sysling (Leiden University).
‘Impronte dell’umanità. Storia della collezione fiorentina di maschere facciali antropologiche’, Le colonie in riva d’Arno. Studi intorno al patrimonio coloniale a Firenze, June 21-22, 2021, symposium organized by Beatrice Falcucci, Convegno dell'unità di ricerca Modern Transcultural Studies (MTS), SAGAS, Università degli Studi di Firenze (online).
‘Museum, facial casts and race’, conference, Black History Month Florence, February 22th 2021 (online).
- I published an article and four other publications (a book, two articles and an editing of a journal issue) prepared during this fellowship period will be publish during 2023:
- «Black Faces in Italian Colonialism: Mobil Essentialism (1936-1943) », C. Belmonte and L. Moure Cecchini (eds.), Modern Italy (Journal of the Association for the Study of Modern Italy), n° 27, 2022, pp. 375-396.
- Impressions of humanity: Anthropological facial moulds and racial science in Italy, Berlin, De Gruyter, forthcoming 2023.
L. Piccioni and K. Boyer Rossol (eds.), ‘Crânes, cerveaux et têtes moulées : penser les collections sciéntifiques des empires (fin XVIIIe-XXe siècles)’ [provisional title], Artefact, forthcoming 2023.
‘On Facial Casts Circulation and Authority’, F. Sysling (ed.), Nuncius. Plaster Face Casts and the Heritage of Colonialsm and Racial science, forthcoming 2023.
‘Immagini delle alterità nelle prime opere italiane di antropologia: specificità locali e circolazione europea (1870-1881)’, Visual History. Rivista internazionale di storia e critica dell’immagine, forthcoming 2023.
