Dr Emiliano Perra

Biography

I am Senior Lecturer in Modern European History. I completed my BA in Contemporary History at the University of Bologna and received my MA in Contemporary History from the University of Bristol, where I also completed my PhD in History. Before joining the University of Winchester in 2011, I was Rome Fellow at the British School at Rome.

I am a cultural historian specialised in the memory and representation of the Holocaust, genocide, and political violence, with a particular focus on films and TV. My research focuses primarily on Italy, but I have also worked on France and Britain and am increasingly drawn to cross-cultural and transnational approaches.

I am one of the Editors-in-Chief of the  Journal of Perpetrator Research, a Winchester University Press journal. I am a founding member of the Perpetrator Studies Network, based at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. I am also a founding member of the Centre for the Study of Racism and Anti-Racism in Modern Italy (CENTRA), based at the University of Genoa.

Areas of expertise

• Holocaust Studies
• Genocide Studies
• Memory and representation of political violence
• Film/Television and History
• Modern Italian history

Publications

Monographs

• Conflicts of Memory: The Reception of Holocaust Films and TV Programmes in Italy: 1945 to the Present (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010)

Articles and chapters 

• ‘“End of Empire” (Channel 4, 1985) and the Public Memory of Decolonisation in Britain’, in Guido Bartolini and Joseph Ford (eds), Mediating Memories of Responsibility: Dealing with Difficult Pasts in European Cultures (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2024).
• ‘Conspiracy – Soluzione Finale (2001) e la Conferenza di Wannsee tra verità storica e invenzione cinematografica’, Novecento.org, 21 (2024)
• ‘From Belsen to Gaza: The Promise (2011), British and British-Jewish Identity’, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 18/1 (2019), 38-55
• ‘Remember Without Hate: The Holocaust as European memory in 1960s’ Italian Television’, Journal of War and Culture Studies, 11/3 (2018), 223-39
• with Kara Critchell, Susanne C. Knittel, and Ugur Umir Ungor, ‘Editors’ Introduction’, Journal of Perpetrator Research 1 (2017), 1-27
• ‘Après Holocaust. La Shoah dans les fictions télé en Italie et en France: une lecture comparée entre mémoire publique et représentation (1979-2011)’ La revue d’histoire de la Shoah 196 (2017), 223-42
• ‘Intermittently Americanized? Italian Debates on Holocaust Cultural Products’, in Hans Krabbendam (ed.), American Responses to the Holocaust: Transatlantic Perspectives (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2017), 151-66
• with Robert S.C. Gordon, ‘Holocaust Intersections in 21^st-Century Europe: An Introduction’, in Robert S.C. Gordon and Emiliano Perra (eds), Holocaust Intersections in 21^st-Century Europe, Quest: Issue in Contemporary Jewish History 10 (2016), 1-27
• 'Buon cattolico, buon italiano: Shoah, religione e salvataggio degli ebrei in alcune recenti miniserie', in Andrea Hajek, Monica Jansen and Maria Bonaria Urban (eds), Televisionismo (Venice: Ca'Foscari, 2015), 225-44
• 'La memoria della Shoah in Gran Bretagna tra storiografia accademica e cultura di massa', in Marta Baiardi and Alberto Cavaglion (eds), Dopo i testimoni: Memorie, storiografie e narrazioni della deportazione razziale (Rome: Viella, 2014), 127-40
• 'Good Catholics, Good Italians: Religion and Rescue in Recent Italian Holocaust Dramas', The Italianist, 33/2 (2014), Film Issue: Televisionisms, 156-69
• ‘Negazionismo e web: il caso inglese’, Storia e politica: Annali della Fondazione Ugo La Malfa, 29 (2014), 69-74
• 'Between National and Cosmopolitan: 21st-Century Holocaust Television in Britain, France, and Italy', in Axel Bangert, Robert Gordon and Libby Saxton (eds), Holocaust Intersections: Genocide and Visual Culture at the New Millennium (London: Legenda, 2013), 24-45
• 'Politica, memoria, identità: La ricezione italiana di Holocaust e Schindler's List', Cinema e storia, 2 (2013), 49-67
• 'Legitimizing Fascism through the Holocaust? The Reception of the Miniseries Perlasca: un eroe italiano in Italy', Memory Studies, 3/2 (2010), 95-109
• ‘La rappresentazione della Shoah in televisione’. In: Marina Cattaruzza, Marcello Flores, Simon Levis Sullam and EnzoTraverso (eds.), Storia della Shoah in Italia: Vicende, memorie, rappresentazioni, vol. ii (Turin: UTET): 434-45
• 'Narratives of Innocence and Victimhood: The Reception of the Miniseries Holocaust in Italy', Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 22/3 (2008), 411-40
• 2008: 'Il dibattito pubblico sul comportamento del Vaticano durante la Shoah: la ricezione presso la stampa de Il Vicario, Rappresaglia e Amen'. In: Stefania Lucamante, Monica Jansen, Raniero Speelman and Silvia Gaiga (eds), Memoria collettiva e memoria privata: il ricordo della Shoah come politica sociale (Utrecht: Igitur): 165-80
• 'Narrazioni di un trauma: l'Olocausto dalla storiografia al cinema', Discipline Filosofiche, 16/1 (2006), 37-54
• ‘Formidabili quei traumi. Tempo storico, elaborazione e feticismo narrativo in The Dreamers, La meglio gioventù e Buongiorno, notte', Zapruder, 1/3 (2004), 125-29