Giorgio Bertellini , Assistant Professor, Screen Arts & Cultures, Department of Romance Languages and Literature, University of Michigan

Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (Harvard), 2007-08

Postdoctoral Fellow, Michigan Society of Fellows , University of Michigan, 2001-2004.

Educated in philosophy at the University of Milan (Italy), Bertellini received an MA and a Ph.D. in Cinema Studies from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. His work revolves around race as a visual form in early and silent cinema in Europe and the Americas. His essays have appeared in English, Italian, French, and Slovenian.

Current and forthcoming publications

Books:

Characters of the Picturesque: Atlantic Racial Geography, Southern Italians, and Early Cinema [book manuscript]

Co-Editor (with Richard Abel and Rob King): The National/Nation and Early Cinema (Bloomington-London: Indiana University Press/John Libbey, 2008)

Editor: Italian Silent Cinema: A Reader (Bloomington-London: Indiana University Press/John Libbey, 2007)

Editor: 24 Frames: The Cinema of Italy (London: Wallflower Press, 2004; distr. Columbia University Press); 2nd printing (2007).

Emir Kusturica (Milan: Castoro Edizioni, 1996; 2 nd expanded ed., 2009)

Editor: Emir Kusturica: A Collection of Critical Contributions (Rome: Dino Audino Editore, 1995)

Edited Journal Issues

Special Issue on “Early Italian Cinema,” Film History: An International Journal 12: 3 (Fall 2000): 235-329.

Book Chapters:

“George Beban: Melodramatic Italian Face of the Urban Picturesque,” in Jennifer Bean ed., Star Decades:the 1910s (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008) , 15pp.

“National (and Racial) Landscapes and the Photographic Form ,” in Richard Abel, Giorgio Bertellini, and Rob King eds., The National/Nation and Early Cinema (Bloomington-London: Indiana University Press/John Libbey, 2008), 20pp.

“Photography and Early Cinema,” in G. Bertellini ed., Italian Silent Cinema: A Reader (Bloomington-London: Indiana University Press/John Libbey, 2007), 15pp.

“The Atlantic Divo: Valentino in Italy, ” in Donna Gabaccia and Loretta Baldassar eds., Love of Country: Making Nations at Home and Abroad in Italy's Many Diaspora (London: Palgrave, 2007), total pp.32.

“Note su razza e whiteness nel cinema italo-americano,” in Giuliana Muscio ed., Cinque generazioni di italiani on/off Hollywood (Venice: Marsilio, 2007), 20pp

“Il cinema italiano visto dall'America” in Leonardo Quaresima ed., Storia del cinema italiano (1924-1933) (Venice and Rome: Marsilio/Edizioni di Bianco & Nero, 2007), 3pp.

“Storia, cultura e linguaggio italiani fuori d'Italia: il caso di due film italo-americani da pocorestaurati” in Narrare la storia: dal documento al racconto (Milan: Mondadori, 2006), pp.304-319; 469-473.

“ Cabiria e gli Stati Uniti,” in Silvio Alovisio and Alberto Barbera eds., Cabiria and Cabiria (Turin: Lindau, 2006), pp.174-180.

“Making Space: Luna 10 and Bilocation by Marina Grzinic and Aina Smid,”/”Ustvarjanje prostorov v vojni: zapiski o videoumetnosti in prostoru v videih Marine Grzinic in Aine Smid Luna 10 (1994) in Bilokacija (1990),” in Marina Grzinic in Tanja Velagic eds., Moments of Decision: The Performative,

Political, and Technological. Artistic Video, Film and Interactive Multimedia Works by Marina Grzinic and Aina Smid 1982–2005 (Ljubljana: Drustvo ZAK, 2006), pp.110-116. [in Slovenian]

“Black Hands and White Hearts. Southern Italian Immigrants, Crime, and Race in Early American Cinema , ” in Lee Grieveson, Esther Sonnet and Peter Stanfield eds., Mob Culture: Hidden Histories of the American Gangster Film (Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2005), pp.207-237.

“Profondo Rosso” in G. Bertellini, ed., 24 Frames: The Cinema of Italy (London: Wallflower Press, 2004), pp.213-222.

“Ethnic Self-Fashioning at the Cafè-Chantant: Italian Immigrants at the Movies in New York, 1906-1916, in William Boelhower and Anna Scacchi eds ., Public Space/Private Lives: Race, Gender, Class and Citizenship in New York, 1890-1929 (Amsterdam: VU University Press, 2004), pp. 39-66.

“E Pluribus Unum? Storie e discorsi sul pubblico cinematografico americano dagli anni Trenta agli anni Cinquanta,” in Mariagrazia Fanchi and Elena Mosconi, eds., Film Audience Studies: Consumo e pubblico del cinema in Italia (Rome: B/N, 2003), pp. 228-250.

“Colonial Autism: Whitened Heroes, Auditory Rhetorics, and National Identity in Interwar Italian Cinema,” in Patrizia Palumbo ed., A Place in the Sun: Africa in Italian Colonial Culture (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003), pp.255-278.

“Dubbing L'Arte Muta . 'Cinema Under Fascism' and the Expressive Layerings of Italian Early Sound Cinema,” in Jacqueline Reich and Piero Garofalo, eds., Re-viewing Fascism: Italian Cinema, 1922-1943 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2002), 30-82

“Restoration, Genealogy, and Palimpsests: On Some Historiographical Questions,” in Michael Minden and Holger Bachman eds., Fritz Lang's Metropolis: Cinematic Visions of Technology and Fear (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2000), 140-157; previously published in Film History v.7, no.3 (Fall 1995): 277-290

“Spectateurs naufragé s: Les immigrants italiens dans les cinémas de New York,” (trans. G. Lacasse) in André Gaudreault, Germain Lacasse, and Isabelle Raynauld eds., Le Cinéma en histoire. Institution cinématographique, réception filmique et reconstitution historique (Paris/Québec City: Méridiens Klincksieck/Editions Nota Bene, 1999), 265-281

“Il 'popolare' fra immagine e parola. Note sparse su neorealismo, Gramsci e le belle bugie di Zavattini,” in Pierluigi Ercole ed., Diviso in Due: Cesare Zavattini: Cinema e Cultura Popolare (Reggio Emilia: Diabasis, 1999), 107-119

“New York City and the Representation of Italian-Americans in US Cinema,” in Philip V. Cannistraro, ed. The Italians of New York: Five Centuries of Struggle and Achievement (New York: New York Historical Society and The John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, 1999), 115-128

“Italian Imageries, Historical Feature Films, and the Fabrication of Italy's Spectators in Early 1900s New York,” in Richard Maltby and Melvin Stokes, eds., American Movie Audiences: From the Turn of the Century to the Early Sound Era (London: British Film Institute, 1999), 29-45

“Ambiguous Sovereignties: Notes on the Suburbs in Italian Cinema,” (co-written with Saverio Giovacchini) in Peter Lang and Tam Miller, eds., Suburban Discipline , (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1997), 86-111

Journal Essays

“Duce/Divo: Displaced Rhetorics of Masculinity, Racial Identity, and Politics Among Italian-Americans in 1920's New York City,” Journal of Urban History vol.31, no.5 (2005): 685-726.

“Black Hands and White Hearts. Italian Immigrants as Urban Racial Types in Early 20th Century American Cinema,” Urban History vol.31, no.3 (2004): 374-398.

“Breaking the Mimetic Contract: Notes on Ideology, Intersubjectivity, and Film Theory” and “'Ideology' and 'Public Sphere': A Preliminary Bibliography” co-authored with C. Paul Sellors, Reconstruction: An Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies Community (eJournal), Winter 2002 (www.reconstruction.ws)

“Italian Imageries, Historical Feature Films, and the Fabrication of Italy's Spectators in Early 1900s New York,” in English in Comunicazioni Sociali (Milan), vol.23, no.2 (May/August 2001): 152-168. A longer version appeared in The Italian American Review vol.7, no.1 (Spring/Summer 1999): 27-62

“Shipwrecked Spectators: Italy's Immigrants at the Movies in New York, 1906-1916,” The Velvet Light Trap #44, Fall 1999 (Special Issue on “Beyond the Image: Race and Ethnicity in the Media”): 39-53

Entries to Dictionaries and Encyclopedias:

4 entries (“Film Theory and Crtiticism,” “Luchino Visconti,” “La Terra Trema,” and “Cesare Zavattini,” to Gaetana Marrone ed., Encyclopaedia of Italian Literature (New York: Routledge, 2007), pp.722-728; 1994-1999; 1999-2000; 2042-2045.

12 entries to Gian Piero Brunetta ed., Storia del Cinema Mondiale: Dizionario dei Registi [History of World Cinema: Dictionary of Filmmakers] 3 voll. (Turin: Einaudi, 2005-6), total pp.30

“Italian American Cinema” in Emmanuel S. Nelson, ed., Encyclopedia of Ethnic American Literature (New York: Greenwood Press, 2005; 5 voll.), pp.1084-1089.

36 entries to Richard Abel ed., Encyclopedia of Early Cinema (New York: Routledge, 2005), total pp.50

“Epica spettacolare e splendore del vero. L'influenza del cinema storico italiano in America (1908-1915),” in Gian Piero Brunetta ed., Storia del cinema mondiale Vol.2 Gli Stati Uniti , tomo I (Turin: Einaudi, 1999), 227-265

Fellowships, Honors and Awards

Faculty Development Fund (CRLT - U of M): Winter 2007

Center for European Studies and the European Union Center ; U of M; Publication support: Fall 2006

Teaching and Technology Award (CRLT – U of M): May 2004.

Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies Grant and Fellowship , U of M. Summer 2003, for three-month research on immigrants and silent film spectatorship in Buenos Aires (Argentina)

2002 Society for Cinema Studies Dissertation Award (co-winner); May 2002

Jay Leyda Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement , Department of Cinema Studies (NYU), May 2002

Fondazione Maria and Goffredo Bellonci Fellowship for research on two newly restored Italian-American films (George Eastman House; Rochester, NY), March 2002

CNR Fellowship ( Centre for National Research , Italy) for research at the Center for Migration Studies (Staten Island, New York) and the Immigration History Research Center , Saint Paul, MN; 1998-2000

Professional Activities

Audio Commentary to George Beban's The Italian (1915; 70m.) released on DVD by Film Preservation Associates (2007)

Credited Interview in The World Beyond Wiseguys: Italian Americans & the Movies (2007) dir. Stephen Fishler

Recent courses taught at the University of Michigan

Graduate Courses:

SAC 600 Introduction to Screen Studies

SAC 601 Screen Historiography: Race in Silent American Cinema

Undergraduate courses

SAC 351 Silent Film History

SAC 366/ITA359 Italian American Cinema

ITA 468 New Italian Media

SAC 441/ITA315 Italian Cinema