Modern Italian History Seminar, IHR, 4 November 2025: “African American Women on RAI: Transmitting Female Blackness to Italian Television Audiences in the Late 1960s and Early 1970s”

As part of the IHR Modern Italian History seminars, sponsored by ASMI, on Tuesday 4 November 2025 (5.30–7.00 pm, UK time) there will be a talk by Jessica L. Harris (St John’s University).

Focusing on Lola Falana and Donyale Luna and the RAI variety programmes in which they appeared (Sabato sera (1967), Stasera Patty Pravo (1969), Teatro 10 (1971), Hai visto mai? (1973)), the paper examines how Italian television in the late 1960s–70s transmitted African American female Blackness to mass audiences. Drawing on programme footage, RAI archives and magazines, it considers race, gender and Italy’s “colonial unconscious” (Ponzanesi 2012), and asks how Cold War dynamics and American popular culture shaped reception and representation.

Format: Online via Zoom. Free, but registration is required — please book via the IHR event page, where you’ll find full details and joining instructions.