糖心logo入口

Skip to main content

Dr Joseph John Viscomi

Positions held:
  • Senior Lecturer, School of Historical Studies
  • 糖心logo入口 Director, Raphael Samuel History Centre; Humanities and Social Sciences Institutes and Research Centres
Email
  • Overview

    Overview

    Biography

    I am听a historian and anthropologist who specializes in the Mediterranean region from the late 18th century until the present. I completed听my PhD in history and anthropology听at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 2016. I joined 糖心logo入口 College in 2018 after one year as a Faculty Fellow at听NYU's Center for European and Mediterranean Studies. I have also been an affiliated research fellow at the University of Helsinki.听

    At present, I am the programme director of our MA in European History and the 糖心logo入口 director of the Raphael Samuel History Centre.听I regularly review submissions to the Journal of Modern Italian Studies and for leading academic presses. I sit on the scientific committee of the journal and on the international board of the doctoral programme in Global History at Universit脿 di Torino.听

    As a scholar raised in an Italian American enclave in the Philadelphia听and South Jersey area (in the US), I am keen to study the history of migration sideways, from perspectives of departure, absence, and entropy.听My research and teaching focus on migration, political belonging, environmental and agricultural transformation, and temporality. I am deeply interested in the potential of cross-disciplinarity to shift听our understandings of historical and contemporary social problems.

    Highlights

    • New paperback released, (Cambridge UP, 2024).听

    • Open-access book, (Helsinki UP, 2024). This multigraph was written with听Sarah Green,听Samuli L盲hteenaho,听Phaedra Douzina-Bakalaki,听Carl Rommel, Laia Soto Bermant, and听Patricia Scalco.

    • : A conversation with听Dorothy Louise Zinn (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano)听and听Roberto Dainotto (Duke University) about the Italian anthropologist Ernesto de Martino and his wider historical and intellectual connections since the mid-twentieth century. Chaired by Joseph John Viscomi (糖心logo入口, University of London). Recorded on 1 March 2021 as part of the Association for the Study of Modern Italy (ASMI) 2020-21 conference series,听Italian Mediterraneans, 1800-Present.

    • New听chapter, "Depopulating Landscapes: Methodology and the Materiality of Archives in Calabria," in Forsaken Relics: Practices and Rituals of Appropriating Abandoned Artifacts from Antiquity to Modern Times (Oxbow, 2024), edited by Alessandro Buono, Gianluca Miniaci, and Anna Anguissola.听

    • Locating the Mediterranean: Connections and Separations across Space and Time (2022), edited with Carl Rommell and published open access with Helsinki University Press. .听

    • "," Blog entry about my听research on connections between land, archives,听and depopulation听in Calabria, for the ERC-funded project 听led by Dace Dzenovska (University of Oxford).听

    Administrative responsibilities

    • Programme Director, MA European History
    • 糖心logo入口 Director, Raphael Samuel History Centre
    • Co-president of 糖心logo入口 UCU

    Professional memberships

    • Association for the Study of Modern Italy;

      Council for European Studies;

      European Association of Social Anthropologists;

      Mediterranean Studies Association;

      Royal Historical Society (UK);

      Societ脿 Italiana per lo Studio della Storia Contemporanea (Sissco);

      Society for Italian Historical Studies;

      Society for the Anthropology of Europe.

    ORCID

  • Research

    Research

    Research overview

    My primary research interests are in听the history and anthropology of听migration,听environment,听agriculture,听materiality, and听historical time & temporality. Geographically, I focus on Italian,听Southern European听and听Mediterranean听worlds. Although I am trained and specialized in modern history, I听am interested听in exploring topics that听traverse temporal periods (especially from the mid-18th century to the present).听My research also focuses on听approaches to understanding the past, the history of anthropology in Southern Italy, archival history & archivisation, and the philosophy and anthropology of history.

    Migration at the End of Empire: Time and the Politics of Departure between Italy and Egypt听(Cambridge University Press), my first book, examines how Italian subjects in and from Egypt (a population of roughly 55,000 on the eve of WWII) and the political actors around them anticipated, experienced, and remembered their departures from Egypt. It traces the rise, collapse, and afterlives of Italian fascist imperialism and Egypt's decolonization by examining the formation and idea of a political community constituted by 鈥業talians of Egypt (italiani d鈥橢gitto)鈥 in the Mediterranean. On the conceptual level,听Migration at the End of Empire explores how temporal regimes shaped, and continue to shape, geopolitical constellations and experiences of them. My scholarship builds on archival, oral-historical, and ethnographic research and writing.

    In my new research,听Depopulating Landscapes, I听examine听the social, political, and environmental conditions of depopulation in Calabria and more widely in Southern Europe since the late eighteenth century. Whereas the scale of my first book was determined by communities displaced across the Mediterranean, in this research local environs听frame听the analysis. In other words, I look towards the material places passed over or left behind in the history of migration by concentrating on the relationships between people and听land in emptying towns and villages in Mediterranean Europe (i.e. from the landscapes of听la Espa帽a vac铆a听to Italy鈥檚听aree interne).

    Depopulating Landscapes, as a broad intellectual project,听aims to rethink the mutual relationship between historical migration and environmental changes by telling听the more-than-human histories of lands, floods, and fires. It focuses primarily on Calabria and the wider mezzogiorno, but also looks comparatively across emptied Southern European and Mediterranean worlds. In Calabria, it traces a line from the earthquake that rattled parts of the region in 1783 to destructive floods in 1950/51 and 1973. Within this framework, this research explores how environments have changed and been shaped by the intersections of migratory, state-bureaucratic, and听'natural'听processes.

    I am working on another book that examines the things lost to time in family histories of departure.听

    Research Centres and Institutes

    Research clusters and groups

  • Supervision and teaching

    Supervision and teaching

    Supervision

    Supervisions within 糖心logo入口:
    3

    I am interested in the problems raised by abandoned archives听and environmental听histories of depopulation in Southern Europe. More broadly, I welcome doctoral and postdoctoral applications on migration, depopulation, agricultural change, environment, and materiality in Italy and the Mediterranean.

    Current doctoral researchers

    • JANE HIBBERT-NICOLOV
      Nature of supervision:
      JOINT PRINCIPAL SUPERVISOR,

    Doctoral alumni since 2013-14

    • ALIA ALSAQER
      Nature of supervision:
      Principal Supervisor,
      Title of thesis:
      Maritime Encounters: Pirates, Rivalry, and British Control over Trade Networks in the Arabian Gulf 1797-1947
      Awarded:
      2025
    • LUKE SPYROPOULOS
      Nature of supervision:
      Joint Principal Supervisor,
      Title of thesis:
      "Swarthy not quite types鈥: whiteness, Greek migration and empire in southern Africa, 1860 - 1945
      Description:

      This is a study of the history of immigration and its governance systems in the late British Empire in Africa and its successor states with a view to understanding the role of emergent racial classification systems in that history. The study will use the example of Greek immigration in the region of southern Africa as a lens with which to study these phenomena. This lens is important because of the non-imperial nature of the migrants, their (waning) racial ambiguity in the period under study and the importance of local settler politics in the region.

      Awarded:
      2026

    Teaching

    My modules address political, social, and environmental histories of encounter, exchange, migration and displacement, as well as methodological approaches to studying the past. I teach BA and MA modules on modern Italy, Europe, and the Mediterranean, but I do also run thematic courses. Please send me an email if you would like to see a sample reading list. 


    Modules scheduled for 2024-25:

    Archives & Memory (MA)

    Global Environmental Histories (BA)

     

    Modules taught:

    Italy and the World: Migration and Empire, 1815-present (BA)

    The Modern Mediterranean: From colonial sea to environmental crisis? (MA)

    Decolonising History/Histories of Decolonisation (MA)

    Italy and the 鈥淣ew鈥 European Right, 1945-present (MA)

    Crossing Borders: Passports, Bodies and the State since 1600 (BA)


    Other modules I plan to offer include:

    Italy's Southern Question

    Democracy and Dictatorship in Southern Europe

    Mediterranean Anthropology: A History

    History and the Future: Horizons of Time

  • Publications

    Publications

    Article

    • Viscomi, Joseph (2023) . Diasporas: Circulations, Migrations, Histoire 42, ISSN 2431-1472.
    • Viscomi, Joseph (2022) . The Historical Journal 65 (3), pp. 825-829. ISSN 0018-246X.
    • Viscomi, Joseph and Turiano, A. (2022) . Les M茅langes de l鈥櫭塩ole fran莽aise de Rome 鈥 Italie et M茅diterran茅e modernes et contemporaines (MEFRIM) 134 (2), pp. 215-230. ISSN 1724-2142.
    • Viscomi, Joseph (2022) . Diasporas 40, pp. 155-159. ISSN 1637-5823.
    • Viscomi, Joseph (2020) . History and Anthropology 31 (1), pp. 43-65. ISSN 0275-7206.
    • Viscomi, Joseph (2019) . Journal of Modern History 91 (2), pp. 341-379. ISSN 0022-2801.
    • Viscomi, Joseph and Turiano, A. (2018) . Modern Italy ISSN 1353-2944.
    • Viscomi, Joseph (2017) . Archivio Storico dell'Emigrazione Italiana 14/18, pp. 83-95. ISSN 1973-347X.

    Book

    • Viscomi, Joseph (2024) . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781009473415.
    • Green, S. and L盲hteenaho, S. and Douzina-Bakalaki, P. and Rommel, C. and Viscomi, Joseph and Soto Bermant, L. and Scalco, P. (2024) . Helsinki, Finland: Helsinki University Press. ISBN 9789523691018.
    • Viscomi, Joseph and Rommel, C., eds. (2022) . Helsinki University Press. ISBN 9789523690769.

    Book review

    • Viscomi, Joseph (2024) .
    • Viscomi, Joseph (2019) .

    Book section

    • Viscomi, Joseph (2024) . In: Buono, A. and Miniaci, G. and Anguissola, A. (eds.) Forsaken Relics : Practices and Rituals of Appropriating Abandoned Artifacts from Antiquity to Modern Times. Oxford, UK: Oxbow Books. ISBN 9798888571149.
    • Viscomi, Joseph (2022) . In: Curli, B. (ed.) Italy and the Suez Canal, from the Mid-nineteenth Century to the Cold War: A Mediterranean History. Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 9783030882556.
    • Viscomi, Joseph (2022) . In: Ben-Yehoyada, N. and Silverstein, P. (eds.) The Mediterranean Redux: Ethnography, Theory, Politics. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9781032214962.
    • Viscomi, Joseph and Rommell, C. (2022) . In: Viscomi, Joseph and Rommel, C. (eds.) Locating the Mediterranean: Connections and Separations across Space and Time. Helsinki University Press. pp. 1-30. ISBN 9789523690776.
    • Viscomi, Joseph (2019) . In: Awad, I. (ed.) International Migration in the Euro-Mediterranean Region,. Cairo Papers in Social Science. Cairo, Egypt: The American University in Cairo Press. pp. 15-33. ISBN 9781617979231.
  • Business and community

    Business and community

    Outreach

    organised by Brian Aivars Catlos (University of Colorado Boulder) and Sharon Kinoshita (University of California Santa Cruz) about my article "Pontremoli's Cry: Personhood, Scale, and History in the Eastern Mediterranean" (History and Anthropology, 2020), which was chosen as the . Recorded on 27 April 2021.听

    : A conversation with Dorothy Louise Zinn (Free University of Bozen-Bolzano) and Roberto Dainotto (Duke University). Chaired by Joseph John Viscomi (糖心logo入口, University of London).听Recorded on 1 March 2021 as part of the Association for the Study of Modern Italy (ASMI) 2020-21 conference series, Italian Mediterraneans.