Diana's current project, “Feeding Fascism,” examines the history of everyday life across Fascist Italy and the Horn of Africa (modern-day Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia) through decolonial methodology and feminist approaches to the archive.  Specifically, she uses food as a lens to examine daily negotiations of power, demonstrating how women’s work to feed their families speaks to broader questions of gendered forms of labor, the social construction of race and racism, and what is at stake in the struggle for nourishment and flavor both in multi-ethnic Italy and across the global south.  Fellowships from Oxford and Cornell University, the Wolfsonian-FIU Museum and Research Center, the CLIR Mellon Foundation, and the Julia Child Foundation, as well as grants from FLAS, AAUW, NWSA, and AFS, have supported her research at over thirty international archives, libraries, and museums.

Diana spent the 2017-2018 academic year at the American Academy in Rome as the Rome Prize winner in Modern Italian Studies to research, “The Bean in the Machine: The Global History of Italian Coffee.” This second project investigates the transnational history of coffee culture during the Fascist ventennio (1922-1945.)  By using the novel framework of coffee, from the bean in the field to the machine in the caffè, Diana connects interwar histories that previously been explored independently.  This research is currently supported by the Getty Library Research grant and the Fulbright Global Scholar award.

ITAL 150 Modern Italian History through Food                                                                                      

ITAL 152 Feminist Lens: Italian and French Women in Film                                                                 

ITAL 319 Eco-Italy: Introduction to the Environmental Humanities                                                                 

ITAL 399 Cuisine in Italian Art, Music, and Literature (taught in Italian)                                                                    

RL  407/507 Mediterranean Ecocriticism                                                                                

RL 407/507 Fascism and Neo-Fascism                                                                                              

ITAL 491/591 Italy and East Africa (taught in Italian)

ITAL 605 Reading

Ph.D., Romance Studies, 2016 - Cornell University                                                    

A.B., Romance Studies, 2006 - Harvard University

Book

Feeding Fascism: The Politics of Women's Food Work. Forthcoming with University of Toronto Press (Fall 2021).

Articles

“Reproductive Healthcare from Fascism to Forza Nuova.” Forthcoming with Signs, Spring 2021.  

“Militarizing Monopoly: Game Designs for Wartime.” Forthcoming with Design Issues, Spring 2021.  

“Fascist Foodways: Ricettari as Propaganda for Grain Production and Sexual Reproduction.” Forthcoming with Food and Foodways. 29.2, Winter 2021.

“Riding the Stockcar to Sleep in the Stable: Migrant Agricultural Labor and Anti-Fascist Intonations.” Forthcoming with gender/sexuality/Italy, Winter 2021.  

“Black Markets: The Production of Fascist Racism in East African Marketplace Newsreels.” Journal of Modern European History (Fall 2020): 1-22.

“Constructing Race through Commercial Space: Merkato Ketema under Fascist Urban Planning.” Journal of Modern Italian Studies. 25.2 (Fall 2020): 118-148. 

“Singing Truth to Power: Melodic Resistance and Bodily Revolt in Italy’s Rice Fields.” Annali d’Italianistica, special edition “Speaking Truth to Power from Medieval to Modern Italy.” Eds. Jo Ann Cavallo and Carlo Lottieri. 34 (2016): 371-398. (Winner of the 2017 Russo and Linkon Award for Best Published Article for Academic Audiences, Working-Class Studies Association.)

“Taylorist Breastfeeding in Rationalist Clinics: Constructing Industrial Motherhood in Fascist Italy.” Critical Inquiry. 41 (2015): 655-674.

Essays in Edited Volumes

“Colonie and the Cult of Youth in Fascist Architecture.” Forthcoming with The City and Civilization: Representations of Urban Spaces in Italian Culture.  Eds. Andrea Scapolo and Angela Porcarelli.  Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, TBD.

“Fascist Monòpoli: Dictating the Money Game.” Forthcoming with Are You Game?  A Cultural History of Board Games.  Ed. Medina Lasansky and Chad Randl.  New York: Routledge, TBD.  

“Imperial Board Games for Future Colonists.” Forthcoming with Are You Game?  A Cultural History of Board Games.  Ed. Medina Lasansky and Chad Randl.  New York: Routledge, TBD.

“Interracial Wetnursing in Italian East Africa.” Forthcoming with The Routledge Companion to Sexuality and Colonialism.  Eds. Chelsea Schields and Dagmar Herzog.  New York: Forthcoming with Routedge (Winter 2021).

“Producing Consumers: Gendering Italy through Food Advertisements.” In Representing Italy through Food.  Eds. Peter Naccarato, Ken Albala, and Zachary Nowak.  New York: Bloomsbury, 2016: 143-161. 

“Communicative Blogging for Student Engagement and Blended Literacy.”  In Doing Research to Improve Teaching and Learning: A Guide for College and University Faculty. Ed. Kimberly Williams.  New York: Routledge, 2015: 103-106.

Conference Proceedings

“Autarchic by Design: Aesthetics and Politics of Kitchenware.”  In Food and Material Culture: Proceedings of the 2013 Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery. London: Prospect Books, 2013: 11-19. 

Translations

Antonio Negri, “To the Origins of Biopolitics. A Seminar” (“Alle origini del biopolitico”). In Biopower: Foucault and Beyond.  Eds. Vernon W. Cisney and Nicolae Morar. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016: 48-64.

Roberto Esposito, “The Person and Human Life”  (“Persona e vita umana”). In Theory after “Theory.”   Eds. Derek Attridge and Jane Elliott. Co-trans. Thomas Kelso. New York: Routledge, 2011: 205-219.                                

Travel Guide                 

Let’s Go: Spain and Portugal 2006. Ed. Diana Garvin. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005.

Podcasts and Radio Interviews         

“What Protectors of Democracy Can Learn from the History of Italian Fascism,” interview for Morning Edition and All Things Considered on Oregon Public Radio, National Public Radio.  Recorded on November 9, 2020 with Jenn Chávez.  

“Food, Fascism, and Language,” interview for Curious: Where Research Meets Radio on Jefferson Public Radio Exchange, National Public Radio. Recorded on February 10, 2020 with Geoffrey Riley.

“Fascist and Neo-Fascist Oppression of Women,” interview for Treyf: A Debatably Jewish Podcast, “Fascism and the Far-Right” series.  Recorded on September 8, 2019 by Sam Bick and David Zinman.

Media Mentions

“Rehearsing for Rebellion: On ‘Bella Ciao’ and Italy’s Radical Rice Weeders,” Lapham’s Quarterly.  Published on June 3, 2020 by Alessandra Bergamin.

“Caffè corretto,” interview for Punch magazine, “Coffee” column.  Published on October 26, 2018 by Katie Parla.    

 “Barley Coffee:  It’s Just as Good as it Sounds,” interview for Saveur magazine, “Drink” column.  Published on January 19, 2018 by Prathap Nair.   

(Selected; for full list please see CV)

Fulbright Global Scholar Award, 2021

Getty Research Library Grant, 2020

UO Presidential Fellow in Humanistic Studies, 2019-2020

Rome Prize in Modern Italian Studies, American Academy of Rome, 2017-2018

Columbia University Postdoctoral Fellowship, Italian Academy (Honor Declined), 2017

Wolfsonian-FIU Research Fellowship, 2016

CLIR Mellon Research Fellowship, 2015 – 2016 

AAUW American Fellowship (Honor Declined), 2015

Julia Child Foundation Scholarship, 2014

Oxford University Cherwell Studentship, 2013

AFS Sue Samuelson Foodways Award, 2013

FLAS Fellowship, 2011