To Educate is to Civilize: Educational Campaigns through Cinema in British and Italian Colonial Rules (1910-1945)

Masini, Leonora

Full Metadata

Overview

Year:: 2022
Contributor:: Masini, Leonora (creator); Kertzer, David (Advisor); Fruzzetti, Lina (Advisor); Riva, Massimo (Reader); Greene, Shelleene (Reader); Brown University. Department of Italian Studies (sponsor)
Genre:: theses
Subject:: Documentary film; Italian colonialism; british colonialism; missionary cinema
Extent:: VI, 121 p.

Files

Description

Abstract:: To Educate is to Civilize: Educational Campaigns through Cinema in British and Italian Colonial Rules (1910-1945) examines educational films portraying people and lands from British and Italian African territories during the period 1910-1945. It focuses on both those films produced by the state and those by British and Italian religious associations. The dissertation makes two overall arguments; first, these educational films were strenuous efforts at colonial propaganda applying similar aesthetics and contents in the two arguably different British and Italian colonial contexts. Secondly, these films belonged to a larger project of either cultural or religious education that implied the logic of discrimination, separation, and exploitation of the indigenous communities from the colonies. This dissertation will be the first monograph-length study of educational films as a tool for imperial propaganda in British and Italian colonialism. By focusing on major state and missionary educational films, main national daily newspapers with sections dedicated to cinema, and Protestant and Catholic missionary magazines and chronicles, it shows the connections between British and Italian educational cinematography during four decades of colonial history. It also locates these national narratives in the larger context of the League of Nations’ internal and international affairs, with particular attention to the League’s International Institute for Educational Cinema (1928-1937). As an innovative study of national propaganda in the form of educational cinema, this dissertation project will contribute greater depth to the comparative analysis of Italian and British colonial rules. Moreover, it adds to the historical research into educational cinema, which is mainly focused on the post-war developments of this kind of films, like UNESCO’s and the European Recovery Plan ones.
Notes:: Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2022

Content

Citation

Masini, Leonora, "To Educate is to Civilize: Educational Campaigns through Cinema in British and Italian Colonial Rules (1910-1945)" (2022). Italian Studies Theses and Dissertations. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://repository.library.brown.edu/studio/item/bdr:tpy2t4h5/

Relations

Collection:

Italian Studies Theses and Dissertations

Theses and Dissertations for the Italian Studies department.
...