Venice Incognito: Masks in the Serene Republic (April 25)

When: Wednesday, April 25, 2012 – 7:00 p.m.

Where: Italian Studies Program Department of History Boston University – CAS Building, Room 222, 725 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston MA [map]

Event official flyer (click for larger image)

This lecture is presented by Professor James H. Johnson of Boston University’s Department of History on his latest book.

His newest book, Venice Incognito: Masks in the Serene Republic (University of California Press, 2011), investigates the subject of identity by focusing on the role that masks played in 18th-century Venice.

“As a historian I’m drawn to the inner experience of people who lived centuries ago,” he recently told BU Today. “That’s very elusive to research. You have to generalize from other clues, such as behavior.”

Amy Sutherland of BU today writes: Why focus on mask-wearing as a way to research people’s ideas of self? Johnson, winner of a 1996 Metcalf Award, one of the University’s highest teaching honors, reasoned that uncovering why people disguised themselves in the past might reveal how they thought about identity. As he writes in the preface to Venice Incognito, he was drawn naturally to Venice, where the tradition of masking dates back to the 13th-century.

To read more of the interview, click here.

A reception will follow the lecture.