Nicholas Berrettini

I am third year student in the combined doctoral program in Italian Studies and Film and Media Studies. My current research interests include speculative building practices and contemporary tourism in Italy. I study the interplay between architecture, optical media, and tourism, as well as other other topics related to Italy. The unbridled peri-urban expansion in Italy amounts to a critical moment of refashioning Italian identity in the turbulent coda of World War 2. Likewise, Italian tourism emerges as a cornerstone of Italy’s marginalized identity within the EU as a destination state. I intend to reevaluate the Grand Tour in postmodernity by looking at representations of touristic practices in Italy in a variety of media. I seek to better ascertain how Italy’s identity is articulated by tourism and associated visual media and what this dependence on tourism for economic survival means in a destination country in the EU.