Dr. Donatella Germanese

Donatella Germanese visited the STGS at FAU in February 2022 supported by the ERC-Project ‘Living with Radiation: The History of Radiation Protection and the International Atomic Energy Agency’. Donatella Germanese studies the interface between literature, the arts, and science. With a focus on the twentieth century, she examines how technology and scientific topics were discussed and further elaborated in literary theories, debates, and works. Corporate magazines in postwar Italy currently constitute the projects’ primary source, as they offered authors and readers interesting sites of encounter for the popularization of technology and science, and for literature, photography, and the fine arts to engage with modern industrial society. Donatella’s research keeps in mind the legacy of Italy’s fascist past, inclusive of its crimes, contradictions, and push towards modernity. Donatella collaborates with Maria Rentetzi in editing a collected volume on the history of atomic mobile exhibitions shown around the world during the Cold War. She is interested in the role of the exhibitions in science diplomacy as well as their culturally performative aspects. She works especially on the Atoms for Peace Exhibition in Italy.