Bruna Chezzi
Overview
Position:
PhD student
Email:
chezzib@Cardiff.ac.uk Telephone: +44(0)29 2087 5600
Fax: +44(0)29 2087 4946
Extension: 75600
Location: Room 2.26, 65-68 Park Place
I graduated in English and French at Parma University, Italy, presenting a thesis on Welsh Coalfield Societies and Anglo-Welsh working class literature. I joined the School of European Studies in September 2001 where I was a Foreign Language Assistant in the Italian Department until May 2004. In 2004, I obtained a Masters degree in Literature in European Culture from Cardiff University.
Currently, I am a part-time language tutor at Cardiff University Centre for Lifelong Learning, where I teach Italian language and Italian culture and society. I am also undertaking a PhD, researching Italian immigration to Wales. I look in particular at the factors that have contributed to the creation of a distinctive Welsh Italian identity and how Italian immigrants are represented in Anglo-Welsh literature.
I have given a number of talks and lectures on the subjects of Italians in South Wales and Italians in the UK during WWII, as well as being a guest to several radio programmes and collaborating extensively with the media. In September 2008, I became a founder member of the Arandora Star Memorial Fund in Wales for the creation of the first national memorial in Wales to the 53 Welsh Italians who died in the tragic sinking of the ship Arandora Star during WWII. In April 2010, the Committee was awarded a £10,000 grant by the Heritage Lottery Fund to record and preserve the life stories and memories of the relatives of the Italians who were residing in Wales and were victims in the tradegy.
My academic interests include: the history of South Wales, working class literature, travel writing, autobiographical writing, identity, the role of memory in the construction of migrant identity, oral history. My interests in the area of Italian Studies focus on the Italian immigrants in the UK, particularly South Wales, and on cultural and social exchanges between Italy and the UK.
I have created my own website which is relevant to my research interest, for further information please visit.
Publications
Chezzi, Bruna ‘The Adventurers: Italians in South Wales’, in Pelosi, Paulette and David Evans, eds., Arandora Star Memorial Fund in Wales Booklet (Llanelli: Mike Clarke Printing, 2010)
Conferences
Chezzi, Bruna, Italians in Wales in the interwar period: a photographic approach. Paper for the conference ‘Picturing Others: Photography and Human Rights’, EUROP, Cardiff University, 17th-18th January 2013
Chezzi, Bruna, The representation of Italians in Anglo-Welsh literature: issues of inclusion and exclusion. Paper for the RIP seminar, EUROP, Cardiff University, March 2012.
Chezzi, Bruna, From a ‘knickerbocker glory’ to ‘Collar the Lot!’: The Italians in Wales during WWII. Presentation for the Waterfront Museum, Swansea, 26th September 2011. Chezzi, Bruna, Autobiography and bi-cultural memory: the self-representation of Welsh- Italians. Paper for the conference Transformations, EUROS, Cardiff University, 7th-8th July 2011.
Chezzi, Bruna,Family within the Italian community in Wales: a wall or a bridge between two cultures? Paper for forthcoming conference Within and Without: Representing diasporas in Europe, EUROS, Cardiff University, 13th May 2011.
Chezzi, Bruna,(Self) - Perception and the impact of WWII on Welsh Italians. Paper for the Italian Studies Annual conference, Cork University, 5th Februray 2011.
Chezzi, Bruna,Where is home? Family disruption and cultural division within the Italian community in South Wales. Paper for the EGIPP RIC-Research in completion day, Cardiff University, 26-January 2011.
Chezzi, Bruna, A Love and War Affair: Italian Memories in Wales, Public talk for St. Fagan’s National History Museum, May 2010.
Chezzi, Bruna,The Italians in South Wales 1881- 1945, A course consisting of 3 Saturday schools: The Italians are coming (18th April 2009), The Italians and the Welsh (25th April 2009), Welsh Italians during WW2 (2nd May 2009), Cardiff Centre for Lifelong Learning, Cardiff Unviersity.
Chezzi, Bruna,Between history and literature: representations of Italian immigrants in South Wales during the 20th century, Free History and Archaeology Seminars for Adult Learners, Cardiff University, 18 June 2008.
Chezzi, Bruna, The image of Italian immigrants in South Wales: perceptions and representations of Welsh- Italian identity, St. Fagan’s National History Museum, March 2008.
