Brown University Library News

Join David Kertzer, Paul R. Dupee, Jr. University Professor of Social Science, Professor of Anthropology, and Professor of Italian Studies; Allison Levy, Director of Brown University Digital Publications; Massimo Riva, Professor of Italian Studies; and Deidre Lynch, Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature at Harvard University, for a born-digital book presentation on Tuesday, April 25 from 4 – 5 p.m. in the Digital Scholarship Lab at the Rockefeller Library.

RSVP for in-person attendance requested to Dawn_Silvia@brown.edu.

Join on Zoom: https://brown.zoom.us/j/98111841198

Nicholas Brown and the Roman Revolution of 1848 – 1849

Nicholas Brown and the Roman Revolution revolves around a trove of the titular American diplomat’s recently rediscovered correspondence—one of the most important collections of original manuscripts linked to the Roman Revolution found outside of Italy (Brown was U.S. consul when Pope Pius IX fled Rome). The interactive publication permits a deeper understanding of the historical significance of the Nicholas Brown papers, housed at the John Hay Library.

David Kertzer

David Kertzer joined Brown in 1992 as Paul Dupee, Jr., University Professor of Social Science. A Professor of Anthropology and Italian Studies, he was appointed Provost in 2006, serving in that role until 2011. Kertzer founded and directed the Anthropological Demography program. He was also founding director of the Politics, Culture, and Identity research program of the Watson Institute for International Studies.

A Brown alumnus (A.B., 1969), Kertzer received a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Brandeis University in 1974. He was William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor at Bowdoin College from 1989 to 1992. Kertzer twice won the Marraro Prize from the Society for Italian Historical Studies for the best book in Italian history. Kertzer co-founded and for a decade co-edited the Journal of Modern Italian Studies. He served as president of the Social Science History Association and the Society for the Anthropology of Europe, and co-edited the book series New Perspectives on Anthropological and Social Demography for Cambridge University Press. His book The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1997 and is published in 17 languages. In 2005 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His book, The Pope and Mussolini, won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 2015. His most recent book, The Pope at War (2022), tells the story of Pope Pius XII’s relations with Mussolini and Hitler during the Second World War.

About Brown University Digital Publications

Brown University Digital Publications — a collaboration between the University Library and the Dean of the Faculty, generously launched with support from the Mellon Foundation with additional support from the National Endowment for the Humanities — creates exciting new conditions for the production and sharing of knowledge. Widely recognized as accessible, intentional, and inclusive, Brown’s novel, university-based approach to digital content development is helping to set the standards for the future of scholarship in the digital age.