Cambridge Italian Research Network (CIRN)

Cambridge Italian Research Network logo

The Cambridge Italian Research Network, CIRN, aims to create and sustain a network of scholars in Cambridge working on Italy across all the disciplines of the humanities and social sciences. It was set up in 2012. 

The network aims to:

  • keep researchers informed through a regular bulletin of lectures, seminars, conferences and other research events on Italy taking place in Cambridge.
  • organize an Annual Lecture bringing prestigious speakers from outside Cambridge to lecture on an Italy-related theme. Past lecturers have included: Jeffrey Schnapp (Harvard), Lucy Riall (Birkbeck / EUI), Jane Garnett and Gervase Rosser (Oxford), Richard A. Etlin (University of Maryland).
  • organize an Annual Interdisciplinary Research Symposium, usually in Easter Term. This aims to bring together researchers from many different disciplines and fields to give papers on a single overarching theme. Speakers are drawn predominantly from the Cambridge research community but also include invited speakers from other universities. Up to now, symposium themes have included ‘Italian Landscapes’, ‘Global Italy’, ‘The Italian Home’, and ‘Death in Italy’. Speakers have so far been drawn from the following disciplinary areas: Anthropology, Architecture, Classics, Compartive literature, Design, English, Film, French, Geography, History, History of art, History of medicine, History of science, Human, social and politial science, Italian, Linguistics, Music, Sociology.
  • fund the CIRN Intesa Sanpaolo Visiting Fellow at CRASSH. The Fellow will be a postdoctoral /early career researcher from outside Cambridge who will spend one term as a visiting fellow at CRASSH, carrying out a research project and organising an interdisciplinary symposium on a predetermined theme or area
  • facilitate – and where possible provide CIRN seed funding for – interdisciplinary research initiatives or events relating to Italy, both within Cambridge and in collaboration with other institutions.

CIRN has been generously supported by the Italian Department in the Faculty of MMLL at Cambridge; the Cambridge Intesa Sanpalo Fund for Italian: the Keith Sykes Fund; the Serena Fund; and the Trevelyan Fund at the Faculty of History. For further information about CIRN, please write to cirn@mmll.cam.ac.uk.

CIRN organising committee