Fifth Annual Estelle Feinstein Lecture at UCONN-Stamford, Wednesday, April 16

6-7:30 P.M.
Main Auditorium (Room A-1).

The lecture is free and open to everyone, students, faculty, staff, and members of the community.

Dr. Estelle Feinstein was a beloved teacher, mentor, scholar, colleague, and friend at the University of Connecticut, Stamford Campus from 1957-1989.  To celebrate her life, the Fifth Annual Estelle Feinstein Memorial Lecture will be presented by Joel Blatt at UCONN Stamford.

Professor Blatt's topic will be, "Non Mollare (Don't Give In): The Assassination of Carlo and Nello Rosselli." The lecture will be followed by a question and answer period.

During this academic year, Joel Blatt has a fellowship at the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute to write a book on the topic of this lecture.  He has done extensive research on it in Italian and French archives for many years including a fruitful two week research trip to Italy in December during which he found important new archival evidence in documents recently opened to researchers. Carlo Rosselli was perhaps the foremost Italian Antifascist opponent of the Italian Fascist regime, and as such was living in political exile in France.  At the behest of the dictator, Benito Mussolini, and other Italian Fascist leaders, the Cagoule, an extreme right-wing French group, assassinated Carlo and Nello Rosselli in Normandy on June 9, 1937.  Why did Carlo Rosselli consciously risk his life in a civil war where force was always weighted against him?  The answer lies partly in his personal formation-the influences of his extraordinary mother,
Amelia Pincherle Rosselli, his Jewish-Italian heritage, and his family's patriotic foundation.  Carlo Rosselli's values and thought, his dramatic Antifascist actions, and his ten year civil war with Italian Fascism will all be explored.  Carlo Rosselli's significance as one of the most important Italian and European Antifascist Resistance leaders will be elaborated and asserted.

The lecture is jointly sponsored by UCONN Stamford, the Stamford Campus Faculty Colloquium series, The University of Connecticut Humanities Institute, The Stamford Historical Society, and The Jewish Historical Society of Lower Fairfield County.

Professor Blatt's lecture is also a part of the Faculty Colloquium series.  This is a remarkable series of lectures by Stamford Campus faculty organized during this academic year by Associate Vice-Provost Michael Ego.

Joel Blatt is an Associate Professor of History at the Stamford Campus.  He teaches a range of courses in European history.  He has won the outstanding teacher award at the Stamford Campus three times.  He has published a book that he edited with an Introduction, The French Defeat of 1940: Reassessments (Providence and Oxford: Berghahn, 1998; paperback in 2000).  He has also published a number of articles.  He received his BA degree from Cornell University and his PhD degree from the University of Rochester.