Food, Economy, and Society on the Italian Rivera

FIU Study Abroad Summer 2019

The program gave me the opportunity to learn about Italian society and history firsthand during a five-week residence in the beautiful Mediterranean port city of Genoa. The academic focus was on the country’s development during the 20th century, as it was dramatically transformed by industrialization, urbanization, war, and political upheavals. We made comparisons to the same forces of change in the US. The itinerary included visits to old and new centers of the Italian economy: Genoa’s medieval banking center, the automobile industry in Turin, the fashion business in Milan, and an olive oil farm in the Ligurian countryside. We were also able to work in the collections of FIU’s Wolfsonian Museum and its sister museum in Genoa, the Wolfsoniana.