This special issue examines the presence of Italians in the Maghreb in relation to broader questions of colonialism, race, decolonization as well as contemporary conversations surrounding migration, diaspora, and postcolonial inclusion and belonging. It aims to illuminate the varying tensions and exchanges between Italy and French North Africa, from large-scale migrations to intellectual dialogues between the two regions.

Argument

This special issue examines the presence of Italians in the Maghreb in relation to broader questions of colonialism, race, decolonization as well as contemporary conversations surrounding migration, diaspora, and postcolonial inclusion and belonging. It aims to illuminate the varying tensions and exchanges between Italy and French North Africa, from large-scale migrations to intellectual dialogues between the two regions.

Within a broader turn that “treats metropole and colony in a single analytic field” (Cooper and Stoler 1997), studies of formal colonies in Africa and the Mediterranean have become central to rethinking modern and contemporary Italy. Yet, the ambiguous place of Italians in the Maghreb—neither settler nor native but still imbricated in the colonial system (Memmi 1967)—has kept them in the background of decolonial conversations. With important exceptions (Choate 2010 ; Montalbano 2024 ; Rainero 1988 ; Oppizzi 2022 ; Paonessa 2021 ; Viscomi 2024), studies have paid limited attention to dynamics linking migration, informal colonial practices, and the presence of Italians in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia as part of the broader history of Italian communities abroad.

The special issue foregrounds the many possible Mediterraneans between Italy and the Maghreb. It moves beyond overseas spaces as extensions of European culture (Lorcin and Shephard 2016) or the Mediterranean as a symbol of regional unity, Italian imperial power, or Mare nostrum (Fogu 2020 ; McGuire 2020). Essays will locate Italians within larger transnational and transimperial histories, broach questions of forced and voluntary mobilities, transregional political networks, as well as knowledge exchange between the two shores, including in literary and cultural production. We aim to ask how studies of Italians in the Maghreb prompt a rethinking of such constitutive categories as “Italy,” “Italian histories,” and “Italianness” and shift our attention away from metropole-colony binary in favor of processes involving multiple empires, languages, as well as state and non-state actors.

Articles will focus on the modern period and analyze no earlier than the eighteenth century through the contemporary era. Essays that engage interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged. Possible topics include (but are not limited to) the following interdisciplinary inquiries. We welcome contributions at the intersection of history, literature, visual culture, material studies, and memory studies : Italian migration to Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia 19th, 20th and 21st centuries - including comparative studies of these histories. Informal empire and Italy’s imperial ambitions in French North Africa Trans-Mediterranean intellectual exchanges among Italian, Francophone, and Maghrebi writers and thinkers Italians under French colonial rule : citizenship, race, and legal status Labor regimes, agricultural production, and trans-Mediterranean economic networks Extraterritoriality, capitulatory regimes, and systems of legal protection for Italians in the Maghreb Fascism, antifascism, and political activism in the Maghreb Racialization, whiteness, and colonial hierarchies Women, family, and gendered mobility Cultural production and the Italian-language press and literature in North Africa Literary, journalistic, and artistic representations of Italians in the Maghreb Decolonization, displacement, and postwar “repatriations” Memory, nostalgia, and postcolonial afterlives Colonial and postcolonial ecologies, environmental change, and Mediterranean landscapes Material culture, infrastructures, and the materiality of colonial and diasporic life Comparative Italian–French–Maghrebi perspectives Archives, oral histories, and new methodological approaches

Submission Instructions

• 300-word proposals for research articles and a short bio are due by March 1, 2026.
• Notification of acceptance will be sent by early April 2026.
• Authors of selected proposals will be asked to submit a 6000-7,000-word article (including notes and works cited) by July 1, 2026.
• The special issue of Italian Culture is scheduled for publication in Spring 2027.

For submitting proposals and articles : Please send 300-word proposals and a short bio to the special issue editors, Valerie McGuire (vmcguire@utexas.edu) and Erica Moretti (erica_moretti@fitnyc.edu) by March 1, 2026. Selected contributors will be invited to submit full research articles by July 1, 2026. Completed manuscripts should be submitted via Submission Portal and follow the standard journal guidelines found on the Instructions for Authors page. Selected authors should please select the corresponding Special Issue title from the drop-down menu when submitting their paper.

Scientific committee

• Valerie McGuire, associate Professor of Instruction, Italian Studies; Undergraduate Italian Faculty, advisor University of Texas at Austin
• Erica Moretti, associate Professor, Modern Languages and Cultures, Fashion Institute of Technology-SUNY

Works Cited 

Choate, Mark. 2010. “Tunisia, Contested : Italian Nationalism, French Imperial Rule, and Migration in the Mediterranean Basin.” California Italian Studies, 1–20. doi :10.5070/C311008861

Fogu, Claudio. 2020. The Fishing Net and the Spider Web : Mediterranean Imaginaries and the Making of Italians. 

Palgrave Macmillan. Lorcin, Patricia and Todd Shepard. 2016. French Mediterraneans : Transnational and Imperial Histories. University of Nebraska Press.

McGuire, Valerie. 2020. Italy’s Sea : Empire and Nation in the Mediterranean, 1895-1945. Liverpool University Press. 

Memmi, Albert. 1967. The Colonizer and the Colonized. Beacon Press. Montalbano, Gabriele. 2024. Mediterranean Mobilities : Between Migrations and Colonialism. Viella Editrice. 

Oppizzi, Martino. 2022. Les Juifs italiens de Tunisie pendant le fascisme : une communauté à l’épreuve, 1921-1943. Presses universitaires de Rennes. 

Paonessa, Costantino, ed.. 2021. Italian Subalterns in Egypt between Emigration and Colonialism, 1861-1937. Presses universitaires de Louvain. 

Rainero, Romain. 1988. L’Italia e il Nordafrica contemporaneo. Marzorati. 

Viscomi, Joseph. 2024. Migration at the End of Empire : Time and the Politics of Departure between Italy and Egypt. Cambridge University Press.