Steven Forti, Visiting Fellowship 2024/25

Biography

I am Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). I obtained my PhD at the UAB and the Università di Bologna in 2011 with a thesis on the transition of political leaders from the left to fascism in interwar Europe. Subsequently, I obtained a post-doctoral fellowship at the Instituto de História Contemporânea da Universidade Nova de Lisboa (2014-2019), where I was also a researcher between 2019 and 2022. I have carried out visiting at the Università degli Studi Roma Tre, the Université Paris IV Sorbonne and the Université Cergy-Paris.

My research focuses on fascism, populism, nationalism and the extreme right in the contemporary period, with special attention to comparative and transnational history. My studies initially focused on the political leaders who transitioned from the left to fascism in Italy, Spain and France in the 1920s and 1930s, and then expanded to the question of the relationship between violence and consent in fascism. In recent years I have mainly studied the new far right in Italy and Spain (Lega, Fratelli d’Italia, Vox), but also the far right more generally in Europe and Latin America, with a particular interest in the terminological debate, the relationship with “historical fascism” and the transformations of political cultures.

I am a member of the Centre d’Estudis sobre Dictadures i Democràcies (CEDID-UAB) and of the editorial board of the journals Ayer. Revista de Historia Contemporánea and Spagna Contemporanea. Currently I am also local PI of the European research project Analysis of and Response to Extremist Narratives (ARENAS) which has received funding from the Horizon Europe programme.

Visiting fellowship 25.01. – 12.02.2025

Motivation

The main objective of this fellowship is to forge closer relations with colleagues at the Institute of Contemporary History in Ljubljana. Firstly, we will be able to work on the HE ARENAS project and specifically on the task concerning the circulation of extremist narratives in Europe in the political sphere. Secondly, we will be able to work on another project related to the MSCA Doctoral Network call. Thirdly, the intention is also to establish a lasting collaboration between INZ and CEDID-UAB.

List of publications (a selection)

Democracias en extinción. El espectro de las autocracias electorales, Madrid, Akal, 2024.

“Extreme Rights 2.0: A Big Global Family”, NACLA – Report on the Americas, Vol. 56, Nº 1 (2024), pp. 20-27.

“Transnational Influences on the Ideology of the Spanish Right, 1920-1935”, en Andrew Dowling (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Spanish History, London, Routledge, 2023, pp. 352-361.

(Ed.), Mitos y cuentos de la extrema derecha, Madrid, Los Libros de la Catarata-Fundación 1º de Mayo, 2023.

“De ‘PP auténtico’ a extrema derecha tout court. Historia, ideología y organización de Vox”, Historia del presente, 42(2) (2023), pp. 9-28.

“O parasitismo ideológico das novas extremas-direitas. Gramscistas de direita e alianças rojipardas na França, Itália e Espanha (1968-2022)”, Estudos Ibero-Americanos, 49(1) (2023), e44161.

“‘Prima gli italiani!’. Cambios y continuidades en la ultraderecha italiana: la Lega y Fratelli d’Italia”, Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals, 132 (2022), pp. 25-48.

“Latinizing the Russia of the Soviets: The Influence of Italian Socialism in Spain and Argentina after the First World War”, in Maximiliano Fuentes Codera & Patrizia Dogliani (eds.), Continental Transfers. Cultural and Political Exchange among Spain, Italy and Argentina, 1914–1945, New York-Oxford, Berghahn Books, 2022, pp. 39-67.

Extrema derecha 2.0. Qué es y cómo combatirla, Madrid, Siglo XXI de España, 2021.

“L’estaca’: Transnational Trajectories of a Catalan Antifascist Song”, Popular Music and Society, 44.2 (2021), pp. 139-156.