Book Discussion | Carlo Ginzburg: History/Microhistories/Architectural Histories

On March 6, 2022, Yehuda Safran (Pratt Institute) and Daniel Sherer (Princeton SoA) interviewed Italian historian Carlo Ginzburg for Issue 5 of Potlatch journal, perhaps the most extensive and in-depth exchange ever given. From a broad spectrum of subjects, Ginzburg discusses key sources of his intellectual formation, the complex relation of art history, architectural history, and microhistory–convergences and divergences between historical, literary and cinematic narrative, and the reading of diverse types of evidence across disciplines. In an unusual moment of synthesis, the interview contains the only published discussion of Ginzburg’s intellectual and personal exchange with architectural theorist Manfredo Tafuri, focusing on the concepts of polycentric histories of architecture and microhistory. Nearly a year after the interview, Carlo Ginzburg: History/Microhistories/Architectural Histories brings together multiple scholars across disciplinary fields to discuss this seminal dialog and Ginzburg at large.

Participants include Daniel Sherer (Visiting Faculty, History and Theory of Architecture, School of Architecture, Princeton University), Yehuda Safran (Critic; Adjunct Professor, History and Theory of Architecture, School of Architecture, Pratt Institute), Eva Del Soldato (Associate Professor of Italian Studies, Francophone, Italian And Germanic Studies, University of Pennsylvania), Francesca Trivellato (Andrew W. Mellon Professor, School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University), and Spyros Papapetros (Associate Professor, History and Theory of Architecture, School of Architecture, Princeton University).

This lecture is made possible by the Jean Labatut Memorial Lectures in Architecture and Urban Planning Fund and is co-sponsored by the Center for Collaborative History.