Paper/Proposal Title
Faking the News: Antiwar Activists, the Italo-Ethiopian War, and the Practice of Human Rights
Location
New Media and Imagery
Start Date
10-2-2019 11:30 AM
End Date
10-2-2019 1:00 PM
Keywords
Fascism, Antifascism, Fake News, Ethiopia, Italy, Feminism
Abstract
In “Faking the News,” I bring past and present together to underscore lessons already learned by antifascist antiwar activists from the 1930s. These activists used, what they termed, "Authentic News," to combat the propaganda Benito Mussolini's regime was making up about the Italo-Ethiopian war. How might knowing about how people faked the news,and faked out fascism, in the past shape current and future human rights actions and help us go against the grain today for a better world tomorrow?
Author/Speaker Biographical Statement(s)
Caroline Waldron Merithew is Associate Professor of History and Human Rights Fellow at the University of Dayton. She specializes in immigration, labor, and women’s history. Her current research focuses on transnational feminism and antifascism to explore women’s central role in the fight against Italy’s colonial quest and invasion of Ethiopia, 1920s-1940s. On this subject, she has published the article: “'O Mother Race': Race, Italian Colonialism and the Fight to Keep Ethiopia Independent, Zapruder World: An International Journal for the History of Social Conflict (2018). Her earlier publications include: "Navigating Body, Class, and Disability in the Life of Agnes Burns Wieck," in the Journal of Historical Biography (2013); “Domesticating the Diaspora: Remember the Life of Katie DeRorre,” in Intimacy and Italian Migration: Gender and Domestic Lives in a Mobile World (Fordham 2011); “‘We Were Not Ladies’: Gender, Class, and a Woman’s Auxiliary’s Battle for Mining Unionism,” in the Journal of Women’s History (2006), awarded the Anita S. Goodstein Junior Scholar Prize for the best article published in the field of American Women’s History, University of the South; “Anarchist Motherhood,” in Women, Gender, and Transnational Lives (2002); and “‘Lynch-Law Must Go!’” in the Journal of American Ethnic History (2000). She has been in leadership roles at the University of Dayton focused on fair employment. Waldron Merithew was the first Special Advisor to the Provost on Gender, Equity, and Climate. And, she has recently been named Equity Advisor in the School of Engineering. She is the Co-PI of an NEH Humanities Connections Grant (2018-2019) focused on Humanities and Health Sciences with her colleague, Dr. Carissa Krane (Biology)
Included in
Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Other Italian Language and Literature Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons
Faking the News: Antiwar Activists, the Italo-Ethiopian War, and the Practice of Human Rights
New Media and Imagery
In “Faking the News,” I bring past and present together to underscore lessons already learned by antifascist antiwar activists from the 1930s. These activists used, what they termed, "Authentic News," to combat the propaganda Benito Mussolini's regime was making up about the Italo-Ethiopian war. How might knowing about how people faked the news,and faked out fascism, in the past shape current and future human rights actions and help us go against the grain today for a better world tomorrow?
