Phd in HISTORY, ANTHROPOLOGY, RELIGIONS

email: chiara.pulvirenti@uniroma1.it
phone:

Chiara Maria Pulvirenti is a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Contemporary History at the Department of History, Anthropology, Religions, Art, and Performing Arts at Sapienza University of Rome. She is currently a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow at the City University of New York (CUNY). Her research project, titled International Circulation of Technicians: A Prosopographical Study of Agents and Scientists within UNRRA, FAO, and UNESCO (1943–1960) , investigates the role of international organizations such as UNRRA, FAO, and UNESCO in the global circulation of technical knowledge and professional expertise during the second half of the twentieth century. The study focuses on the individuals who contributed to the construction of these institutions, their involvement in postwar reconstruction, and their impact on international knowledge networks.

She earned her PhD in Contemporary History in 2012 and subsequently spent six years as a research fellow at the University of Catania, where she also taught Contemporary History. She has also taught Unmaking the Mediterranean (ACCENT-UCEAP) at the Syracuse Academy and Global History within the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree TEMA+ European Territories – Heritage and Development.

She has published extensively on themes such as exile, the circulation of people and ideas, revolution, and counter-revolution. Her major works include Risorgimento cosmopolita. Esuli in Spagna tra rivoluzione e controrivoluzione (2017) and Biografia di una rivoluzione. Nicola Fabrizi, l’esilio e la costruzione dello Stato italiano (2013).

She is actively involved in several research groups and editorial boards. In October 2022, she was a visiting researcher at the Centre for History at Sciences Po, Paris.

Her research interests focus on the history of the circulation of knowledge and practices, and on the interactions between technology, economics, science, and both national and international institutions, with particular emphasis on the “long twentieth century.” Her work seeks to explore the cultural and decision-making processes behind development policies and the dissemination of technological innovation, analyzing the extent to which these innovations intersected—or failed to intersect—with environmental conservation and enhancement. In this framework, her study examines the contribution of organizations such as UNESCO, FAO, and UNRRA to the dissemination of technologies, policies, and practices, as well as their role in the construction of a global scientific network aimed at shaping a development model attentive to environmental concerns.