Benedetta Carnaghi
banner
benecarnaghi.bsky.social
Benedetta Carnaghi
@benecarnaghi.bsky.social
Assistant Professor of History @usf.edu 📚 previously postdoc @durhamhistory.bsky.social & @ucddublin.bsky.social | PhD @cornelluniversity.bsky.social 👩‍🎓 Historian of spies, humor, and fascism in modern Europe 🕵️

Website: https://benedettacarnaghi.com
As a 1st-time presenter at @thesouthernsha.bsky.social’s Annual Meeting, I thoroughly enjoyed the conference and our panel on “Courts and the State” with Antonio Grilli & Stephen Stillwell. St. Pete treated us to a beautiful sunset after a long day of work #2025SHA
November 12, 2025 at 6:54 PM
I had so much fun speaking at #CafeconTampa this morning! It was wonderful to meet so many engaged members of the Tampa community from all walks of life. Thank you for asking brilliant questions and giving me excellent suggestions about my work 🙏
October 31, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Are you in Tampa? Want to enjoy breakfast and have an early morning chat about spies? Join us at the Portico this Friday, October 31, at 8:00 am!

Tickets available here: www.mytbtickets.com/events/caf-c...
October 27, 2025 at 8:58 PM
We officially started our new roles as Assistant Professors at the @usf.edu @casatusf.bsky.social. We are excited to join a wonderful group of new faculty members and look forward to the adventures ahead!
August 24, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Huge thanks to Amanda Hsieh and Friedemann Pestel for inviting me to participate in a workshop that brings together historians and musicologists! We reflect on the recent global turn in fascism studies, and we do it in the most beautiful place! @unituebingen.bsky.social
June 10, 2025 at 3:29 PM
We have reached the final roundtable of the ‘Power of Laughter. Laughing about Power’ conference at the @centremarcbloch.bsky.social, feat. David Slucki and Alexandra Oeser, and moderated by Aurélia Kalisky. Huge thanks to both organizers and presenters for such a rich and stimulating conference!
May 16, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Très belle communication de @gunthert.bsky.social sur Tintin au Congo ! Impossible de ne pas penser à @gwendalpiegais.bsky.social et ton amour pour Tintin 😉
May 16, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Wonderful to speak about antifascist satire in Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany & Vichy France, in conversation with Olga Galanova’s paper on political laughter in the GDR, contemporary Russia, Belarus & China. Sometimes, humor makes the unbearable bearable @centremarcbloch.bsky.social
May 16, 2025 at 12:24 PM
Delighted to present my research on ‘Persecuted Satirists: How Anti-Fascist Laughter Could Get You in Trouble, 1922-45’ at the ‘Power of Laughter. Laughing about Power’ conference at the @centremarcbloch.bsky.social. We even have a box of jokes that is going around! That looks very promising 😉
May 15, 2025 at 7:38 AM
One last tempo session with the lovely #AdidasRunners bunch yesterday and… I am marathon ready!
I am so excited to run the @manchestermarathon.bsky.social for #TeamMND @mndassoc.bsky.social. Here is the link to my fundraiser: www.justgiving.com/page/benedet...
Please help us reach the goal ❤️
April 25, 2025 at 11:48 AM
And the last speaker of our conference on “Laughter as a Political Coping Mechanism”: Aidan Jones! Aidan is presenting on “The Death Penalty, Humour, and the United States.”
March 29, 2025 at 4:21 PM
A. Austin Garvey deepens our focus on Ukraine, comparing wartime Punch cartoons and contemporary Ukrainian memes in “Visual Humour in European Home Fronts: Britain and Ukraine.”
March 29, 2025 at 4:01 PM
Zlata Osipova speaks first, on “We Against Them: Humor as a Unifying Force in Ukraine’s Resistance.” How does humour build solidarity and a collective opposition?
March 29, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Such an engaging, illuminating panel! (And we’re all still laughing.)
March 29, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Simbarashe bringing the house down with popular Zimbabwean jokes from Whatsapp and Facebook (social media a release for so much pent-up expression)
March 29, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Rounding off our panel, and taking us into the world of social media, Simbarashe Marowa and Ushe Kufakurinani present on “Social Media and Playful Engagements on the Political Economy: The Case of Zimbabwe”!
March 29, 2025 at 2:33 PM
Katharina Friege picks up the baton and brings us to radio comedy (and the postwar scene): “Broadcasting Humour: Rubble, Reconstruction, and the Radio in Great Britain and Western Germany, 1945-1960.” Humour on the airwaves brought people into the society after the war
March 29, 2025 at 2:14 PM
Sophie Dubillot kicks things off with “Visual Humour by Returning French Prisoners of War and Forces Workers in Liberation France.” A complex history of return, disappointment, and critical humour
March 29, 2025 at 1:49 PM
The panel sums up!
March 29, 2025 at 12:38 PM
Finally, direct from Barcelona, Paolo Scotton and Raquel Cercós speak about the Catalan writer Joan Brossa and “When Poetry Turns Into Revolt”!
March 29, 2025 at 12:21 PM
Our third speaker is Natalie Schwabl, presenting on “Coping with Fascism through Humour: Anticlerical Caricatures in Post-War Croatia (1945-1946).” Another fascinating paper, another era and area illuminated
March 29, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Alexandra Oeser speaks next, tackling one of the most difficult subjects: laughter in concentration camps. Through the life and work of Nina Jirsikova, Oeser delves into laughter as a weapon of oppression as well as laughter as resistance
March 29, 2025 at 11:37 AM
Introduced by Jessica Wardhaugh, Francesco Saccà begins with comic writing and satire in Marc’Aurelio, an Italian anti-fascist magazine. A fascinating examination of Fellini’s early career in its pages (and other film directors too)
March 29, 2025 at 11:29 AM
We started day 2 of the ‘Laughter as a Political Coping Mechanism’ conference with Alya Aglan’s wonderful keynote, translated in English by @benfried.bsky.social. Alya tells us that wartime humor changes the unbearable reality. Without words, humor captures the essential @durhamhistory.bsky.social
March 29, 2025 at 10:33 AM
Here's the schedule for 'Laughter as a Political Coping Mechanism', a conference that
@drhelenroche.bsky.social and I are organizing on March 28-29 for @durhamhistory.bsky.social. We'll spark fresh conversations about resistance to power—and have a few laughs too! Please join us!
March 20, 2025 at 10:50 PM