Talk: “The Scholar as Archivist: A Case Study in Negotiating the Borders between Description and Analysis”
Panel: “The Digital Age Library”

Claudia Scala Schlessman received a BA degree in English, Spanish and Linguistics from the University of Siena in 2006. She also completed a MA degree in Contemporary Italian History and Culture from the University College of London in 2008. While at UCL, she worked under the supervision of Professor John Foot and Doctor Eleanor Chiari. Her research focused on micro history and oral history, with an emphasis on Italian migration to North America, culminating in a project on Italian immigrants in Philadelphia, which she developed in her Master’s thesis. Her other areas of interest include the controversies of contemporary Italian historiography with respect to the Fascist era and the Partisan movement, and terrorism in the Anni di Piombo.

She is currently pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania, working with Professor Fabio Finotti in the Department of Italian. Her dissertation work focuses on the derivation of temporal and cultural significance from contextual information contained within the Gondi-Medici manuscripts belonging to the University of Pennsylvania’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library.