September 11, 2001
Contact: Roman Baratiak
(805) 893-2078
e-mail: baratiak-r@sa.ucsb.edu
Acclaimed journalist and author Alexander Stille
in residence at UCSB as Regents’ Lecturer
Summary Facts:
- Alexander Stille
- Regents’ Lecturer in the UCSB Department of French and Italian
- Two free public talks
- “Italy’s Lost Generation: Italian Terrorism, Then and Now”
- Monday, October 15 / UCSB Corwin Pavilion / 4 pm
- “What Ever Happened to the War Against the Mafia? A Look at Sicily and Beyond”
- Wednesday, October 17 / Victoria Hall, 33 W. Victoria St. / 8 pm
- For information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at 893-3535
A regular contributor to The New Yorker and La Repubblica, one of Italy’s most influential and widely read newspapers, Alexander Stille has been called a “a writer to watch” by The New York Times. As a Regents’ Lecturer in the UCSB Department of French and Italian, Stille will present two free public talks, “Italy’s Lost Generation: Italian Terrorism, Then and Now” on Monday, October 15 at 4 pm in UCSB Corwin Pavilion and “What Ever Happened to the War Against the Mafia? A Look at Sicily and Beyond” on Wednesday, October 17 at 8 pm in Victoria Hall, 33 W. Victoria Street in Santa Barbara. Courtesy of the UCSB Bookstore, books by Alexander Stille will be available for purchase and signing after the October 15 lecture.
Stille is the author of two books. Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic (Pantheon 1995) is his account of the criminal investigation that exposed the crucial alliance between the Mafia and the Italian government for the past 50 years. Business Week hailed the book as “masterful,” claiming Stille “delivers a stiletto-sharp portrait of the bloodthirsty Italian Mafia.” His Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism (Simon & Schuster 1991) won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for History.
Stille is currently working on the book The Future of the Past, examining the complicated connections between technology and our relationship to the past. Portions of this book have appeared in The New Yorker, including “Library Privileges,” which explores the modernization of the Vatican Library, “The Museum of Obsolete Technology,” which discusses information overload at the National Archives in Washington and “Head Found on Fifth Avenue,” which details the looting of Sicilian antiquities.
Stille’s public talks are presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures. His residency at UCSB is made possible by the Regents’ Lectureship program of the University of California. Instituted in 1962 to encourage rare and invaluable interaction between gifted non-academics and the university community, the program has continued to provide campus residencies in sponsoring departments for people with distinguished achievement in the arts, sciences, humanities, business, politics and international affairs.
Other Regents’ Lecturers in 2001-2002 at UCSB will be: Libby Appel, Artistic Director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, who will be in residence in Dramatic Art and Dance in March; Martin Luther King III, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who will visit Religious Studies in Spring Quarter; Jeffrey Weeks, a MacArthur Fellow who will be the guest of Mathematics in May; and Michael C. Tobias, a documentary filmmaker who will be in residence in the Environmental Studies Program in Spring Quarter.
For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.
Editor: For photos, please call
Roman Baratiak at (805) 893-2078.