Research contract holders
Short bio
Dr Guido Bartolini is a researcher in modern Italian literature and cultural memory. From April 2026, he is a Seal of Excellence Research Fellow at the Free University of Bolzano, where he leads the project RESPONSITALY: Taking Responsibility for the Fascist Past in Italian Literature, 1945鈥�2025. His work examines how literature and cultural production engage with Fascism, World War II, and difficult historical pasts, with particular attention to responsibility, complicity, and implication.
Previously, he held a Senior Postdoctoral Fellowship funded by the Research Foundation鈥揊landers (FWO) at Ghent University and a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship at University College Cork. He is the author of The Italian Literature of the Axis War: Memories of Self-Absolution and the Quest for Responsibility (Palgrave, 2021) and co-editor of Mediating Historical Responsibility: Memories of 鈥楧ifficult Pasts鈥� in European Cultures (De Gruyter, 2024). His research has appeared in journals including Annali d'Italianistica, Italian Culture, Modern Italy, and Journal of Perpetrator Research.
Guido Bartolini is a scholar of modern Italian literature and memory studies whose research explores how cultural narratives shape understandings of Fascism, World War II, and historical responsibility. His work focuses particularly on themes of complicity, implication, and self-absolution in postwar and contemporary Italian literature, examining how literary texts mediate difficult pasts and contribute to public debates about memory and accountability.
His research combines literary analysis with cultural memory theory and engages with broader questions about the role of literature in negotiating traumatic and contested histories. Alongside his publications, he plays an active role in the international memory studies community, serving as Co-Chair of the Memory and Literature Working Group of the Memory Studies Association, Co-Chair of the MSA Early Career Academics Support Committee, and elected member of the MSA Ethics Committee.