Emma Barron 

Emma Barron is an Italian cultural historian working on the circulation of ideas during the 1950s and 1960s. She completed her PhD jointly at the University of Sydney and the University of Bologna. Her PhD research resulted in the book Popular High Culture in Italian Media 1950-1970: Mona Lisa Covergirl (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave, 2018). 

Emma's postdoctoral project, 'Modern Women: Mass Culture and Social Change in Post-War Italy’ continues her interrogation of Italian mass culture. The project proposes to examine the pivotal role of Italy’s mass culture ‘boom’ in the circulation of ideas about modern Italy through magazines, television, and cinema. The project will write a history of post-war social change by exploring women’s access to ideas about the modern world and their place in it. The research analyses the impact of mass culture on audiences and the attempts by industry, the Italian State, and the Catholic Church to promote, manage or limit access to new ideas.