Abstracts Due: July 1, 2025
Italian American “cause célèbre” and “anarchist martyrs” Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed by the State of Massachusetts on August 23, 1927. Almost a full 100 years later, their names remain important touchstones around the world for migration activists and working-class radicals. The memory of Sacco and Vanzetti has been preserved and recreated through cultural and political manifestations over the ensuing years. While rooted in the diasporic Italian-anarchist communities of which they were a part, these manifestations across the globe—in music and art, in plays and novels, in strikes and street protests—long ago transcended those origins and remain significant to this day.
The Italian American Review seeks essays for a special issue dedicated to a re-thinking and re-articulation of the meaning of Sacco and Vanzetti both historically and today. In addition to submissions related to a revisiting of the details of their trial (and related murders) and the anarchist background from which they emerged, we especially invite submissions that focus on lesser explored themes in the historiography, including the global reach of their defense campaign, the impact of the failed fight to save their lives, how this struggle was used by various groups who rallied to their cause in the 1920s, and what they mean to those who have continued to commemorate their deaths with various actions and gatherings ever since. For more information, click here.