Irene Piazzoni is Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Milan, where she teaches History of Contemporary Culture and History of Journalism. She is a member of the Teachers’ Board of the PhD Program in Historical Studies at the same university and coordinator of the Master’s Program in Public History and Historytelling organized by the university and the Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation.
She deals with cultural and political history in the contemporary age, devoting herself in particular to the history of books and publishing, the history of print media and photojournalism, the history of theatrical organization and entertainment, the history of television and media, and the cultural policies and intellectual life of the 20th century and the second half of the 19th century. Constant features of her research include attention – also from a methodological point of view – to the role of iconographic elements and visual communication in audiovisual and printed products, to the material and visual dimensions of books, and to the criteria presiding over the use and treatment of caricatures, illustrations and photographs in periodicals.
Her publications in the field of visual history include:
- “Voglio trasformarmi in libro”. Il lavoro editoriale di Valentino Bompiani, in Testi, forme e usi del libro. Teorie e pratiche di cultura editoriale, a cura di Lodovica Braida e Alberto Cadioli, Milano, Edizioni Sylvestre Bonnard, 2007
- “In direzione rivoluzionaria”: la fotografia nelle riviste dell’estrema sinistra, in Il fotogiornalismo negli anni settanta. Lotte, trasformazioni, conquiste, a cura di Irene Piazzoni e Raffaele De Berti, Milano, SilvanaEditoriale, 2020, pp. 90-113
- Dalla pace al fascismo. La caricatura italiana nelle battaglie del primo dopoguerra, in La caricatura politica in Europa fra Otto e Novecento, fascicolo monografico a cura di Sandro Morachioli e Irene Piazzoni di “Memoria e Ricerca”, 1/2022 (gennaio-aprile 2022), pp. 68-88
- Tra propaganda e ambigua eterodossia: nel labirinto di “Panorama” (1939-1940), in Testo e immagine nel rotocalco d’attualità, in corso di pubblicazione presso Mimesis.