This two-day interdisciplinary conference will examine the history and theory of representing reality in Italy and the tensions that have resulted with idealist outlooks from Renaissance Humanism to Fascism.  Keynote speakers will be Maurizio Viroli, of University of Texas at Austin and Princeton University, and Ruth Ben-Ghiat, of New York University.  Author and critic Gian Mario Villalta, winner of the 2011 Viareggio Prize for poetry, will be the respondent.  The conference will bring together scholars from art history, literary studies, history, philosophy, political theory, cultural studies, and film.  Together they will interrogate the many assertions of realism that have characerized Italian culture since its beginnings and elucidate how these Italian realisms have co-existed with idealized conceptions of truth.