UCLA’s Eugen Weber Postdoctoral Fellowship
In July 2020, I was named the inaugural Eugen and Jacqueline Weber Post-Doctoral Scholar in European History at University of California, Los Angeles. During my 2020-2021 postdoctoral fellowship, I will be working towards the completion of my first monograph, which I have tentatively titled Cultivating Fascism: Wine and Politics in Mussolini’s Italy, by carrying out the remaining research and early composition for two of my planned four additional chapters. Additionally, I am teaching two upper-division undergraduate courses on modern European history.

Fulbright Research/Study Grant
I am pleased to announced that I have been awarded a 2018-2019 Fulbright Research Grant to Italy. During my year in Rome, I will be consulting source materials at a number of archives and libraries, conducting interviews with winemakers, completing my dissertation’s remaining chapters, volunteering periodically in the vineyards of Rome’s nearby castelli romani winemaking region, and delivering a public lecture at the International Library, “La Vigna” in Vicenza.

Brian J Griffith is the 2020-2021 Eugen and Jacqueline Weber Post-Doctoral Scholar in European History at University of California, Los Angeles. His interests include modern Europe, modern Italy, Fascism, consumerism, (trans)national identities, and the digital humanities. Brian is currently working on a book manuscript entitled Cultivating Fascism: Wine and Politics in Mussolini’s Italy which explores the way in which vino came to be viewed as a quintessentially ‘Italian’ beverage among Italy’s middle- and upper-class households during Fascism’s twenty years in power.

Bringing Bacchus to the People: Winemaking and “Making Italians” in Fascist Italy