Federica Schiaffino
- Visiting Researcher
Federica Schiaffino is a doctoral researcher at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Her research interests lie at the intersection of German history, Eastern European history, and the cultural history of the Cold War, with a particular focus on mechanisms of identity construction, discourse production, and the symbolic representation of political otherness.
Her doctoral dissertation, “Imaginary East”: The Image of the GDR in West Germany 1966–1972/73, investigates how an institutionally constructed image of the GDR was produced and socially received in the Federal Republic of Germany during the pivotal years of Ostpolitik. Drawing on a dual methodological framework, the project combines a top-down analysis of the Ministerium für gesamtdeutsche Fragen with a bottom-up examination of confidential opinion polls and travel reports, engaging with theoretical frameworks drawn from Edward Said’s Orientalism and Alexei Yurchak’s concept of the “Imaginary West.”
ACADEMIC PATH
2024 – present PhD in History, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa
2023 MA in Historical Sciences, University of Naples Federico II
2022 Certificate of Advanced Studies in Global History and Governance, Scuola Superiore Meridionale, Naples
2020 BA in History, University of Pisa
Publications
Da Jakob der Lügner a “Becker il bugiardo”. La letteratura come campo di battaglia nella Germania divisa, in «Novecento.org», 2025.
A proposito della trasmissione televisiva Nascita di una dittatura, in «Diacronie. Studi di Storia Contemporanea» 57, 1/2024
Russia vs Occidente. Peccato originale o un passato che non passa?, in Bruzzone A. (a cura di), Dialettica del fallimento, Milano, Urse Coeli, 2024
Considerazioni attuali, troppo attuali, in Bruzzone A. (a cura di), Contro l’attuale, Milano, Urse Coeli, 2020