Faculty Spotlight: Teresa Fava Thomas
Teresa Fava Thomas has a long history with Fitchburg State University where she has taught history for more than two decades, after earning a Ph.D. in history from Clark University. She teaches World Civilizations and courses in Italian history, as well as in US foreign relations. Her research has been in Italian archives and her training in the translation of French and Italian sources has been central to her work.
Her family’s origins are in northeast Italy, where she researched her book, The Reluctant Migrants: Migration from the Italian Veneto to Central Massachusetts, published by Teneo Press. Research involved travel to the libraries in Vittorio Veneto, as well as the Biblioteca Nazionale and the Fondazione Cini in Venice. She has served on the advisory board of FSU’s Il Centro per la Cultura Italiana /The Center for Italian Culture. Verona is the site of FSU’s Study Abroad program where she taught for a summer and brought her students on field trips to Venice, Lago di Garda, and Florence. Over the years she published articles on the Great War in Revine Lago, and on Italian migration to the Fitchburg area and to Southbridge, Massachusetts.
In 2015 she began a new project centered on the Roman city of Palestrina, and over the years worked in the mountainside town examining the town’s long history. In ancient times it was known as Praeneste, and the famous Nile Mosaic, a 19 x 14-foot image of the entire Nile valley with its wildlife and peoples illustrated in exacting detail. It remains the largest surviving example of a Nilotic mosaic. WWII bombings destroyed over seventy-five percent of the town, but the mosaic had already been cut into pieces and hidden in Rome.
After the war ended, the town’s recovery town took over a dozen years. The long-buried Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia, a second century B.C.E. pagan temple honoring the goddess Fortuna, was excavated. The mosaic began a long restoration, and brought back to Palestrina, which was made into an archeological museum with the mosaic in a building crowning the mountain top. In September 2023 Routledge Press of London published her book, The Allied Bombing of Central Italy: The Restoration of the Nile Mosaic and Sanctuary of Fortuna at Palestrina.
In 2021 she published “Italian Diaspora in a Massachusetts Mill Town: Migration between Palestrina, (Lazio) Italy and Southbridge, Massachusetts,” in the first issue of the new Italian studies journal, Diasporic Italy. This work examined the history of a chain migration between the two towns and the linkage between them.
Her web-based publications, for the World History Encyclopedia, www.whe.org, include articles on the “Doge’s Palace in Venice” (available in English and in French), as well as the “Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia at Palestrina,” (available in English and in Italian).
Teresa’s husband, Arthur F. Thomas, an engineer, was very supportive as she traveled in the mountains around Rome and visited the American Academy in Rome’s library over seven summers. Together they have enjoyed their shared interests in ice skating, cycling, and skiing, as well as spending summers in Vermont and Saratoga Springs.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Books:
The Allied Bombing of Central Italy: The Restoration of the Nile Mosaic, Routledge Press, London, England. Routledge https://www.routledge.com/The-Allied-Bombing-of-Central-Italy-The-Restoration-of-the-Nile-Mosaic/Fava-Thomas/p/book/9781032494180
American Arabists in the Cold War Middle East: From Orientalism to Professionalism. London, England: Anthem Press, 2016.
The Reluctant Migrants: Migration from the Italian Veneto. Amherst, New York:Teneo Press, 2015.
Book Chapters:
“German Immigration to Fitchburg, Massachusetts,” chapter in Kleve am Niederrhein und Fitchburg in Massachusetts – Partnerstädte, Editors Kurt Kreiten and Kurt Michelis, Kleve, Germany: Edition Wasserburg, 2017.
Journal Articles:
“Italian Diaspora in a Massachusetts Mill Town: Migration between Palestrina (Lazio), Italy, and Southbridge, Massachusetts, in premier issue of Diasporic Italy, journal of the Italian American Studies Association, vol. 1, December 2020, and October 2021 online: https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org
Encyclopedia Articles:
“Doge’s Palace/Palazzo Ducale of Venice, Italy,” World History Encyclopedia (online) https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2273/doges-palace-in-venice
“Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia at Palestrina,” World History Encyclopedia (online) https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1643/sanctuary-of-fortuna-primigenia-at-palestrina
Book Reviews:
Review of Vincent A. Lapomarda, The Italians of Worcester County, in Historical Journal of Massachusetts, Summer 2021, volume 49, #2, 181-184.
H-Diplo Roundtable Review of Osamah F. Khalil, America’s Dream Palace: Middle East Expertise and the Rise of the National Security State, Harvard University Press. One of six reviews by the panel, edited by Thomas Maddux, H-Diplo, Volume XIX, No. 18, (2018).
Review of Francesco Durante and Robert Viscusi, Italoamericana The Literature of the Great Migration 1880-1943, first English edition, Fordham University Press and Mondadori di Italia, 2014 in Journal of American Ethnic History, University of Illinois Press, Volume 36, #4, Summer 2017, 108-9.