As part of the Humanities Center’s Fall 2025 speaker series on New Histories of Fascism, Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust, Federico Marcon (Princeton University), an intellectual historian of early modern Japan, will present his new book, Fascism: The History of a Word (University of Chicago Press, 2025), a wide-ranging history of the term “fascism,” what it has meant, and what it means today.

The rise and popular support for authoritarianism around the world and within traditional democracies have spurred debates over the meaning of the term “fascist” and when and whether it is appropriate to use it. This landmark book takes this debate further by tackling its most fundamental questions: How did the terms “fascism” and “fascist” come to be in the first place? How and in what circumstances have they been used? How can they be understood today? And what are the advantages (or disadvantages) of using “fascism” to make sense of interwar authoritarianism as well as contemporary politics? Exploring the writings and deeds of political leaders, activists, artists, authors, and philosophers, Marcon traces the history of the term’s use (and usefulness) in relation to Mussolini’s political regime, antifascist resistance, and the quest of postwar historians to develop a definition of a “fascist minimum.” This investigation of the semiotics of “fascism” also aims to inquire about people’s voluntary renunciation of the modern emancipatory ideals of freedom, equality, and solidarity.

This lecture will be held virtually on Zoom (register for details) and is free and open to the public.