"Truffles for Everybody!" renowned historian Carlo Ginzburg visits History MA students

Early on the morning of December 3, a group of Master of Arts in History students hosted a video chat with one of the most impactful and prolific scholars of history in the twentieth century, Professor Carlo Ginzburg. They discussed historiography, politics, and highlights from Ginzburg's career. The early morning call allowed Professor Ginzburg to log on from Bologna, where he has retired after a career at several top institutions in Italy and also a period at UCLA. CSUSB MA students had recently read Ginzburg's formative work, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller (1976), which had a major impact on the way historical scholarship has been done, expanding the work of the Annales School, and ushering in a subfield of "microhistory."

Ginzburg joked with the students and offered encouragement and appreciation for the chance to engage with them. Several students, including Marlet Felix and Rossandra Martinez, asked about Ginzburg's experience in research and writing. In one memorable reply, Ginzburg shared his delightful motto, "Truffles for everybody!" He elaborated that the best research and the best writing in historical scholarship should come together in the most lucid and engaging prose, and the valuable and delightful result should be made available and accessible to everybody, not hoarded in the halls of the academy or limited to the pages of scholarly journals. He challenged the emerging scholars of the MA in History program to produce the most rigorous and compelling scholarly work, and to make it engaging and accessible for the widest possible audience.