Sebastian De Pretto
CV
Sebastian De Pretto holds a Bachelor in Philosophy and History from the University of Basel and a Master in Global History from the University of Heidelberg. During his Bachelor studies he spent an exchange year at the University of Bologna. After his graduation in 2013 he completed a Diploma of Advanced Studies in interdisciplinary conflict analysis and conflict resolution at the University of Basel. From 2013 to 2015 he worked as a research assistant in the State Archives of the canton Aargau as well as for the Dealing with the Past program at swisspeace. In 2016 he entered the Graduate School Lucerne with a PhD project about the memorialization of the Abyssinian War in South Tyrol. The project is supervised by Prof. Aram Mattioli.
Research
My Thesis bears the title Der Abessinienkrieg in den Südtiroler Erinnerungskultur(en). Generally, the aim is to reveal and analyse the impact of the memorialization of the Abyssinian War on the collective memory that shapes the self-identification process of the South Tyrolean German speaking population through history since 1945. For that purpose, it is necessary to analyse how the memory of this colonial war was expressed in different media and places over time, which actor groups were involved in the discussions around the changing memorialization process, and what topics and requests they brought into their fight over the ‘rightful’ narrative of the past. The places, as well as the media, in which those debates took place, as for example monuments, political gatherings, schoolbooks, and communal chronicles or veteran’s diaries thereby form the basis of my research interest.
