Mathieu Grenet

European University Institute - Florence

In others' words: foreigners, languages and interpreters in Venice, Livorno and Marseilles, c. 1700–c. 1800

2010-2011

For his Ph.D. at the Department of History and Civilization of the European University Institute, in Florence, Mathieu Grenet wrote a dissertation dealing with the comparison of three communities of the Greek diaspora - namely those of Venice, Livorno and Marseille - from the 1770s to the 1830s. A former junior lecturer at the University of Lyon 2, France, he has taught European and French modern history for three years (2003-2006) while being an associate researcher in programs on historical demography and urban history. The author of several articles, he has published on the social and political history of the communities of the Greek diaspora, as well as on other issues such as the migratory networks and the Levant trade, and he is co-organizing a panel on "Migrant Communities and Urban Space in the Mediterranean Ports, 17th-19th centuries" for the 10th International Conference on Urban History, to be held in Ghent, Belgium, in September 2010. His research project at the Italian Academy focuses on interpreters and translators in eighteenth-centuries Italian and French port-cities, tackling the issue of cross-cultural brokerage and intermediation.