In 1959 over one hundred black artists and writers met in Rome for a congress organised by Présence Africaine, the pan-African quarterly founded and directed by Alioune Diop. The event was attended by Frantz Fanon and Aimé Césaire (among others), and had a significant - yet forgotten - impact on Italian culture at the time. The Congress has recently been rediscovered, by artists and scholars alike, and this seminar aims to contribute to this new interest in the event and the themes that were discussed in Rome - négritude, anticolonialism, the role of Black intellectuals in a decolonising world, etc. · Philippe Le Goff (Warwick), “Colonization as 'thingification’” · Erica Bellia (Cambridge), “Like a Congress of Italian Socialists': The Second Congress of Black Writers and Artists through the Lens of Italian Periodicals” · Luca Peretti (Warwick), “Petroculture and anticolonialism in Rome circa 1960” Chair and discussant: Jennifer Burns (Warwick) This seminar is part of the Italian Research Seminar and the Warwick Seminar for Interdisciplinary French Studies. Sponsored by the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, the Humanities Research Centre, and the Institute of Advanced Study.