Matteo Grilli

Matteo Grilli
Address in Italy:
Via Marcello II, 26
00165, Rome (Italy)
Mobile: +393490724326 (Italy; WhatsApp
works internationally
E-mail: matteo.grilli@unipi.it
matteo.grilli@hotmail.it
Date and place of birthday: Rome, 12/12/1985
https://matteogrilli.academia.edu/
www.researchgate.net/profile/Matteo_Grilli/research

Current Position
Associate Professor in African History and Institutions at the University of Pisa (2024-)
Affiliate Research Fellow at the University of the Free State (2023-)
Editor-in-Chief of the Southern Journal for Contemporary History (2021-)
Currently working on the research projects:
Local Struggles and International Connections: Nationalism and Pan-Africanism in Southern Africa
Beyond Botswana's borders: Radical nationalism, Pan-Africanism and transnational connections
(1950s to 1970s)

Education:
2004-2008 B.A. in Medieval, Modern and Contemporary History (cum laude)
Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”
Final Dissertation: ‘Cabora Bassa: Development, Anti-colonial War and Solidarism in
Mozambique (1968-1975).’
Advisor Prof. Pierluigi Valsecchi
2008-2010 M.A. in Afro-Asian Studies (cum laude)
Università degli Studi di Pavia
Final Dissertation: ‘The Italian Community in Ghana.’
Advisor Prof. Pierluigi Valsecchi
2010-2015 PhD in History (Holder of a Scholarship by the University of Pavia)
University of Pavia, University of Leiden (joint PhD agreement)
Final Dissertation: ‘African Liberation and Unity in Nkrumah's Ghana (1957-1966).’
Advisors: Prof. Pierluigi Valsecchi (University of Pavia)
Prof. Jan-Bart Gewald (University of Leiden)
Awards and other qualifications:



Publications:

Books:
M. Grilli, Nkrumaism and African Nationalism: Ghana’s Pan-African Foreign Policy in the Age of
Decolonization (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
M. Grilli, and F. Gerits (eds), Visions of African Unity: New Perspectives on the History of Pan-Africanism
and African Unification Projects (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).
Articles in peer-reviewed journals:
M. Grilli, “La comunità Italiana in Ghana: Cento Anni di Emigrazione nell'Africa Occidentale”,
Altreitalie, 42 (2011), pp. 63-80.
M. Grilli, M. “Nkrumah, Nationalism and Pan-Africanism: The Bureau of African Affairs Collection”,
History in Africa, 44 (2017), pp. 295-307.
M. Grilli, “Nkrumah’s Ghana and the Armed Struggle in Southern Africa (1961-1966)”, South African
Historical Journal, 70, 1 (2018), pp. 56-81.
M. Grilli, “Imagining, Building and Living Nkrumaism”, in African Historical Review, 50, 1-2 (2018), pp.
159-174.
M. Grilli, “An Historiographical Overview of Nkrumah’s Ideology and Foreign Policy”, Southern Journal
for Contemporary History, 44, 2 (2019), pp. 29-54.
M. Grilli, “Nazionalismo Radicale e Pan-Africanismo in Lesotho: il Basutoland Congress Party e le sue
Connessioni globali (1952-1970)”, Afriche e Orienti, 21, 1 (2019), pp. 27-46.
M. Grilli, “Experiencing Arab-African Solidarity: Basotho Activists in Cairo in the 1960s and 1970s”,
African e Orienti, 26, 1 (2023), pp. 61-88.
M. Grilli, “Beyond the Borders of Lesotho: The Basutoland Congress Party and its Transnational
Networks during the Independence Struggle”, Journal of Southern African Studies, in press.
Encyclopaedia Entry
M. Grilli, “Southern African Liberation Movements in Nkrumah's Ghana.” In Oxford Research
Encyclopaedia of African History. Oxford University Press. Article published 7/1/2020.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.736. (8000 words, double-blind peer
review)
M. Grilli, “African Socialism and Afro-Marxism” in Routledge Encyclopaedia of the Cold War,
forthcoming (2025).
Chapters in Books:
M. Grilli, “Coloni Sotto un Dominio Altrui: Le Comunità Italiane di Fronte all’Indipendenza di Ghana e
Congo”, in Antonio M. Morone, eds, La Fine del Colonialismo Italiano. Politiche, società e memorie
(Florence: Le Monnier, 20