Carl Ipsen

I began my academic life as a historian of science interested in the social sciences and in particular demography. My dissertation work on population policy in Fascist Italy turned me into more of an historian of social policy and social problems. My second book on children’s issues in c.1900 Italy (abandonment, labor, delinquency, emigration) continues more or less in that vein. I have also done some work on emigration and ideas about emigration in that same period. A decade ago I published _Fumo: Italy's Love Affair with the Cigarette_. Since then I have been working on the history of olive oil and my _The True History of Olive Oil_ (Louisiana State University Press) is due out in early 2027.

My teaching has focused on nineteenth- and twentieth- century Europe and Italy (including specific courses on the mafia and fascism), though I have also looked at the very long-term question of Europe’s place in the world and taught several times a course on world history since 1945. In the last few years I have also taught “Edible Education 101," my version of a course sponsored by the Edible Schoolyard Project at UC Berkeley.

In terms of administration, I have been the director of the Collins Living Learning Center and founding director of the IU Food Institute.

Beyond the academy, I have worked as a consultant on the issues of contemporary child immigration and integration in Italy (an EU project) and on smoking in post-World War II Italy (for a law firm). I grew up in Berkeley and have spent a number of years in Italy, mostly Rome, on various research trips and as a fellow of the American Academy in Rome.