But Crisanti knew she needed to move to the United States to finish her research.

“I was this Italian scholar in Italy studying the impact of Americanization on Italy during the Cold War. I realized there was no better way to complete my studies than by coming to the U.S.,” she said.

She came to New York in part to work with Silvana Patriarca, Ph.D., a Fordham history professor who specializes in the socio-cultural history of modern Italy and has written about nationalism, gender, race, and the making of national identities.

“I knew and appreciated her work, but most of all, I liked the idea that her specific area of expertise was close to mine, but not equal,” Grisanti said.

“To me, this meant that she could be an ideal mentor, but also leave space for my personal initiatives and ideas, which she did wonderfully.”

‘Europeans are Lovin’ It?’

Crisanti’s final dissertation is titled “Europeans Are Lovin’ It? Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and the Challenges to American Global Businesses in Italy and France, 1886 – 2015.” The goal of the paper, for which she was advised by Patriarca and Christopher Dietrich, Ph.D., is to refute widely held assumptions that American corporations have succeeded because they promote uniquely “American” products around the world.

Backed by archival sources spanning three languages and two continents, Crisanti makes the case that companies such as McDonald’s and Coca-Cola were themselves changed as much as they changed the local culture where they established subsidiaries.

“In a context in which more and more, we tend to associate globalization with enduring American hegemony and enduring forms of American imperialism, what is American globalization actually?” she asked in an interview.

Influence Goes Both Ways

In fact, Crisanti makes the case that the soda, hamburgers, and French Fries associated with the two companies are not exclusively American, due to the influence of Europeans on their development.

The success of these firms rests on being “glocal,” she said, which is why a McDonald’s in Rome is technically an Italian company that caters to the local population by offering a McCrunchy Bread with Nutella for dessert.
Crisanti argues that a better alternative to this kind of globalization is embodied in groups such as the anti-globalization movement spearheaded by French farmer José Bové and Carlo Petrini’s Slow Food movement, which are rooted in—and support—local culture but also “glocal.”

She has worked with groups like these that she says “valorize” cultural traditions and hopes her research will support them further.

“The dissertation became an opportunity to study not just the reaction against Americanization, but also the reaction against globalization and the role played by major multinational corporations,” said Crisanti, who is currently interviewing for post-doctoral opportunities in Italy and the U.S. and hopes to get a position combining research and teaching.

Learning from the Past

Dietrich said what made Crisanti’s research so exciting is it tells a new story about not only the influence of American businesses in Europe in the 21st century but also the influence of European governments and societies on those American businesses and their adaptability.

“We all know the classic stories of Coca-Cola being associated with U.S. soldiers in World War II, but to see how McDonald’s met building codes to fit into Italian town life and hear how Coca Cola bottlers worked to develop their networks and made arguments for Coca Cola being part of those cultures, it’s really quite interesting,” he said.

“Today, we’re so caught up with and passionate about politics, and that extends to our understanding of corporations and their place in society, and I think it’s important for us to take a step back for a moment. Studying the diplomacy of business helps us understand that there are a lot of different factors at play in major decisions, and I don’t think we can get today right unless we have some distance from it.” By going all the way back to 1886 and the beginnings of Coca-Cola, he said, “she reminds us to take that distance.”

Crisanti said she knew moving to New York City would take her out of her comfort zone but ultimately found it to be an experience for growth. A big reason for this, she said, was that the history department at Fordham values cooperation over competitiveness.

“I believe that any program should first encourage students to cooperate and improve, and Fordham does that,” she said. “The human aspect is as valued as the academic/scholar aspect.”

On Feb. 2, Fisher, a professor of theology, used his final address to his colleagues to tell his own families’ story.

“I was determined not to do one of those ‘My family is crazier than your family’ kind of histories, because I wouldn’t know how crazy anybody else’s family is,” said Fisher, who is retiring in May to spend more time in California with his son Charlie, who is autistic.

“But the complementarity of [mine and Charlie’s]cognitive systems is such a positive thing, I started to get much more positive feelings about my own family’s history. I wondered about people who may help me understand who we are.”

He discovered, among other things, that his great grandfather moved from Brooklyn to Panama in 1906 to work as a plumber on the Panama Canal. There, he became Chief and Senior Sagamore of the fraternal organization the Improved Order of Redmen.

“They wanted to transplant all the putative virtues of white American Christian Republicanism to this utopian community on the Isthmus of Panama. The Improved Order of Redmen was one of these kinds of organizations,” Fisher said, noting dryly that membership was not, in fact, open to Native Americans.

“I had to readjust the longevity of my father’s side of the families’ devotion to the Roman Catholic Church. I’d been off by 12 to 15 centuries. My great grandfather was nobody’s idea of a Roman Catholic. He was in fact, a pagan.”

He died under mysterious circumstances, and Fisher’s great grandmother moved back to Brooklyn, where Fisher discovered she lived in Vinegar Hill, next door to William Sutton, the infamous bank robber who was credited with saying he did it, “Because that’s where the money is.”

His family, which would also later call Woodbridge, New Jersey, home, also belied the popular model of Catholic immigrants flocking to parishes to create a sort of “old world communal setting.”

“My father’s family presented itself as the ultimate exemplar of just that model, but empirically it was not true. They lived where the work was; they lived on the waterfront in Brooklyn, Manhattan and North Jersey,” he said.

And although his grandparents experienced the terror of a resurgent of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920’s, they did just fine in the end.

“They were homeless in the 1930’s. By 1946, because of the war, my grandfather worked up in his job, and sent their sons to the University of Notre Dame—the eighth wonder of the world for American Catholics,” he said.

Fisher’s talk was part of Arts and Sciences Faculty Day. This year, honorees included
Christopher Aubin, Ph.D., associate professor of physics, who was honored for excellence in teaching in science and math;

Jim Fisher, Ph.D.,professor of theology, who was honored for or excellence in teaching in arts and humanities

Christina Greer, Ph.D., associate professor of political science, who was honored for excellence in teaching social sciences;

Maryann Kowaleski, P.h.D., Joseph Fitzpatrick SJ Distinguished Professor of History and Medieval Studies, who was honored for excellence in teaching in graduate studies.

The evening also celebrates 12 members of the arts and science faculty who have been chosen to work together to discuss innovative teaching techniques. The group, which includes graduate students and cuts across campuses and disciplines, meets five times a semester for two semesters to share recent scholarship in the field of teaching stories, and techniques. This year’s cohort includes:

Emanuel Fiano, Ph.D., assistant professor of theology

Abby Goldstein, associate professor of visual arts

Henry Han, Ph.D., associate professor of Computer and Information Science

Carey Kasten, Ph.D., associate professor of Spanish

Christopher Koenigsmann, Ph.D., assistant professor of chemistry

Jesus Luzardo, Ph.D. candidate of philosophy, Graduate School of Arts and Science

Jason Morris, Ph.D, associate professor of biology

Meenaserani Murugan, Ph.D., assistant professor of communications

Silvana Patriarca, Ph.D., professor of history

Kathryn Reklis, Ph.D., assistant professor of theology

Margaret Schwartz, Ph.D., associate professor of communications

Richard Teverson, assistant professor of art history

Dennis Tyler, Ph.D., assistant professor of English

Alessia Valfredini, Ph.D., lecturer of Italian