Lecture
Zvi Ben-Dor Benite
Tuesday 11.08.2026
Zvi Ben-Dor Benite
Homage to Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms
Tuesday 11.08.2026
How to watch
This lecture starts on 11 August at 5:00pm (UK).
Summary
Carlo Ginzburg, a renowned historian of Early Modern Europe, died last month. The profound impact of his literary endeavors led to widespread fame, primarily through the publication of The Cheese and the Worms, a deeply researched Inquisition case study focusing on Domenico Scandella, an Italian miller from the early modern era, who genuinely believed that the entirety of existence comprised a colossal wheel of cheese, and that all humans were simply the worms that dwelled within this cheesy structure. There was nothing wrong with it. Except that Scandella was telling this to everyone, and the Inquisition caught him. The presentation will cover the biography and work of Professor Ginzburg, his mother Natalia, a distinguished author, and his father Leone, who was a victim of the Nazis.
Zvi Ben-Dor Benite
Zvi Ben-Dor Benite teaches Chinese History, Middle Eastern and Islamic history, and sometimes Jewish history, at New York University. He is author of The Dao of Muhammad: A Cultural History of Muslims in Late Imperial China (Harvard, 2005); The Ten Lost Tribes: A World History (Oxford, 2009); co-editor of Modern Middle Eastern Jewish Thought: Writings on Identity, Culture, and Politics (Brandeis, 2013); The Scaffolding of Sovereignty: Global and Aesthetic Perspectives on the History of a Concept (Columbia University Press, 2017); and Time and Language: New Sinology and Chinese History (Hawaii University Press, 2023).