Renata Calabresi
Special thanks to Professor Renato Foschi at the Sapienza University of Rome for providing a photo of Dr. Calabresi!
Renata Calabresi was born in Ferrara, Italy, in 1899. When she received her PhD from the University of Florence in 1923, she was one of the first women in Italy to graduate with a thesis in experimental psychology. From 1930 to 1938 she taught at the Roman Institute of Psychology and conducted pioneering research in the area of the psychic present and perceptions of time.
Along with other university students in Florence, Calabresi helped publish and distribute the underground anti-fascist newspaper Non Mollare (“Never Give Up”). Although she was jailed briefly in 1925 for participating in a demonstration, the Mussolini government never suspected Calabresi and her peers of being behind the leading newspaper of the Italian Resistance. She fled, however, after Italian racial laws expelled all Jews from cultural institutions.
After coming the the US in 1940, Calabresi initially taught at Hunter College and the New School for Social Research. During that time she visited Vassar College in March 1940 to address both psychology and Italian classes. In 1947 she went on to join the Veterans Administration as a clinical psychologist and training coordinator.
Sources:
Albertazzi, Liliana. "Renata Calabresi: The Experimental Analysis of the Present." History of Psycology 14.1 (2011): 53-79. PubMed. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.
"Dr. Renata Calabresi, Italian Psychologist, Arrives for Fortnight." Vassar Miscellany News 6 Mar. 1940: 1. Vassar Newspaper Archives. Web.
Foschi, Renato. "Renata Calabresi, a Forgotten Italian-American Psychologist." The Inaugural International Conference of Italian and Italian-American Psychologists. Astora Hotel Palace, Palermo, Italy. 3-4 June 2009. Acdemia. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.
Metitieri, Tiziana. "Renata Calabresi, Una Pioniera Degli Studi Sperimentali in Psicologia." Blog post. PsicoLab. Blogspot, 5 Jan. 2014. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.
"Renata Calabresi, An Anti-Fascist, 96." New York Times. The New York Times Company, 20 Dec. 1995. Web. 20 Apr. 2016.