By Jose Alejandro Mendoza
Italian institutions supposedly created to rescue enslaved citizens between the 16th and 19th centuries, actually operated as loan sharks, UC Santa Barbara Italian Studies professor Stephanie Malia Hom has found.
"Under the cover of redemption, the magistrate became a credit lending agency," Hom recently told a UCSB audience.
Hom spoke at the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center’s Faculty Fellows showcase, where three UCSB professors presented research that shatters conventional historical narratives. Their work focuses on urgent contemporary questions about power, resistance and the gap between official stories and hidden realities.
The prestigious IHC Faculty Fellowship is one of the center's most valuable awards, and provides professors with quarter-long teaching releases up to $5,000 to pursue groundbreaking research. This year's fellows delivered discoveries spanning four centuries, from 16th-century Italian maritime scams to 1970s Korean protest anthems, all revealing how institutions claiming noble purposes often serve darker ends.
Hom, who is director of the Italian program at UCSB, spent months digging through bomb-damaged Genoa archives that few scholars have examined. What she unearthed contradicts Italy's cherished self-image as a nation untainted by slavery. Genoa's Magistrate for Slave Redemption operated for nearly 250 years starting in 1595, supposedly ransoming citizens captured by Barbary pirates. Desperate families donated money believing the agency would free their loved ones.
UCSB Italian Studies professor Stephanie Malia Hom presents her research "On Redemption: Slavery and Colonialism in Italy" at the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center showcase, revealing how supposed slave rescue agencies operated as high-interest lending scams. Photo by Alessandra Bortolazzo
"What I discovered was that under cover of redemption, the magistrate wasn't using the money to actually redeem slaves, but instead gathering the money, getting capital and making high interest loans out to other Genoese in the city," Hom said.
The numbers tell the story: only about 5 % of captives ever returned home. When the agency finally closed in 1823, liquidation records exposed its true function as "a true lending agency." Hom traces connections between these profit-driven "redemption" schemes and later Italian colonial missions in East Africa, showing how humanitarian rhetoric provided cover for imperial expansion.
Exposing how institutions subvert their stated missions continued with Susan Hwang, assistant professor in East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, who revealed that South Korea's heavy-handed censorship accidentally created the soundtrack for the protestors that vouched for democracy.
She researched protest music during the 1970s and 80s democratization movement and found that government censorship transformed innocent folk songs into revolutionary anthems. Take "Morning Dew," written by college freshman Kim Min-ki in 1971. This tender folk song initially won a cultural award from the same government that later banned it.
UCSB Faculty Fellows David Novak, left, Susan Hwang, center, and Stephanie Malia Hom, right, during the Q&A portion of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center showcase, where they discussed research challenging conventional historical narratives. Photo byAlessandra Bortolazzo
“Paradoxically, then, its illegalization is what would notch up its value as a protest song par excellence among the students," Hwang explained.
The song became the heartbeat of South Korea's democracy movement. Hundreds of thousands sang it during funeral processions for student protesters killed by police in 1987, and it still echoes at demonstrations today. Hwang discovered that ham-fisted censorship created explosive unintended consequences. Officials banned songs for absurd reasons, claiming lyrical references to red sunrises represented North Korean communism, which only amplified the music’s revolutionary appeal among young dissidents.
UCSB Faculty Fellows nominees Susan Hwang, Stephanie Malia Hom, and David Novak (left to right) at the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center showcase where they presented research challenging conventional historical narratives. Photo by Alessandra Bortolazzo
"You can cage the singer, but not the song," Hwang said, quoting civil rights activist Harry Belafonte, whose words inspired her book title "Uncaged Songs: Culture and Politics of Protest Music in South Korea."
David Novak, associate professor in the Music Department and director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Study of Music, also challenged dominant narratives with his project "Diggers: A Global Counterhistory of Popular Music."
In an interview before the event, Novak said his research challenges Western-centered music history by examining global circulation patterns through record collectors, reissue labels and sound archives in Southeast Asia.
"Why do we tell the story of popular music the way we do, including largely Western producers," while musicians from other cultures who created similar sounds "are considered imitative or their stories aren't as well known," Novak asked.
His project investigates how cultural imperialism shapes how music from places like Indonesia gets consumed in the West.
The IHC’s associate director Christoffer Bovbjerg said the center reviews dozens of applications annually for the competitive fellowship awards.
"I am lucky enough to assist in their review and to get an overview of the remarkable work our faculty in the humanities, arts, and humanistic social sciences are doing," Bovbjerg said. "I'm always energized by the board's discussions, and proud that the IHC can play a role in helping bring their innovative research to fruition."
Alejandro Mendoza is a Promise Scholar at UCSB, double majoring in Film & Media Studies and Communication and pursuing the Professional Writing Minor. He wrote this campus news event article for his Digital Journalism class.