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About

I completed a BA in English and Italian at Oxford University then, after some time spent working for RAI (the Italian public broadcaster) in London, returned to Oxford to complete an MSt in Research Methods in Modern Languages and a DPhil in Italian. My doctoral research looked at formations of political commitment (impegno) in Italian literature at the end of the twentieth century, identifying indirect or 'fragmented' forms of socio-political activism in the context of postmodernity. The thesis was published in 2001 with the title, Fragments of impegno: Interpretations of Commitment in Contemporary Italian Narrative (1980-2000).

A major strand of my research has focused on literature related to the large-scale migration into Italy that began in the 1980s ((2013)). This research has subsequently included the work of postcolonial, minority ethnic, and Black Italian writers in Italy and has developed in tandem with theoretical exploration of a transnational approach to literary and cultural production and practice. This adopts Italy's distinctive histories of migration (outwards, inwards, and internal) and of Mediterranean, colonial, and global connection as a template for theorising a transnational 'optic' through which to approach the study of languages and cultures in contemporary and historical global context. This research was built collaboratively with colleagues at Bristol, St Andrews, and QMU Edinburgh as part of a major research project, (2013-17), funded by the AHRC through one of three large grants made under its 'Translating Cultures' theme. Amongst individual and collective outputs including edited volumes, articles, book chapters, a touring exhibition, and policy documents, the project produced a book series, '', which numbers eight volumes to date, with a further two in press or preparation. With Derek Duncan (St Andrews), I co-edited the cornerstone volume of the series, (2022).

I am a Member of the Faculty of Archaeology, History and Letters of the .

Research interests

• Migration, postcolonial, and transnational literatures in Italian
• Approaches to 'world' literatures; global, local, and 'minor' literatures related to Italy
• Transnational literary and cultural practices and production
• Critical and cultural theory, especially related to space, minoritization, mobility, gender, translation and mulitilingualism
• Political and ethical issues in literature; ethics of reading and writing
• Post-WWII Italian narrative fiction and cinema
• Late nineteenth-century literary cultures in Italy

Teaching and supervision

At undergraduate and Master's level, I teach 20th-21st-century literature and film, migrant and transnational cultures and literatures in Italy, cultural history of modern-contemporary Italy, aspects of critical theory, and translation.

PhD students currently supervised:

• Kerry Gibbons (with Fabio Camilletti), '"Siamo pionieri abbandonati al nostro destino": Poetics of Conversion and Dramas of insabbiamento in the Fascist-era romanzo coloniale', 2021-
• Jacopo Francesco Mascoli (with Karl Schoonover), 'The Working Class Goes to Hell: Visions of Labour in Contemporary Italian Cinema and Philosophy', 2022-
• Silvia Vari (with Matt Green, Nottingham University), 'Frames of Migration: Tracing Migrant Narratives and Imaginaries in Italian Comics', 2021-

• (with Marina Spunta, Leicester University), 'Irony and its Discontents: The Writing of History in the Works of Umberto Eco, Carlo Ginzburg, and Wu Ming', 2018-2022.
• Emiliano Zappal脿, 'Post-Truth Narrative: Narrative Trends, Cultural Agency, and Political Commitment in the Age of Post-Truth', 2017-2021.
• , '"Decolonitaly": Decolonization and Colonial Discourse in Italy', 2015-2019.
• Giulia Brecciaroli, 'Literary Geographies of the Boom: Perceptions of Space in Post-War Italian Literature (1956-1979)', 2014-18. See also the developed from Giulia's thesis.
• , 'Hidden Postcolonial Conscience in Italian Cinema: Attempts to Autodefine "The Italian" Through Representations of the Black Other in the commedia all'italiana', 2013-2018.
• Gioia Panzarella, 'Disseminating Italophone Migration Literature: A Dialogue with Contemporary Italy', 2014-2018.
• Georgia Wall, 'Consuming Italy. Contemporary Material Culture and Ethnographic Approaches in Modern Languages', 2014-2018.
• (with Rita Wilson, Monash), 'Re-imagining the Italian South: Subjectivity and Migration in Contemporary Italian Literature and Cinema', 2013-17. See also the developed from Goffredo's thesis.
• , 'Images Within and Outside Italy of Calvino as Critic', 2013-17. See also the developed from Elio's thesis.
• (with Ann Caesar), 'Education and Disobedience in the Eighteenth-Century Venetian Novel (1753-1769)', 2011-2015.
• Gabriele Scalessa (with Fabio Camilletti), 'Between Medicine and Spiritualism: Scientific Subjects in Late Nineteenth-Century Italian Narrative', 2011-2015.
• (with Fabio Camilletti), 'New Italian Epic: History, Journalism and the 21st-Century "Novel"', 2012-2015. See also the developed from Kate's thesis.
• , 'A Return to Cinema d'impegno? Cinematic Engagements with Organized Crime in Italy, 1950-2010', 2008-2012.
• 'The Somali Within: Questions of Language, Resistance and Identity in "Minor" Italian Writings', 2009-2012. See also the developed from Simone's thesis.
• (with Loredana Polezzi), 鈥楢n Analysis of Scopophilia in an Intersemiotic Context: Four Italian Case Studies鈥�, 2007-2011.
• 'Narrating the Trauma of the Anni di piombo: The Negotiation of a Public Memory of the 1977 Student Protests in Bologna (1977-2007)', 2007-2010. See also the developed from Andrea's thesis.
• (UCL, with Anna Laura Lepschy), 'Italian Intercultural Literature: Exploring Identities', 2005-2009.
• Annunziata Videtta (with Loredana Polezzi), 鈥楻e-visioning Representations of Italian Migrant Women in Textual Renditions of the Italian Presence in Britain鈥�, 2004-2008.
• , 鈥楾he Reclamation of Socio-Political Engagement in the Works of Leonardo Sciascia and Antonio Tabucchi', 2002-2006. See also the developed from Liz's thesis.
• (with Ann Caesar), 'Representations of Science, Literature, Technology, and Society in the Works of Primo Levi', 2000-2004. See also the developed from Charlotte's thesis.

Postdoctoral researchers recently mentored:

• , British Academy Early Career Fellow, 'Italy and the Third World. Transnational Media at the End of the Colonial Era in Italy', 2022-2024
• , British Academy Early Career Fellow, 'The Gender of Literature: Italian Women Writers and the Literary Canon', 2017-2020
• , Postdoctoral Research Assistant, 'Transnationalizing Modern Languages' project, 2014-2017

Publications

Books

Fragments of impegno: Interpretations of Commitment in Contemporary Italian Narrative, 1980-2000 (Leeds: Northern Universities Press, 2001).

Migrant Imaginaries: Figures in Italian Migration Literature (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2013).

Edited books

with Loredana Polezzi, Borderlines: Migrant Writing and Italian Identities (1870-2000) (Isernia: Iannone, 2003).

with Ann Hallamore Caesar and Gabriella Romani, The Printed Media in Fin-de-Si猫cle Italy: Publishers, Writers, and Readers (London and Oxford: MHRA, Maney and Legenda, 2011).

with Gabriella Romani, The Formation of a National Audience in Italy, 1750-1890: Readers and Spectators of Italian Culture (Madison, Teaneck, WI: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2017)

with Derek Duncan, Transnational Modern Languages: A Handbook (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2022)

Chapters/essays in books

鈥楤orders within the text: authorship, collaboration and mediation in writing in Italian by immigrants鈥�, in Borderlines: Migrant Writing and Italian Identities (1870-2000), ed. by J. Burns and L. Polezzi (Isernia: Iannone, 2003), pp. 387-94.

'A Leaden Silence? Writers' Responses to the anni di piombo', in Speaking Out and Silencing: Culture, Society and Politics in Italy in the 1970s, ed. by A. Cento Bull and A. Giorgio (Oxford and Leeds: Legenda and Northern Universities Press, 2006), pp. 81-94.

'Provisional Constructions of the Eternal City: Figurations of Rome in Recent Italophone Writing', in Imagining the City, ed. by C. Emden, C. Keen, and D. Midgley, 2 vols (Oxford, New York, Bern: Peter Lang, 2006), II, pp. 357-73.

'Outside Voices Within: Immigration Literature in Italian', in Trends in Contemporary Italian Narrative 1980-2007, ed. by G. Ania and A.H. Caesar (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007), pp. 136-54.

'Re-thinking impegno again: Reading, Ethics and Pleasure', in Postmodern Impegno: Ethics and Commitment in Contemporary Italian Culture, ed. by P. Antonello and F. Mussgnug (Oxford, New York, Bern: Peter Lang, 2009), pp. 61-80.

鈥楲anguage and its Alternatives in Italophone Migrant Writing鈥�, in National Belongings. Hybridity in Italian Colonial and Postcolonial Cultures, ed. by J. Andall and D. Duncan (Oxford, New York, Bern: Peter Lang, 2010), pp. 127-47.

鈥楩ounding Fathers: Giorgio Scerbanenco鈥�, in Italian Crime Fiction, ed. by Giuliana Pieri (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2011), pp. 27-47.

'Italy', in (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), pp. 637-51.

'Mobile Homes: Transnational Subjects and the (Re)Creation of Home Spaces', in , ed. by Charles Burdett and Loredana Polezzi (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2020), pp. 177-92.

'The Transnational Biography of "British" Place: Local and Global Stories in the Built Environment', in , ed. by Charles Burdett, Loredana Polezzi and Barbara Spadaro (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2020), pp. 23-46.

鈥楰inships: Relations of Care and Experiences of Locality in Transnational Italian Narrative鈥�, in , ed. by Marie Orton, Graziella Parati and Ron Kubati (Lanham, MD and London: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2021), pp. 237-47.

Articles in journals

鈥楻ecent Immigrant Writing in Italian: A Fragile Enterprise鈥�, The Italianist, 18 (1998), 213-44.

鈥楾elling Tales About 鈥渋mpegno鈥�: Commitment and Hindsight in Vittorini and Calvino鈥�, MLR , 95:4 (2000), 992-1006.

鈥楥ode-Breaking: The Demands of Interpretation in the Work of Pier Vittorio Tondelli鈥�, The Italianist, 20 (2000), 253-73.

, New Readings, 6, 2000.

'Exile within Italy: Interactions between Past and Present "homes" in Texts in Italian by Migrant Writers', Annali d'Italianistica, 20 (2002), 369-83.

'Lupus in fabula: The workings of fear in Italian Migration Narratives', Italian Studies, 68.3 (2013), 429-48.

Wells, N., Forsdick, C., Bradley, J., Burdett, C., Burns, J., Demossier, M., de Z谩rate, M.H., Huc-Hepher, S., Jordan, S., Pitman, T. and Wall, G., 'Ethnography and Modern Languages', Modern Languages Open, 1 (2019), 1. DOI:

'Mapping Transnational Subjecthood: Space, Affects and Relationality in Recent Transnational Italian Fictions', , 17pp.

'Arabising Italian? Transnational Literature as Multilingual Transaction', in , 42.2 (2021), 25pp.

co-authored with , '', in Key Directions in Italian Studies, special issue of Italian Studies, 75.2 (2020), 140-54

Qualifications

MA, MSt, DPhil (Oxon)

Other recent publications:

chapter, 鈥楰inships: Relations of Care and Experiences of Locality in Transnational Italian Narrative鈥�, in , ed. by Marie Orton, Graziella Parati and Ron Kubati (Lanham, MD and London: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2021)

article, , in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 42.2 (2021)

Project:

A major collaborative project funded by an AHRC large grant under the 'Translating Cultures' theme.

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- on transforming Modern Languages education, September 2018