My research focuses on 19th and 20th-century Italian literature and cinema, with specific interests in theories of modernity, psychoanalytic approaches to sexuality, and materialist theories of history. My first book project, 听Rome and the Margins of Modernism, explores 19th and 20th-century Rome as a site of modernity and modernism, focusing on the relationship between aesthetics and space. While Rome's ancient cityscape has long provided the semantics for political narratives of European history, the book examines Rome鈥檚 transformation into a site of modernity, showing how philosophers, writers, and filmmakers such as Gramsci, Pasolini, Fellini, and Carlo Levi expanded Rome鈥檚 imagery to account for the city鈥檚 expanding subaltern margins. My second book project takes up the role of the gaze in Italian cinema, reading art films from the 1950s to the 1970s through the lens of feminist film theory and psychoanalysis.
My work has appeared in journals such as听Screen, Psychoanalysis & History, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, Modern Language Review, and The Journal of Romance Studies, among others. I also served as an editor for a special issue of听鈥淕尝蚕 titled 鈥淭he Ontology of the Couple,鈥 co-edited with S. Pearl Brilmyer and Zairong Xiang. With Dom Holdaway, I am the editor of the book听Rome: Postmodern Narratives of a Cityscape (Routledge, 2016).
Before joining the faculty of Francophone, Italian and Germanic Studies (FIGS) at the University of 桃子视频sylvania in 2017, I worked as a visiting assistant professor of Italian at the Ohio State University (2015-16), as a postdoctoral fellow in at the ICI Berlin Institute of Cultural Inquiry (2013-15), and as an Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellow at 桃子视频 (2016-17). I received my Ph.D. in Italian Studies from the University of Warwick in 2013.
Ph.D. in Italian Studies, University of Warwick (2013)
M.A. in Comparative Literature, Dartmouth College
B.A. in Comparative Literature, La Sapienza University of Rome
20th-century Italian literature and cinema, film studies, critical theory, sexuality studies
Books
Rome and the Margins of Modernism: Literature, Cinema, Archeopolitics (Forthcoming)
Rome, Postmodern Narratives of a Cityscape, co-edited with Dom Holdaway, co-author of 鈥淚ntroduction,鈥 Pickering & Chatto, 2013 (1st edition, hardcover); Routledge, 2016 (2nd edition, paperback).
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Peer-Reviewed Articles听 听 听
鈥淭he Queer Underside of La dolce vita: Towards an Anal Theory of Looking鈥 Screen, vol. 61,听no. 4, 2020, pp. 545-67.
鈥淭oward an Inessential Theory of Form: Ruskin, Warburg, Focillon鈥 with S. Pearl Brilmyer. Criticism, vol. 61, no. 4, 2019, pp. 481-508.
鈥淭he Ontology of the Couple; or What Queer Theory Knows about Numbers,鈥 co-authored with S. Pearl Brilmyer and Zairong Xiang. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, vol. 25, no. 2, 2019, pp. 223-255.听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听
鈥淭he Dystopian City: Entropic Aesthetics in Fellini鈥檚 Roma and Pasolini鈥檚 Petrolio.鈥 Forum Italicum, vol. 50, no. 1, 2016, pp. 222-43.
鈥淧asolini鈥檚 Anti-Futurity: Porcile and the Negative Turn in Queer Theory.鈥 LaRivista. 脡tudes culturelles italiennes Sorbonne Universit茅s. Vol. 4, 2016.
鈥淎llegoria e anacronismo: crisi del linguaggio e materialismo storico in Benjamin e Pasolini.鈥 LoSguardo. Rivista di filosofia, vol. 17, no. 2., 2015, online.
鈥淩oman Fever: Anarchiving Eternal Rome, from Roman Holiday to Petrolio,鈥 co-authored with Dom Holdaway. Journal of Romance Studies, vol. 14, no. 3., 2014, pp. 5-22.
鈥淥rganizing Pessimism: Enigmatic Correlations Between Walter Benjamin and Pier Paolo Pasolini.鈥听Modern Language Review, vol. 108, no. 4, 2013, pp. 1021-41.
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Book Chapters听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听
鈥淎esthetics of Contingency: Clark, Deleuze and Rome鈥檚 Post-war Modernism.鈥 Rome: Modernity, Postmodernity and Beyond, edited by Lesley Caldwell and Fabio Camilletti, Legenda, 2018, pp. 53-70.
鈥淎by Warburg鈥檚 Ghost: Notes on the Afterlife of the Atlas in Contemporary Literary Criticism.鈥 De-constituting Wholes, edited by Manuele Gragnolati and Christoph Holzhey, Verlag Turia + Kant, 2016, pp. 101-29.
鈥淢arcus Aurelius and the Ara Pacis. Notes on the Notion of Origin in Contemporary Rome.鈥 Rome, Postmodern Narratives of a Cityscape, co-edited with Dom Holdaway, Routledge, 2016, pp. 101-17.
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Editorial Work听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听 听听
鈥淎nal and Sexual鈥 by Lou Andreas Salom茅, a special issue of Psychoanalysis & History, co-edited with S. Pearl Brilmyer. Co-author of 鈥淚ntroduction: The Genesis of 鈥溾楢nal鈥 and 鈥楽exual.鈥欌 Vol 24, no. 1, 2022. 听
The Ontology of the Couple, special issue of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, co-edited with S. Pearl Brilmyer and Zairong Xiang. Co-author of 鈥淚ntroduction: The Ontology of the Couple.鈥 vol. 25, no. 2, 2019, pp. 217-221.
Have Fireflies Disappeared? Cultural Legacies and Apocalyptic Imaginary in Contemporary Representations of Rome, special issue of Forum Italicum, co-edited with Fabio Camilletti. Co-author of 鈥淚ntroduction.鈥 vol. 50, no. 1, 2016, pp. 162-165.
鈥淟鈥檕rologio di Carlo Levi,鈥听special issue of Poetiche, co-edited with Fabio Camilletti, co-author of 鈥淚ntroduction鈥 vol. 17, no. 2, 2015, pp. 3-12.