Education: BA (Università degli Studi di Milano); MPhil; DPhil (Oxford)

Previous positions:

• 2020 – 2022. Research Fellow, ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry. Project title: “The Living Body: Kinaesthetic Experiences of the Present in Modern Italian Literature”. (and Affiliated Fellow 2022-2024).
• 2017 – 2020. British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Warwick, School of Modern Languages and Cultures. Project title: “The Gender of Literature. Italian Women Writers and the Literary Canon”.
• 2018 – 2019. Stipendiary Lecturer in Italian Literature, St. Hugh’s College, University of Oxford.
• 2015 – 2017. Lector in Italian, University of Oxford, Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages.

Research Interests: comparative literature; 19th-21st Italian Literature; literary theory; temporality; embodiment; performativity; imaginaries of trauma and resistance; feminist, queer and decolonial theory and activism; migratory trauma and narrative medicine; new materialism; the genre of autobiography/autofiction; themes of power, marginality and subjectivity in literature; the politics of translation; canon formation and transformation; sociology of culture; Goliarda Sapienza.

PhD students supervised to successful completion: Dr Alice Parrinello, "Queering the South: Case Studies with Emma Dante" (2020 - 2024)

PUBLICATIONS

Books

• Alberica Bazzoni, Scrivere la libertà. Corpo, identità e potere in Goliarda Sapienza (Pisa: ETS, 2022). 
• Alberica Bazzoni, Writing for Freedom: Body, Identity and Power in Goliarda Sapienza’s Narrative (Oxford/Bern: Peter Lang, 2018).

Edited Special Issues

• Alberica Bazzoni and Caterina Paoli (eds), "The Politics of Translation: Transnational Feminist Perspectives", Special Issue of Comparative Critical Studies, 20 (2023).

Edited Books

• Alberica Bazzoni & Federica Buongiorno (eds), Performing Embodiment (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press. Forthcoming 2025).
• Adele Bardazzi & Alberica Bazzoni (eds), Gender and Authority Across Disciplines, Space and Time (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).
• Alberica Bazzoni, Emma Bond & Katrin Wehling-Giorgi (eds), Goliarda Sapienza in Context. Intertextual Relationships with Italian and European Culture (New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2016).

Journal Articles 

• “Second-Person Narrative and Relational Ethics in Donatella Di Pietrantonio’s Mia madre è un fiume and Ada d’Adamo’s Come d’aria”, The Italianist (Forthcoming 2024).
• “Experimenting with the Unspeakable: Lesbian Dissimulation in Alice Ceresa’s La figlia prodiga”, altrelettere, 13, 1 (2024), 31-50.
• “Resonant Voices for a New Subjectivity. Adriana Cavarero and Contemporary Italian Women’s Writings”, Journal of Italian Philosophy, 7 (2024), 162-181.
• “Dire l’indicibile: lesbismo e soggettività eversiva ne La figlia prodiga di Alice Ceresa e Lettera aperta di Goliarda Sapienza”, Allegoria, 88 (2023), 59-76.
• Bazzoni, A.; Paoli, C., "Guest Editors' Introduction: The Politics of Translation: Transnational Feminist Perspectives",  Comparative Critical Studies, 20 (2023), 1-10.
• “Translating Across Lines of Identity and Domination: The Case of M. NourbeSe Philip’s Zong!”, Comparative Critical Studies, 20 (2023), 37-59.
• “Death-in-Life: Staging Trauma and Loss in Goliarda Sapienza’s Destino Coatto”, Quaderni d’Italianistica, 43, 1 (2023), 149-168.
• "La linea del sangue: storie di mestruazioni, passaggi e identità", DWF, 136, 4 (2022), 14-20.
• "Temporalità della perdita e strutture degli affetti nella narrativa di Donatella di Pietrantonio", Narrativa, 44 (2022), 125-137.
• “Changing Corpus, Changing Tools, Changing Affect: Feminist and Decolonial Revisions to the Italian Literary Canon”, Italian Studies in Southern Africa, 35, 1 (2022), 107-110.
• “Stealing Words: The Re-appropriation of Language in the Work of Grazia Deledda, Anna Maria Ortese and Goliarda Sapienza.” Schriften des Italienzentrums, 6 (2021), 7-16.
• “Autorialità, genere e sistema letterario: conversazioni con Antonella Cilento, Helena Janeczek, Laura Pugno, Caterina Serra e Nadia Terranova”. Cahiers d'études italiennes, 32 (2021), 1-23.
• “The (Un)Masking of Patriarchal Power in Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author and Clothing the Naked”, Modern Language Notes, 135, 1 (2020), 152-74.
• “Nievo’s Pisana and Sapienza’s Modesta: Female Heroism as a Challenge to Gendered Configurations of the Nation”, The Italianist, 39, 3 (2019), 332-46.
• “A View on Queer and Feminism in Italy: Conflicts and Alliances”, Gender, Sexuality, Italy, 6 (2019), 50-65.
• "The Performative Power of Narrative in Goliarda Sapienza’s Lettera aperta, L’arte della gioia and Io, Jean Gabin", Italian Studies, 72, 1 (2017), 71-87.
• “Pirandello’s Legacy in the Narrative Writings of Goliarda Sapienza”, Pirandello Studies, 36 (2016), 111-126.

Book Chapters

• "Undoing Italy with Ferrante, Sapienza, Scego, and Lahiri: Transnational Approaches to Contemporary Italian Literature", in Stefano Jossa (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Italian Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press. Forthcoming 2025).
• "Performing the Living Present: Clarice Lispector’s Água Viva", in Alberica Bazzoni and Federica Buongiorno (eds), Performing Embodiment (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press. Forthcoming 2025).
• “La lingua del trauma nella scrittura di Goliarda Sapienza: temporalità, immagini, forme”, in Manuela Spinelli (ed), «Le parole nutrono». Scrittura e vita nell’opera di Goliarda Sapienza (Florence: Franco Cesati Editore. Forthcoming 2025).
• “Forme del divenire in Clarice Lispector e Anna Maria Ortese”, in Elisa Attanasio (ed.), Ai margini dell’umano. Luoghi, scrittura e pensiero di Anna Maria Ortese (Florence: Franco Cesati Editore. Forthcoming 2024).
• “Förord”, in Goliarda Sapienza, Jag, flickan från Catania, trans. by Ida Andersen (Stockholm: Edizioni Istituto Italiano di Cultura di Stoccolma), 9-19.
• “Libertà”, in Maria Rizzarelli (ed.), Goliarda Sapienza A-Z (Milan: Electa, 2024), 115-7.
• "Memoria”, in Maria Rizzarelli (ed.), Goliarda Sapienza A-Z (Milan: Electa, 2024), 134-6.
• “Pirandello”, in Maria Rizzarelli (ed.), Goliarda Sapienza A-Z (Milan: Electa, 2024), 148-150.
• “Storia”, in Maria Rizzarelli (ed.), Goliarda Sapienza A-Z (Milan: Electa, 2024), 188-190.
• “Trauma”, in Maria Rizzarelli (ed.), Goliarda Sapienza A-Z (Milan: Electa, 2024), 201-2.
• “The Interrupted Temporality of Trauma in Elena Ferrante’s The Days of Abandonment and Goliarda Sapienza’s Compulsory Destiny”, in Tiziana De Rogatis and Katrin Wehling-Giorgi (eds), Trauma Narratives in Italian and Transnational Women’s Writing (Sapienza University Press, 2022), 211-235.
• “Reduction in Time. Kinaesthetic and Traumatic Experiences of the Present in Literary Texts”, in Christoph F. E. Holzhey and Jakob Schillinger (eds), The Case for Reduction, Cultural Inquiry, 25 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2022), 191-212.
• “Trauma, Sadomasochism, and the Female Body in Elena Ferrante’s I giorni dell’abbandono”, in Marco Ceravolo and Anna Finozzi (eds), Italian Studies across Disciplines. Interdisciplinarity, New Approaches, and Future Directions (Rome: Aracne, 2022), 165-201.
• "Canone letterario e studi femministi. Dati e prospettive su didattica, manuali e critica letteraria per una trasformazione dell’italianistica”, in Guido Mazzoni, Simona Micali et al. (eds), Le costanti e le varianti. Letteratura e lunga durata (Florence: Del Vecchio, 2021), 139-162.
• “Anna Maria Ortese e il ‘problema dell’esistenza.’ Quando la bestia parla”, in Angela Bubba (ed.), La grande iguana. Scenari e visioni a vent’anni dalla morte di Anna Maria Ortese (Rome: Aracne, 2020), 61-70.
• "Agency and History in Morante's La storia and Sapienza's L'arte della gioia", in Alberica Bazzoni, Emma Bond & Katrin Wehling-Giorgi (eds), Goliarda Sapienza in Context. Intertextual Relationships with Italian and European Culture (New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2016), 147-162.
• "Gli anni e le stagioni: prospettive su femminismo, politica e storia ne L'arte della gioia", in Quel sogno d'essere: l'opera letteraria di Goliarda Sapienza, ed. by Giovanna Providenti (Rome: Aracne, 2012), 33-52.
•  "Mark Turner. La mente letteraria: immaginazione narrativa e pensiero quotidiano", in Opera, Etica, Passioni. Elementi di Stilistica e Semiotica del Testo, ed. by Stefania Sini (Milan: Cuem, 2009), 77-112.

Book Reviews

• Luciano Parisi, “Giovani e abuso sessuale nella letteratura italiana (1902-1918)”, Italian Quarterly, 59 (2023), 202-5.
• Emanuela Cervato et. al. (eds), “Mapping Leopardi. Poetic and Philosophical Intersections”, Quaderni d’Italianistica, 41, 2  (2021), 220-2.
• Paolo Heywood, “After Difference. Queer Activism in Italy and Anthropological Theory”, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 24, 4 (2019), 632-4.
• Ursula Fanning, “Italian Women’s Autobiographical Writings in the Twentieth Century. Constructing Subjects”, Modern Language Review (2019), 114, 1, 152-4.
• Marco Paoli, “Giorgio Scerbanenco: Urban Space, Violence and Gender Identity in Post-War Italian Crime Fiction”, Modern Language Review (2018), 112, 4, 1011-2.

Encyclopedia Entries

• “Anna Maria Ortese”, The Literary Encyclopedia, 1.6.1 (2019).
• “Goliarda Sapienza”, The Literary Encyclopedia, 1.6.1 (2018).

Other Selected Publications

• “Una voce violenta. Intervista a Caterina Serra, autrice di Padreterno”, Nuovi Argomenti, 21 Jan 2020.
• “Il genere della letteratura 1/4: La storia”, La Balena Bianca, 23 May 2016.
• “Il genere della letteratura 2/4: scuola e università”, La Balena Bianca, 27 Jun 2016.
•  “Il genere della letteratura 3/4: La retorica”, La Balena Bianca, 10 Feb 2017.
• “Il genere della letteratura 4/4: Le scrittrici”, La Balena Bianca, 2 Nov 2017.
• F. A. Guidali, C. Capraro, A. Rigon, T. Castella, A. Bazzoni, F. Rizzi, “La questione maschile in Italia. Contributo per una proposta legislativa”, Possibile, Feb 2014.

Other Projects & Collaborations

• Autobiographie des contradictions, Theatre&Dance performance, France / Italy / Germany, 2024.
• Désir et rébellion : L’ Art de la joie – Goliarda Sapienza, Documentary, dir. Coralie Martin, Sister Productions, France, 2023.
• Goliarda Sapienza, the outsider, Podcast, The Italian Files, FILL, 2023.
• Queer Graphics: Fumetti LGBTQIA+ Italiani, Podcast and Video Series, Per Projects TORCH, 2022-2023.
• Joyce Lussu. Conversazione con Silvia Ballestra, Ibridamenti, 2023.
• Speciale Goliarda Sapienza, Podcast, Radio città aperta, 2021.

Events

• "Shifting Natures. Environment, AI, Gender", ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry, 14-15 Mar 2024. Co-organised with Dr Federica Buongiorno and Dr Xenia Chiaramonte.
• "Vivere il Pathos delle migrazioni 2. Le narrazioni contemporanee e i translinguismi degli ethnoscapes", Università per Stranieri di Siena, 29 Feb 2024. Co-organized with Dr Silvia Antosa.
• "Performing Embodiment. Practices of Reduction", ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry, 24-25 Feb 2022. Co-organised with Dr Federica Buongiorno.
• "Gender and Transnational Reception. Mapping the Translation, Circulation and Recognition of Women's Writings in the 20th- and 21st-Century", Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women's Writings, Institute of Modern Language Research, School of Advanced Studies, University of London, 26 Mar 2021. Co-organised with Dr Caterina Paoli.
• "Goliarda Sapienza in Context: Intertextual Relationships with Italian and European Culture”, Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women's Writings, Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies (IGRS), School of Advanced Studies, University of London, 31 May - 1 Jun 2013. Co-organised with Dr Emma Bond and Dr Katrin Wehling-Giorgi.