Academic Background
BA in Modern Languages, University of Verona
MLitt in Women, Writing, and Gender, University of St Andrews
MA in European, American, and Postcolonial Languages and Literature, Ca' Foscari University of Venice
Research
Queer Theory; Gender Studies; Ecofeminism; Contemporary Italian Literature; Comparative Literature; Film Studies; Anglo-American Literature
My doctoral project investigates the oeuvre by Sicilian director Emma Dante through the lens of queer theory. My research engages with questions of temporality, spectrality, kinship, ecofeminism, and homonationalism in Dante's works and argues for a queer and Southern meridionalist epistemology. The project is partially funded by the British Federation of Women Graduates.
I was recently a Postdoctoral Researcher for the After the End project, for a collaboration between TORCH, the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities, and the British Film Institute (BFI).
Academic Articles
- "The Future is Collapsing: Feminist Narratives of Unmaking in Laura Pugno and Veronica Raimo" in Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture, and Environment (vol. 14, n. 2, 2023);
- "I fantasmi di Nadia Terranova: hauntologie, sicilitudine e scrittura" in Quaderni del PENS (vol. 5, 2022);
- "'Ciao Italia': Homonationalist and Homonormative Tendencies in Drag Race Italia" in Simultanea: A Journal of Italian Media and Pop Culture (vol. 3, n.1, 2022);
- "'Until the Mainstream Began to Absorb What was Once Radical:' Assimilation and Disruption in Call Me By Your Name and Girl, Woman, Other" in "Pop-" and "Post-" Contemporary Routes in English Culture, edited by Alessia Polatti and Roberta Zanoni, Aras Edizioni (2022);
- "Piazza dei Cinquecento: An Intersectional Lieu de Mémoire in Igiaba Scego and Porpora Marcasciano” in gender/sexuality/italy (vol. 8, 2021);
- "No country(side) for young queers" in Whatever. A Transdisciplinary Journal of Queer Theories and Studies (vol. 4, 2021).
Reviews
- "L'altro Saba Review" in Italian Studies, online.
- "In Italia sono tutti maschi Review" in Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 375-378.
Academic Activities
- 2022. AAIS Conference Special Correspondent.
- 2021-2023. Co-convenor. Queer Intersections Oxford Network, TORCH, University of Oxford.
- 2021-2023. Creator and Producer, Queer Graphics: Fumetti Italiani LGBTQIA+, Podcast.
Selected Conference Papers
- “Merciful Ecopoetics: Environmental Intra-Action in Emma Dante’s Misericordia (2023),” Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies International Conference, Rome, 13-15 June.
- “Fluid Temporality: Queering the Mediterranean in Emma Dante’s Misericordia (2023),” American Association for Italian Studies (AAIS) Conference, Sorrento, 6-9 June.
- “Out of the Closet, Into the Pools! Trans Fluidity in Roberta Torre’s Le favolose,” Shifting Natures, ICI Berlin Institute for Cultural Inquiry, 14-15 March.
- 'Queer Unmaking: Dance and Liberation in Percy Bertolini’s Da sola (2021)', Better Living Through Comics, University of Cambridge, 3-7 July 2023;
- 'Queering the Southern Archive: Emma Dante and the Opera dei Pupi,' Mediterranean Studies Symposium, Centre for Mediterranean Studies, 29 June-1 July 2023;
- ‘Digital Comics and Queer Online Activism,’ Comics Strike Back: Digital Comics, Digital Audiences, Digital Practices Conference, University of Ghent, 11-13 July 2022;
- ‘Emma Dante’s Oddkin Families,’ 11th European Feminist Research Conference, Panel: Posthumanism – New Materialism, 15-18 June 2022;
- ‘Queering Italian Comics,’ NeMLA 2022, Panel: Italian Comics in the New Millennium, 10-13 March 2022;
- 'Piazza dei Cinquecento as a de-normativised lieu de memoir,' AAIS 2021, Panel: Intersectional Analysis and Italian Studies, May-June 2021;
- 'Homonormativity and Mainstream Contemporary LGBTQ+ Fiction,' In Between "Pop-" and "Post-" Conference, University of Verona, December 2020;
- 'Resisting the Derangement: the MaddAddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood and Amitav Ghosh,' Breaking Boundaries Conference, University of Lisbon, September 2019;
- 'Postcolonial Belonging Inside University Spaces,' Displacement Conference, CUNY Graduate Center, November 2018;
- 'Fun Home and the Queer Domestic Space,' Man of the House Conference, University of St Andrews, June 2018.