Full professor at the University of Bologna, she conducts her research in the field of contemporary Italian literature. Research interests are specifically addressed to the study of literature framed in the cultural processes of the second half of the 20th century. Her work currently focuses on the relations between literature and other media in the construction of transnational imaginaries.
Teaching activities
He teaches Contemporary Italian Literature for the Master in Italian Language and Culture for Foreigners, Literature and Media for the Master in Cinema, Television and Multimedia Production, and Contemporary Literary Cultures for the Master in Italian Studies, European Literary Cultures, Linguistic Sciences.
Scientific activity
After conducting studies on German hermeneutics and publishing a study on the concept of criticism in Walter Benjamin (1994), she worked on Italian literature of the 19th century as part of her doctoral and post-doctoral studies. These studies led to the writing of a book on melancholy and stoicism in the work of Giacomo Leopardi (1998). As a research fellow at the Department of Italianistics at the University of Bologna, she focused on the forms of the comic in the Operette Morali and published a monograph on the subject in 2001. In subsequent years, her research focused on the forms of autobiographical writing in early 20th-century writers, with particular attention to the figures of Giovanni Boine and Renato Serra, whose texts she also edited.
The lines of research he has pursued in recent years combine the study of literature with that of the cultural processes of the second half of the twentieth century, accepting the stimuli coming from the field of cultural and postcolonial studies. Within this framework, he has tackled the study of travel literature of the second half of the twentieth century by publishing the volume Il viaggiatore come autore. L'India nella letteratura italiana del Novecento (Il Mulino, 2008) and has deepened the theoretical side of translation studies.
He has launched a research project on the novelistic rewriting of history in contemporary Italian literature (first outcome the volume Il romanzo neostorico in Italia. Storia, memoria, narrazione, Carocci, 2012). In this context, he has deepened his study of Leonardo Sciascia's work, in particular the side of the historical novel and ‘judicial enquiries’, publishing a monograph, Microphysics of Memory. Leonardo Sciascia e le forme del racconto (BUP, 2013).
He is currently dealing with the debate on world literature, the transformations of literature in the age of new media, and the construction of transnational imaginaries (first result the volume written together with Remo Ceserani, La letteratura nell'età globale (Il Mulino, 2012), followed by Il brand Gomorra. Dal romanzo alla serie TV (Il Mulino, 2017) and the editing of the volume La letteratura oggi. Romanzo, editoria, transmedialità (Einaudi, 2023).
He has published numerous contributions in international and national journals of recognised prestige (ANVUR band A).
He has participated in numerous national and international research programmes including: Project XCELING - Towards Excellence in Applied Linguistics. Innovative Second Language Education in Egypt KA2 Line - Strategic Partnerships, Higher Education sector - 2017-2020; PRIN Project Italian Na(rra)tives: the international circulation of brand-Italy through the media - 2020-2023; ILIO PROJECT 2022 and 2023 (Una Europa) - Italian Literature International Observatory. She was a Visiting Researcher in 2019 at the Université Paris Nanterre. She is currently responsible, with Mila Milani and Jenny Burns for the University of Warwick funded project Global Directions in Italian Studies: Transmediality and Crosscultural Translation and member of the projects: CHANGES - Cultural Heritage Active Innovation for Sustainable Society, Spoke 4 -VirtualThecnologies for Museun and Art Collection (PNRR 2022-2025), acting as coordinator of the research group on Literary Parks; PRIN La ricezione di Vico e il primo Novecento italiano: una Mostra Digitale (2023-2025); PRIN WALC - Walking Landscapes of Urban Cultures (2023-2025).
Member of the doctoral board in Philological and Literary Cultures at the University of Bologna, she supervises numerous doctoral theses, also in co-tutorship with foreign universities, and is tutor for research grants in the Department of Classical Philology and Italianistics.
She has participated as an invited speaker in numerous conferences, lectures and seminars on these topics, including, since 2019:
Conference Is the Graphic Novel a mythological animal? (Italian Department UCL, London, 23 January 2019); International Conference Inventions du Sud. Quand le Sud construit le Sud, quand le Sud construit le Nord, quand le Sud se construit comme Nord (Université Paris Nanterre, 6-7 June 2019), paper ‘Myths of Sicily’; International Conference Narrating Denigration. Invectivity and Migration in Literature and Cinema (Technische Universität Dresden, 17-19 October 2019), paper ‘Trajectories of Geneviève Makaping's gazes’; Conference Quand le genre ‘noir’ se fait transmédial as part of the Séminaire d'Études Romanes. Mondialité romanes: mobilités humaines, transferts culturels, circulation des langues et cultures hispanophones, italophones et lusophones (Université Paris Nanterre, 24 October 2019); Conference Forms of history: narratives of the colonial past in the Italian migration literature at the University of Witz (4 February 2020); Convengo Medievalismi autunnali. Il Medioevo nella Popular Culture (Bologna 11-13 November 2021), paper, with Beniamino Della Gala, Un infinito Medioevo. Per una lettura metastorica del Nome della rosa; Semimario 2021-2022 Récits et usages de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. La littérature italienne contemporaine entre ‘post-mémoire’ et ‘après-histoire’, paper Quando gli altri raccontano la ‘nostra’ storia: riscritture del colonialismo italiano (di epoca fascista)? (Sorbonne Nouvelle June 2021); Seminar Transmedia storytelling all'italiana (Warwick Italian Seminar, 19 January 2022); ILIO Italian Literature International Observatory,report Il brand Italia: Montalbano vs Saviano (Bologna, 12-13 May 2022); Convegno MOD Fatti e finzioni, report Storia e cronaca nelle produzioni transmediali (Naples 15-17 June 2022); Convegno Vittorio Spinazzola e la democrazia letteraria, report E lasciatemi divertire! (Milan, 3-4 November 2022); Seminar Italy by Design (University of Edimburgh), meeting dedicated to Meditation CTD (22 February 2023); Conference Global Italian Studies: how?, paper La letteratura nel sistema mediale (Warwick, 17 March 2023); Seminar Global Experience. Literature, cinema and other media in the sphere of the Festival Cantieri Intermediali, paper, with Beniamino Della Gala, World Literature and transmedia branding (Catania, 24 May 2023); Conference Arti di Pinna. Leonardo Sciascia saggista (Venice, 13-14 November 2023); Seminar Mapping, studying and teaching the contemporary extreme (Parma, 1 December 2023).
Institutional activities and academic appointments
Delegate of the Rector for Cultural Heritage.
Director of the Umberto Eco International Centre for Humanistic Studies.
President of the University Museum System
Membership of scientific and editorial committees
She is a member of the editorial board of the journal ‘Griseldaonline’ and of the scientific committee of the journals: ‘Narrativa’, ‘Studi Culturali’, ‘Transalpina’, ‘Studi Novecenteschi’, ‘Scritture Migranti’, ‘Finzioni’, ‘Generi’. He is a member of the Scientific Committee of the series: Les Cahiers d'Italies of Université Paris Nanterre, Tracciati of Morellini, Scriba of Biblion, Cinema, media and cultural studies of Meltemi, Transiti of Le Monnier, Punti di vista of Mimesis, Estremo contemporaneo of Peter Lang.
