
Specialization:
Assistant Professor of Transnational Italian Studies
Affiliated Faculty, Anthropology
Education:
PhD, Italian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2007
MA, Italian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2002
Diploma di lingua e cultura italiana, Università per Stranieri di Perugia, 2000
BA with Honors, International Relations, Brown University, 1997
Bio:
Academic Awards and Distinctions
Research:
modern Italy and the Mediterranean
migration and detention; mobility studies
colonialism and imperialism; postcolonial studies; empire
tourism studies; tourism and travel in Italy
20th - and 21st-century Italian and Italophone literature
Projects:
My next book project, Imperial Eclipse: Italian Colonial Fiction and Race, 1900-1960 (in preparation) examines the ideological roots of the myth that Italians are not racist (gli italiani non sono razzisti). It traces this belief back to fictional narratives produced about colonialism in the era during and immediately after Italy's direct colonial rule. Building on the framework of empire's mobius strip, it shows how imaginative mobilities powerfully inculcate epidermal racism in Italy, which give rise to contemporary practices of discrimination and violence against those perceived to be nonwhite.
Publications:
Books
Courses:
Fall 2020 - ITAL139YY - Biopolitics and Medical Humanities: Italy in the Age of the Coronavirus
Winter 2021 - ITAL119A - The Art of Translation: Race & Italophone Literature