Paola De Santo

Ph.D. Harvard University (2014)

RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS:

The literature and culture of early modern Italy, particularly the emergence of the body in literary discourse; gender; the formation of cultural subjects;  the interactions and transactions between Europe and the East. 

Secondary interests center on Italian colonialism and contemporary Italian culture as they pertain to national identity formation; aesthetic rendering of the body; discussions of race and gender;  negotiations of "italianità". 

PUBLICATIONS:

«Un uso non raro»: Rape, Rhetoric and Silence in Sibilla Aleramo’s Una donna".  Italica (forthcoming)

CURRENT PROJECTS:

Monograph:

(Ne) habeas corpus:  The Body and the Body Politic in the Figures of the Ambassador and the Courtesan in Renaissance Italy, is a book-length project that studies comparatively two key figures of the Italian Renaissance ­–the ambassador and the courtesan– in order to examine the formation of cultural subjects at the intersection of political and literary discourse. 

Articles: 

"Lingua interrupta:  Language, Race and Geography Between the Lines of the Rivista Coloniale".  (under revision)

"Church, State and Lepanto:  (Re)collecting the Battle of Lepanto in Pisa's Chiesa Nazionale dei Cavalieri di Santo Stefano".  (In progress)

"Ars amatoria et politica:  The Triumph of Tasso's Armida" (In progress)

COURSES:

Fall 2014:

ITAL 1001:  Elementary Italian

ITAL 4120/6120:  Tra sogno e “reality”: Identities in and of Contemporary Italy.

Spring 2015:

ITAL 2002: Intermediate Italian

ITAL 4060/6060:  Italian Literature and Culture from 1400 to 1700

Future offerings:

ITAL 4120/6120 Topics in Italian Culture, Language and Literature:

• The Renaissance Corpus: The Body in Italian Renaissance Culture

• In Epic Proportions: Tasso and the end(s) of the Renaissance

• Cuisines and Costumes: Food and Fashion in the Italian Renaissance