I graduated with Honours in Literary Theory on 19th March 1994 at the University of Bologna, Italy. My thesis was entitled ‘The Fourth Dimension of Giacomo Debenedetti’. I worked on my thesis with Professor Mario Lavegetto as my Supervisor and his colleagues Professor Guido Guglielmi and Professor Niva Lorenzini as external Supervisors. During the same year I organized the first meeting in Bologna of the ‘Association of Theory and Comparative History’.
In 1996 I published an extract from my degree thesis and in the same year I enrolled to do a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York where I lived for 4 years.’ I followed various specialization courses on this Ph.D. I achieved maximum marks both on the courses and in the exams (first exam, oral exam, language exam: Latin and French). While I was living in New York I also taught Italian and Text Analysis at Hunter College and Queens College.
In 1997 I won a ten-month Scholarship to study abroad. I was funded by The University of Bologna and this allowed me to continue my stay in the United States.
In 1998 I organized a meeting focusing on Censorship held in the language faculty at the University of Bologna.
In 1999 I had a contract to work on the MIUR project (formerly MURST project) ‘Dreams described in literature’. The national director of this research was Remo Ceserani. My rolling contracted was renewed until June 2002. Besides actively taking part in the collection of materials for the text archives, together with Ferdinando Amigoni, I organized a series of lessons on the theme ‘The Dream described in literature’. Professor Amigoni and I taught the first lesson, an introduction to our work, together. The abstract for this lesson can be found online on the ‘Sogno’ website where there is also an extensive bibliography compiled by both of us. I also held seminars on the history of Literary Criticism at the Italian studies Department at the University of Bologna. These were integrated into the courses on ‘The Theory of Literature’ held by Professor Mario Lavagetto.
I organized and taught a course at the ‘Primo Levi University of the Third Age’ in Bologna on ‘Literature and Psychoanalysis’ (from February to May 2001).
I obtained my Ph.D in Comparative Literature in February 2002 .The following year my thesis won a prize “Robert S. Dombroski” Distinguished dissertation award.
From 2001 to 2011 I taught at the ‘ECCO Center’ (part of the ‘American Universities Consortium’ with the University of Bologna. I was both coordinator and Professor on various writing and language courses.
From August to October 2002 I held an intensive course in Italian Language and Culture at the headquarters of California University in Bologna.
I won a scholarship to do a postdoctoral course (2003-2005) at the Italian Studies Department at the University of Bologna.
In the academic year 2004/2005 I ran a module on integrated didactic activities at the IULM University. This was part of the course ‘The Theatrical Character’ held by Professor Fabio Vittorini, Chair of Comparative Literature. My rolling contract was renewed for the academic years 2005/2006 and 2006/2007. During the first year of the course I taught a series of lessons on Rewriting Parody and Pastiche. During the second year I taught lessons on the European Novel in the twentieth Century (Svevo etc.), while in the third year I analysed the representation of ‘Time’ in ‘Underworld’ by Don DeLillo. In the meantime and also following this course I continued to work with Professor Ferdinando Amigoni, Chair of Comparative Literature at the University of Bologna. I ran teaching activities (a series of lessons on European Literature in the twentieth century) and I also worked on exams and I followed around 120 students as they wrote their degree thesis.
For the spring term of 2008 (from January to May) I was offered the position of Visiting Professor at Vassar College in New York. Here I taught a course in nineteenth century Italian Literature. I also held a seminar on the European Novel at the beginning of the twentieth century and I taught a course in the Italian Language and Culture. The programme (program in American English) can be found on the website of Vassar College http://catalogue.vassar.edu/courses/
From 2009 to 2011 I was a Research Fellow at the Italian Studies Department at the University of Bologna where I taught a course on the history of Literary Criticism.
From 2011 I taught courses in Modern Italian Literature at the ‘ECCO Center Consortium (Vassar College, Wesley College and Wesleyan University). A programme of the courses can be found at: http://www.eccoprogram.it/
In 2013 I took part in an international seminar under the heading Lire le délire: Literature, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, and Anthropology for a ‘theory of personality’ before Freud, at the ‘Istituto Grenoble’ in Naples.
In 2014 I took part in a round table discussion during the ‘day of study’ of Hysteria, Fiction and Personality. A rereading of the ‘Case of the possessed of Verzegnis’ at the University of Udine.
I was part of the organizational (‘organizational’ in American English) and Scientific committee at the annual convention of ‘Compalit’ entitled L’immaginario politico which was held at the University of Bologna.
I was chosen for a short term position as Fixed-term Junior Assistant Professor in Literary Criticism and Comparative Literature at the University of Bologna.
