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Dr Alberica Bazzoni

Dr Alberica BazzoniBritish Academy Postdoctoral Fellow

Email: A dot Bazzoni at warwick dot ac dot uk

H4.06
Humanities Building, University Road
University of Warwick
Coventry CV4 7AL

About

I joined Italian Studies at Warwick in October 2017 as British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, working on a research project on the formation of literary value from a gender perspective, entitled 'The Gender of Literature: Italian Women Writers and the Literary Canon'.

I received my BA in the Humanities at the University of Milan (Italy), with a thesis in Literary Theory and Cognitive Studies. Then, I completed an MPhil and PhD in Italian Literature at the University of Oxford (AHRC scholar), under the supervision of Prof. Giuseppe Stellardi. My PhD thesis focused on the theme of freedom in the narrative writings of Sicilian writer Goliarda Sapienza (1924-1996). It won the 2015 Peter Lang Young Scholars Competition in Women's Studies, and was published by Peter Lang in 2018, with title Writing for Freedom: Body, Identity and Power in Goliarda Sapienza's Narrative.

Before coming to Warwick, I worked as Lector in Italian and Stipendiary Lecturer in Italian Literature at the University of Oxford, and contributed as Tutor to the MSt in Women's Studies at the same university. I designed and taught modules on Sicilian Literature; Modern Italian Narrative and Poetry; Italian Women Writers; 19th and 20th Century Italian Canonical Authors; The Historical Novel; and courses of Italian language at all levels. At Warwick, I have taught modules on Modern Italian literature and films ("Experiments in Narrative: Questioning the Present"; "Experiments in Narrative: Telling the Past) and contributed to the Critical Theory course at Master's level ("Feminist, Gender and Queer Theory"). I have co-coordinated the Gender & Authority Network (TORCH, University of Oxford) and collaborate with the Society for Pirandello Studies, and contribute to the online cultural magazines Nuovi Argomenti, La Balena Bianca and Oltremanica. In 2016 and 2017, I took part as co-director and producer in the Oxford Italian Play, a series of theatrical adaptations of Italian literary works involving language students (Fiabe italiane by Italo Calvino, BT Studio, 2016; Mistero! by Dino Buzzati, BT Studio, 2017).

My current research project aims to assess the status of 20th- and 21st-century women writers in the Italian literary canon. Despite widespread rhetoric on ‘gender neutrality/equality’ in artistic production and reception, and despite the general optimism characterizing pioneering academic works on the subject, women writers still suffer from marginalisation and exclusion from the literary establishment. My research looks at three macro-areas, through different methodologies: quantitative analysis of the presence of women writers in high school and university courses; rhetorical analysis of the presentation of women writers in publishing and the public debate (e.g. reviews, book covers, marketing etc.); critical analysis of the contribution of a corpus of women’s writings to modern Italian literature. Together, these three areas of enquiry will enable to gain detailed insights into the formation and present shape of the Italian literary canon, and to elaborate a multi-faceted understanding of the relationship between literary value and society. With this project I want to provide a picture of the literary system in Italy from the perspective of gender, and to intervene in the debate by addressing the dynamics that reproduce hierarchies and exclusions. I aim to challenge the dominant narratives of the modern Italian canon, demonstrating that when we consider previously neglected contributions by women writers, we obtain a substantially different, and richer, picture of the recent history of Italian literature.

Research interests

  • Modern Italian literature
  • Canon formation
  • Sociology of culture
  • Literary theory
  • Aesthetics and Politics
  • Feminist, LGBT and queer theories and activism
  • Autobiography and autofiction
  • Themes of power and freedom in literature

Selected publications

Books

Journal articles

Book chapters

Reviews

Translations

  • Gesualdo Maffia, '"What Can Be Historicized Cannot Be Supernatural in Origin". Notes on Gramsci’s
    Reflections on Catholicism in his Journal Articles', in C. Zene (ed.), Gramsci on Religion. Text and Context (Mimesis International, 2018).
  • Michael Subialka, ‘L’isola come ritmo della vita: adattamenti postmoderni della creazione pirandelliana’, in G. Caponi, F. De Michele, and A. Sorrentino (eds), Luigi Pirandello e un mondo da ridisegnare (Oxford: Peter Lang Press, 2017).
  • Marcello de Masi and Giovanni Chiaramonte, Presente infinito / Infinite Present (Franco Cosimo Panini, 2014).

Administrative Roles

  • HRC Italian Seminars Coordinator

Qualifications

  • PhD, University of Oxford
  • MPhil, University of Oxford
  • BA, University of Milan

Teaching

Undergraduate modules

IT315 - Experiments in Narrative I: Telling the Past (module tutor)

Office Hours

By appointment (via email)

H4.06