I studied Combined Honours English and Modern Languages at Newnham College, Cambridge and for a Master of Studies in Modern Languages at Balliol College, Oxford before completing a PhD at the University of Warwick, under the supervision of Professor Ann Hallamore Caesar and Dr Jenny Burns.
I am Programme Tutor for the undergraduate programmes in Modern Languages and European Studies, and Convenor of the interdisciplinary MPhil in Gender Studies. I teach modules on society and identity, and theatre for Italian Studies. I teach seminars on gender, sexuality and cultural theory for the MPhils in Cultural Inquiry and Gender Studies, as well as contributing to the MA in Italian Studies, and supervising PhD students.
I am currently working on a monograph entitled Narratives of Embodiment in the Work of Primo Levi: Containing the Human (Routledge, forthcoming 2010) , which explores Levi’s engagements with and representations of embodiment from the imprisoned and abject body in the camps to the posthuman technologized bodies of his science fiction writing. Other ongoing projects relate to elaborations of sexuality and identity, which I have explored in literature as well as in practices of social engagement and activism. In 2008 I co-organized a conference entitled 'Gender and Sexuality Studies Italian Style', in Italy which has led to a special issue of the journal Italian Studies on gender and sexuality (forthcoming 2010). I am also co-editor (with Dr Daniele Albertazzi, Dr Clodagh Brook and Dr Nina Rothenberg) of Resisting the Tide: Cultures of Opposition under Berlusconi 2001-06 (Continuum, 2009).
My research forms part of that pursued in the Department of Italian Studies. I am also part of a university network of researchers with interests in Gender and Sexuality Studies.
I am currently supervising several postgraduate students working on issues relating to gender and sexuality in Italian culture. I would be happy to hear from prospective doctoral candidates wishing to pursue research in this area, or on other aspects of twentieth-century and contemporary Italian culture and society.
Narratives of Embodiment in the Work of Primo Levi: Containing the Human (New York: Routledge, forthcoming 2010)
Co-edited with Daniele Albertazzi, Clodagh Brook and Nina Rothenberg, Resisting the Tide: Cultures of Opposition in the Berlusconi Years 2001-06 (London: Continuum, 2009)
Co-edited with Loredana Polezzi, In corpore: Bodies in Post-Unification Italy (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2007)
Co-edited with Rochelle Sibley, Illuminating Eco: On the Boundaries of Interpretation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004)
Chapter 7, 'Levi's Thought Experiments: Science-Fiction', in Robert Gordon (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Primo Levi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)
'Rita Levi Montalcini', in Angela Barwig and Thomas Stauder (eds) Intellettuali italiani fra il dopoguerra e l'inizio del ventunesimo secolo. Saggi sulla trasformazione dei rapporti fra cultura e potere (Frankfurt: Verlag f�r deutsch-italienische Studien, 2007)
'Porno girl da fumetto' in Charlotte Ross and Loredana Polezzi (eds), In corpore: Bodies in Post-Unification Italy (Madison NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2007)
'Who are you calling robot? Cyberfeminisms and fictions' in Alessia Ronchetti and Maria Serena Sapegno (eds) Dentro/ fuori/ sopra/ sotto (Rome: Longo, 2007)
(with Derek Duncan), 'Reading Allowed: Contemporary Lesbian and Gay Fiction in Italy' in Gillian Ania and Ann Hallamore Caesar (eds), Trends in Contemporary Italian Narrative, 1980-2007 (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007)
Chapter 8, 'The Serendipities of Semiotics, or Knowledge as a "theory of next Thursday"' in Charlotte Ross and Rochelle Sibley (eds) Illuminating Eco: On the Boundaries of Interpretation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004)
'Visions of Visibility: LGBT Activism in Turin', Modern Italy (Vol.13, No.3, August 2008: 241-260)
Incarnando la sessualità: performatività, parodia e piacere', in Omosapiens. Studi e ricerche sull'orientamento sessuale/1, ed. by Domenico Rizzo, DiGayProject ONLUS, Rome (Rome: Carocci, Oct. 2006)
'Parallel Productions: Rita and Paola Levi Montalcini', Italian Studies, vol. LIX, 2004, 132-51
'Queering the habitus: lesbian identity in Stancanelli's Benzina', Romance Studies, vol.22 (3), November 2004, 237-50
'Creating the Ideal Posthuman Body? Cyborg Sex and Gender in Twentieth Century Italian Literature', Italica, vol. 82, no. 2, Summer 2005, 222-47
'Primo Levi: Lively Machines and Machinic Bodies', Arachnofiles, Issue 3, Spring 2004
