About

I am currently a PhD student in Italian Film Studies at the University of Warwick, fully funded by Chancellor’s International Scholarship, under the supervision of Prof. Jennifer Burns and Prof. Karl Schoonover.

Research

The worldwide financial crash of 2007 not only led to the failure of many banks and financial institutions in Western countries; it also brought about negative changes to the labour system. In fact, while the financial sector was eventually rescued by massive bailout operations, the labour-based economy suffered a number of setbacks. By creating social insecurity, these negative developments within liberal democracies also contributed to a growing distrust of politicians and governments, which is one of the hallmarks of the current political climate. In this context, Italy is particularly revealing as a case study because it was the only country in Europe to transition to a technocratic government that enacted sweeping reforms to the labour system, which led to increased redundancies, precarity and inequality.

Against that backdrop, this project aims to investigate how recent changes to the labour system in Italy have been treated in Italian cinema. More precisely, it will bring together neo-workerist approaches to labour (which emphasise the dynamic relationship between workers’ subjectivity and social conflict) and representations of the post-2007 working conditions in Italian cinema. The project intends to go beyond the conventional critical preoccupation with impegno – the pre-eminent mode of socio-political intellectual engagement in Italy oriented towards the reform of society and culture. Instead, it develops Jacques Rancière's understanding of cinema as a tool capable of producing alternative visions of reality through a reconfiguration of subjective identities and their social bonds. It looks at how contemporary Italian filmmakers not only provide a critique of the economic system, but also allow us to re-imagine subjective experience in a challenging social context.

The aim is to 1) gain a deeper understanding of the Italian work scenario since the 2007 financial crisis, and 2) outline a map of potential transformations to the labour scene in Italy by exploring conceptual visual representations from post-millennial Italian cinema.

Research Interests

• Labour & Society
• Italian and World Cinema
• Film Theory & Film Philosophy
• Cultural Theory

Teaching

Tutor for IT107 (W10 T2; T3) 2022/2023

Senior Graduate Teaching Assistant (oral classes in IT 201) 2023/2024

Senior Graduate Teaching Assistant (seminars in F1204-15) T1 2023/2024

Conferences (participation)

2024 JICMS International Conference, American University of Rome, 13-15 June 2024 (paper accepted).

• 12th BAFTSS Conference, Labour and Screen Media, University of Sussex, 3-2 April 2024 (paper accepted).

2023 1st OBERT Conference, “Narrating Labour. Posture and Positionality”, Aix-Marseille University, 28-30 June 2023.

• Summer School “Mediating Italy in Global Culture”, University of Bologna, Rimini, 19-23 June 2023.
• The NECS 2023 Conference, Care, University of Oslo, Oslo, 13-17 June 2023.

Conferences (organisation)

2024
"In Search of Lost Futures". Visual Narratives of Economic Migration, funded by School of Modern Languages and Culture, Humanities Research Centre (University of Warwick), British Association of Film, Television, Screen Studies, Journal of European Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry, 19-20 September (co-organised with Silvia Vari).

Italian Cinema Seminar with Valentina Re (Link Campus University of Rome), University of Warwick, Coventry, 22-23 January (co-organised with Ilaria Puliti and Luca Peretti).

2023
Society of Italian Studies PG Colloquium, University of Oxford-University of Warwick, Oxford, 2 December (co-organised with Gennaro Ambrosino and Frances Clemente).

Italian Cinema Seminar with Mauro Resmini (University of Maryland), University of Warwick, Coventry, 30 November, 5-6 pm (co-organised with Ilaria Puliti and Luca Peretti).

Italian Cinema Seminar with Hilary Neroni (University of Vermont), University of Warwick, Coventry, 26 October, 5-6 pm (co-organised with Ilaria Puliti and Luca Peretti).

Other roles

Co-convenor of the Italian Cinema GroupLink opens in a new window

Member of BAFTSS (British Association of Film, Television, Screen Studies), SIS (Society of Italian Studies), and NECS (European Network for Cinema and Media Studies).

Publications

• Review of Carlo Baghetti (Volume editor), Jim Carter (Volume editor), Lorenzo Marmo (Volume editor), Italian Industrial Literature and Film. Perspectives on the Representation of Postwar Labor, Pieterlen: Peter Lang, 2021, pp. 554+VIV, «Italian Studies», Vol. 78, 1, 2023.
• Review of Simone Brioni. L’Italia, l’altrove. Luoghi, spazi, attraversamenti nel cinema e nella
  letteratura sulla migrazione. Venezia: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari, 2022. Pp. xii + 184, «Annali d’italianistica», Vol. 41, 2023.

• Review of J. Rancière, Lo spettatore emancipato, Derive Approdi,
  Roma 2018, «Lessico di etica pubblica», 2 (2018), pp. 131-134.
• Review of A. Badiou, Trump o del fascismo democratico, Meltemi, Roma 2018, «Lessico di etica pubblica», 1 (2018), pp. 151-155.

Scholarships and Awards

Qualifications