About

I am a PhD candidate in cotutelle between the University of Milan (PhD in Philosophy and Human Sciences) and the University of Warwick (PhD in Film and Television Studies) under the supervision of Prof. Barbara Grespi, Dr. Mary Harrod and Prof. Helen Wheatley.

I hold a BA (with honours) in Philosophy (2019, University of Padua, IT) and an MA (with honours) in Philosophical Sciences (2022, University of Milan, IT). My BA dissertation focused on the concept of the End of Art by the philosopher Arthur Danto and its relationship with Feminist Visual Culture, while in my MA dissertation I analysed the work of the French director Julia Ducournau and became interested in the contemporary female and feminist reworking of the horror genre. Since 2023, I am an affiliated member of the ERC Advanced Project AN-ICON, where I am conducting research on gender issues in immersive environments, on the evolution of the horror genre in virtual reality (VR) with a feminist approach, and on gender theory between cinema and immersive media.

I am a member of the editorial staff of the Italian journal Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal and a contributor to Cineforum web, an Italian publication on film criticism and culture where I write on female-directed cinema and immersive experiences. Together with the AN-ICON team, I was one of the organisers of the award Gradi di libertà ["Degrees of Freedom"] award for the best VR experience at Filmmaker Festival 2022 (Milan, IT). Between 2022 and 2024 I have been the curator of film selections and post-screening discussions for small festivals in Italy: Donne al centro: reinventarsi per resistere, organized by Collettivo Femminista Scledense, Cinema Campana, Marano Vicentino (both film selection and post-screening discussions); Cinema Femminile Plurale, University of Milan (film selection); Filosofilm. Proiezioni tra Cinema e Filosofia, University of Milan (post-screening discussion of Titane, Julia Ducournau, 2021). In 2024 I have been nominated by the councillor for culture of the Municipality of Bergamo (IT) as a member of the jury for the “Ermanno Olmi” Award for the Best Short Film (Award ceremony in December).

Research

For most of its history, horror cinema has been a site of male intervention and has been considered by film scholars to be particularly misogynistic. Indeed, given that bodies and identities are culturally produced through sedimented performative acts (Butler 1990), female bodies have been constructed by and within the horror genre through performances of abject terror, which is therefore gendered as feminine (Clover 1992/2015). In the last fifteen years, however, horror has undergone a renaissance phase, that includes the representation and production of gender identity and an increased involvement of female directors, who aim to challenge traditional constructions of female bodies both on- and off-screen. I argue that these objectives are achieved not by disrupting horror’s conventions, but precisely by applying and manipulating them. This means exploiting the corporeal quality of the genre, which is expressed through the address and production of embodied spectators, eliciting their bodily reactions by displaying female bodies subject to intense bodily sensations (Williams 1991; Beugnet and Mulvey 2015). Although a handful of recent volumes have focused on female-authored horror films, exhuming forgotten female work (Heller-Nicholas 2020; Peirse 2020), focusing on women’s roles in film production and distribution (McCollum and Clarke 2022) or detecting a feminist use of horror elements (Pisters 2020), this dimension of rewriting the film form remains unexplored.

My research method is informed by genre theory, feminist philosophy and feminist film theory. This includes a focus on the corporeal aspect of on- and off-screen bodies as performative and culturally inscribed surfaces (Grosz 1994). Within this framework, I argue that this current of contemporary female-directed horror employs the tropes and forms of the genre, referencing and manipulating paramount horror texts to reconfigure especially female identities. In the final chapter of the dissertation I will also focus on the gendering dynamics produced within virtual-reality (VR) horror, confronting them with the feminist turn in horror cinema.

Publications

Peer-reviewed articles:

• Domestic Closed Circuits (of Violence), in "European Journal of Women Studies", vol. 31 no. 2, Special Issue "Digital media, feminisms, and public health in the age of a pandemic", 2024 (with Barbara Grespi, forthcoming).
• Beyond the Gaze, Towards the Body: Early Feminist Film Theory as a Matrix of Visual Culture Studies, in "VCS. Visual Culture Studies", no. 6-7, Special Issue, 2024 (forthcoming).

Translations:

• "I touchscreen del cinema delle origini. Da Zio Josh ad Ali Barbouyou", in Dalmasso, A.C., Grespi, B. (eds.), Mediarcheologia, Raffaello Cortina Editore, Milano 2023. Italian translation of Strauven, W., Early cinema’s touch(able) screens: From Uncle Josh to Ali Barbouyou, “NECSUS”, vol. 2, 2012, pp. 155-176.

Conferences (participation)

• Chair at the panel "Rediscovering video and installation art history in times of global emergencies", NECS 2024 Conference, University of Economics, İzmir, 27-29 June 2024.
• “Emerging Horror: Excessive Female Bodies Between Cinema and Virtual Reality”, NECS Graduate Workshop “Emerging Media: Exploring Post-Cinema”, University of Economics, İzmir, 26 June 2024.
• Participant in the round table discussion "Close Encounters of a Distant Kind", AN-ICON workshop "CLOSING UP ON DISTANCE. Interdisciplinary perspectives", University of Milan, Palazzo Feltrinelli, Gargnano (BS), 23-26 June 2024.
• "Secondary Victimization Televised. The Role of Media in Gender Violence Trials", invited speaker, event organized by Osservatorio Violenza sulle Donne, University of Milan, 28 May 2024.
• "Feminist Horror Theory: Film Form and Female Identity – Rewriting in the Key of Gender", Film and Television Departmental Research Day, University of Warwick, 15 May 2024.
• "Feminist Horror Theory", AN-ICON Seminar, University of Milan, 21 December 2023.
• "Ulrike Kuchner presents Measuring Mistakes in dialogue with Rossana Galimi" (artist talk), International Conference PHOTOGRAPHS FROM OUTER SPACE. A female archaeology of image-data, University of Milan, 13 December 2023.
• "Filmic Forms and Female Identity: Rewriting in the Key of Gender", Ricerche dottorali. Fonti e metodi workshop, University of Parma, 13 November 2023.

Conferences (organisation)

• PHOTOGRAPHS FROM OUTER SPACE. A female archaeology of image-data, University of Milan, 11-13 December 2023 (co-organised with Rosa Cinelli and Melania Mariconda, curated by Prof. Barbara Grespi and Prof. Luca Guzzardi).