Tatiana Avesani (they/them/their)
Tatiana Avesani’s research has mostly focused on Italian Renaissance Literature. Specifically, before coming to Johns Hopkins, their work explored the relationship between political structures and language. Specifically, it analyzed the ways in which politics shaped the development of the Italian language in the debates taking place in Italy in the 15th and 19th century. Through the Interdisciplinary Humanistic Studies Program Tatiana is bridging Italian Studies with Classics. Their projects aims at exploring the Italian Renaissance via Neo-Latin literature by posing questions of gender and identity through the lens of language. They hope that by working with Transgender Studies theory they will be able to shed a new light and reading of cultural production in the Italian Early Modern period.
Marta Cerreti
Marta Cerreti earned a laurea (2017) and a Master degree (2019) with honors, in Philosophy from Sapienza Università di Roma. In her first year of MA she won a scholarship to study Philosophy and Literature in Ireland, at University College Dublin. In her dissertation titled Feeling a Stranger at Home: An Itinerary Between Philosophy and Literature, Marta explored one of the most significant philosophical questions – the one about identity and recognition – starting by the perusal of literary texts, showing her attitude for comparative studies. In 2019 Marta received a scholarship awarded by the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici in Naples, where she had the opportunity to contribute to a collective work with a short essay on Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and the cinema of attractions. At Hopkins, Cerreti investigates the link between narrativity and identity, with a focus on Contemporary women’s writing in Italy, thus connecting the interests expressed in her final dissertation in a new interdisciplinary trajectory rooted in her strong cultural and linguistic Italian experience. She aims at expanding her research by exploring the work of writers such as Ferrante, Ortese, Morante, Ginzburg, Ramondino, all authors who seem to reclaim the necessity to lose one’s margins (Ferrante’s “smarginatura” and Ortese’s “frantumazione”). In her research, Marta would like to bridge Italian Studies, with the Program in Philosophy, Cinema Studies and Gender Studies. In the past, Marta has worked for cultural magazines, writing articles in the literary section. She likewise has worked as operator in an anti-violence centre and this experience has given her the opportunity to expand her studies with activist initiatives.
Giulia Cipriani
Giulia Maria Cipriani earned her B.A. (Laurea Triennale) and M.A. (Laurea Magistrale cum laude) at the Univeristà degli Studi “Roma Tre”. Her master dissertation focused on the rewriting of Dante’s Divine Comedy in Boccaccio’s Decameron, and three extracts have been published in the academic journal Scaffale Aperto and miscellaneous volumes. At Hopkins, she is expanding her interests. Indeed, she is writing a dissertation on demons in the epic-chivalric poems of the Italian Sixteenth Century, focusing on their representation, their interaction with human characters, and their analogies and differences with the previous tradition (both pagan and Christian). She participated in many conferences and published several articles. The last is entitled “Dante, Durante e la parodia. Appunti su ‘La Divina Commedia quasi mille anni dopo’ di Feudalesimo&Libertà e Don Alemanno”.
Cristina D’Errico
Cristina D’Errico received her BA in Italian Literature from the University of Udine and her MA in Medieval and Renaissance Cultures and Traditions from the University of Ferrara. Her master thesis “I Manoscritti Datati della Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna” examines through paleographic and codicological analysis a selection of dated manuscripts preserved at the University Library of Bologna. She began her PhD at Johns Hopkins in Fall 2018. Her broader research interests include Paleography and Codicology, Philology, and History of Ideas. She is currently focusing on the heresies and religious movements of Italian Renaissance with a particular interest in the figure of Teofilo Folengo.
Alberto Fabris
Alberto Fabris is a researcher in intellectual history and history of the political thought of early modern Europe. Former élève de l’École Normale Supérieure, he studied philosophy and political studies at the University of Padua, Paris Sorbonne and École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales before joining the MLL department in 2017. In December 2018, he discussed the doctoral thesis “Itinéraires du désir dans la philosophie de Giordano Bruno”. Visiting researcher at the Université Libres de Bruxelles in 2020/21, he is ‘chercheur associé’ at the Institute for the History of Representations and Indeas in the Modernities (IHRIM, ENS-Lyon) and scientific associate at the ULB Centre de Recherches en Philosophie. He is currently working on Counter-Reformation Italian thought, exploring the intellectual figure of Francesco Ingoli.
Martina Franzini
Martina Franzini is a PhD student in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. Her research interests include Medieval Literature, Renaissance Literature and 20th century Italian novel. She is particularly interested in the reception of classical Greek and Latin tradition to understand how these fundamental models influence the successive literary production. Prior to Hopkins, she earned her Bachelor Degree in Lettere Moderne from the Università degli Studi di Milano in 2015 with a thesis focused on Dante’s adaptation of the Latin Pater Noster in the Divine Comedy. She consequently earned a Masters in Italian Studies from Boston College in 2021, with a thesis in which she discussed the relationship between the Latin poet Statius and the poetic and Christian value of Dante’s poem.
Alessio Panichi
Alessio Panichi is a sixth-year graduate student at the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Johns Hopkins University. Panichi graduated in philosophy from the University of Pisa in October 2005 and obtained his PhD from the National Institute for Renaissance Studies (Florence) in July 2009. Panichi has published several essays in peer-reviewed journals and is the author of Il volto fragile del potere. Religione e politica nel pensiero di Tommaso Campanella (Pisa, ETS, 2015), as well as the editor of Antonio Gramsci e la favola. Un itinerario tra letteratura, politica e pedagogia (Pisa, ETS, 2019). Among his recent publication is the translation into Italian of Kaspar Schoppe’ Paedia politices (Manziana, Vecchiarelli, 2022). Currently, Panichi is working on his dissertation project that concerns the role(s) of fear in Niccolò Machiavelli’s writings.
Silvia Raimondi
Silvia Raimondi earned a Bachelor’s degree (2015) and a Master’s degree (2016) with honors, in Italian Language and Literature at the University of Roma Tre. An extract from her first thesis (“Il poeta di teatro di Filippo Pananti: notazioni lessicali”), which focuses on the history of the Italian language, has been published in the Italian journal «Scaffale aperto» by Carocci editor. She has taught Italian and history in a school in the city of Como, and she obtained the DITALS certification, to teach Italian Language as a Foreign Language, from the Università per Stranieri di Siena.
At Hopkins, her current research focuses on Italian Renassaince literature, and women’s and gender studies. Specifically, she is focused on analyzing the role and meaning of ekphrasis in epic and chivalric poems, such as Pulci’s Morgante, Boiardo’s Orlando Innamorato, Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, and Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata.
Samuel Zawacki
Samuel Zawacki earned a Bachelor’s degree in Italian and Linguistics (2018) and a Master’s degree in Italian literature (2019) from New York University. While at NYU he earned grants from the D’agostino Fund and the Dean’s Undergraduate Research Fund, departmental honors, and the Guido Cavalcanti Award for excellence in Italian. His undergraduate thesis, “Fuori dal binario: Linguistic Gender in the Italian Context,” explored the ways in which the Italian language is changing to accommodate nonbinary gender identities. With his Master’s thesis, “L* Queer Femminista: Alma Sabatini and Feminist Foundations for Linguistic Gender Neutrality in Italian,” Samuel continued to explore linguistic gender neutrality by highlighting its connection to Italian feminist thought, using Alma Sabatini’s “Il sessismo nella lingua italiana” as a canonical source for Italian feminist linguistics. At Johns Hopkins, through his doctoral study he is further exploring questions of gender neutrality and negation, as well as issues surrounding the inscription and dissemination of the trans experience in Italy through literature, film, and other media.