Noreen Kane

Supervisors: Chiara Giuliani and Silvia Ross

Title of Thesis: Trauma and the Gendered Body in Postcolonial Italian Women’s Writing

Undergraduate degree: BA in Italian and English, UCD, 2008

Master’s degree: MA in Italian Studies, UCD, 2011

Publications

Articles in academic journals:

*Guest editor, Notes in Italian Studies: “Memory and Italian Culture” (forthcoming 2025). 

* Kane, Noreen, “Intergenerational Trauma and Complex Implication in Maaza Mengiste’s The Shadow King”, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 2024, pp.1–14, https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2024.2384916 

* Kane, Noreen, “Transgenerational Colonial Trauma and Disordered Eating in the Work of Igiaba Scego and Maaza Mengiste”, Quaderni d’Italianistica, 44 (3), 2023, pp. 61-90.  

* Kane, Noreen, “Embodying Colonial Ghosts in Postcolonial Italian Women's Writing”, The Boolean: Snapshots of Doctoral Research at University College Cork, VI(1), 2022, pp. 172-178.

Other Publications - Book Reviews:

* Kane, Noreen. “Elena Zambelli. Sexscapes of Pleasure: Women, Sexuality and the Whore Stigma in Italy”, Italian Studies, (forthcoming in 2023).

* Kane, Noreen. “Igiaba Scego. The Colour Line”, Litro Magazine, 9 February 2023, https://www.litromagazine.com/usa/2023/02/book-review-the-colour-line/

Co-Organised Conference: 2024 SIS PG Colloquium: “Memory and Italian Culture”, University College Cork, 6 December 2024. 

Conference Presentations:

* “Multidirectional and Transoceanic Memory in Igiaba Scego’s The Color Line.” Memory Dialogues Winter School, University of Copenhagen, 10-11 December, 2024.

* “Multidirectional Memory and the Implicated Reader in Postcolonial Women’s Writing in Italy.” Seminar: Memory Studies in Trento – Multidisciplinary Perspectives, University of Trento, 13 November 2024.

* “Multidirectional Memory: The Holocaust and Italian Colonialism in the Work of Igiaba Scego and Maaza Mengiste.” Mnemonics Summer School, UCLA, 9-11 July 2024.

* “Religion, Gender, and Intergenerational Trauma in the Work of Shirin Ramzanali Fazel.” SIS Biennial Conference, Royal Holloway, 19-21 June 2024.

* “Religion, Gender, and Trauma in Postcolonial Italian Women’s Writing.” Seminar: Radical Humanities Salon, UCC, 29 January 2024. 

* “Intergenerational Trauma and Complex Implication in Maaza Mengiste’s The Shadow King.” Conference: Afterlives of Empire in the Public Imagination, Sapienza University, 21-22 September 2023.

* “Trauma, Sensation, and Affect in the Work of Igiaba Scego and Maaza Mengiste.” SIS Interim Themed Conference: Affect, Emotion, Sensation, Selwyn College, University of Cambridge, 7-8 September 2023.

* “Intergenerational Trauma as expressed through the Female Protagonists’ Relationships to Food in Maaza Mengiste’s Beneath the Lion’s Gaze and Igiaba Scego’s La mia casa è dove sono.” Conference: XII Annual Graduate Conference in Italian Studies, University College Cork, 9-10 June 2023.

*“Postcolonial Italian Women Writers Renegotiating a Sense of Collective Identity in Ubah Cristina Ali Farah’s Little Mother and Igiaba Scego’s Beyond Babylon through Western Trauma Theory and the Pan-African Philosophy of Ubuntu.” Conference: On the Move and Moving On: (Re)negotiations of Migration in Contemporary Literature and Film Conference, ILCS, Senate House, London, 13 January 2023.

* “The Female Body as Site of Intergenerational Memory in Representations of Italian Colonialism in Maaza Mengiste’s Beneath the Lion’s Gaze and The Shadow King, and Ubah Cristina Ali Farah’s Little Mother.” Workshop: Colonialism and Transgenerational Memory in Europe, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (online), 21-22 September 2022.

*“The Embodiment of Colonial Trauma in Ubah Cristina Ali Farah’s Madre Piccola and Igiaba Scego’s Adua.” Summer School: The Cultural Heritage and Memory of Totalitarianism, Sapienza University, Rome, 1 July 2022.

* “Trauma and Resistance in Igiaba Scego’s Oltre Babilonia and Adua.” Conference: AAIS (online), 13 May, 2022.

* “The Representation of Intergenerational Trauma in Postcolonial Italian Women’s Writing.” Seminar: Memory, Commemoration and Uses of the Past Research Cluster, CASiLaC, University College Cork, 1 April 2022.

* “The Representation of Intergenerational Trauma in Igiaba Scego’s Beyond Babylon.” Conference: College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences

* Postgraduate Conference, University College Cork (online), 22 February 2022.

* “The Representation of Female Genital Mutilation in Postcolonial Italian Women’s Writing.” Conference: Contemporary Women Writers and the Medical Humanities, IMLR (online), 29 July 2021.

Funding: Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship (2021-2025) and National University of Ireland Travelling Doctoral Studentship (2021-2025).

Email contacts: 120228167@umail.ucc.ie / noreenkaneucc@gmail.com

Elsina Caponetti

Chiara Valcelli

Supervisors: Daragh O'Connell, Adam Hanna

Title of Thesis: Mapping Dante's Commedia onto Joyce's Dubliners, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake

Undergraduate degree: Bachelor of Arts, Università degli Studi di Perugia, 2018.

Master’s degree: Teaching of the Italian Language to Foreigners, Università per Stranieri di Perugia, 2021.

Publications

Articles in academic journals:

* Valcelli, C., “Joyce’s infernal Dublin in childhood and maturity”, in Joyspace, James Joyce and space, Joyce Studies in Italy no. 23, edited by Roberto Baronti Marchiò, Editoriale Anicia, Roma, 2021, pp. 175-187.

* Valcelli, C., “Influences of Dante’s Purgatorio in Joyce’s Ulysses: a pilgrimage of redemption”, in One, no one, and one hundred (thousand?) Ulysses, Joyce Studies in Italy no. 24, edited by Serenella Zanotti, Editoriale Anicia, Roma, 2022, pp. 155-168. 

* Valcelli, C., “Memory’s Echoes in Dreams: Dante’s Purgatorio and Joyce’s Epiphanies,” in Joyce Studies in Italy, no. 25, edited by Fabio Luppi and Serenella Zanotti, Editoriale Anicia, Rome, 2023, pp. 201-215.

Book Reviews:

* Valcelli, C., Review of James Joyce and Classical Modernism by Leah Culligan Flack. Joyce Studies in Italy, vol. 26, edited by Sabrina Alonso and William Brockman, Editoriale Anicia, 2024.

Conference Proceedings:

* Valcelli, C., “Il Cammino di Dante in Umbria: seguire i passi di Dante in Paradiso XI”, in Turismi Danteschi, Collana TULE, a cura di Giovanni Capecchi e Roberto Mosena, Perugia Stranieri University Press, Perugia, 2024.

* Society for Italian Studies Biennial Conference, June 19–21, 2024, Royal Holloway, University of London:
I co-organised, alongside the research group L’Ombra Sua Torna, a workshop titled “Un grande libro genererà infiniti libri”: New Methodological Reflections on Dante’s Contemporary Reception.

* Alma Dante 2024 Doctoral Seminar, June 24–26, 2024, University of Bologna:
Voci intrecciate: Dante e Joyce nell’universo della polifonia: Bakhtin e Swedenborg.

* Dante Futures: New Voices in the UK and Ireland, November 15–16, 2024, King’s College, University of Cambridge:
Polyphonic Bodies: Bakhtinian Perspectives on Corporeality in Dante’s Commedia and Joyce’s Ulysses. 

* Joyce and Us: The XVII James Joyce Italian Foundation Conference, January 30–31, 2025, Roma Tre University:
Bodies in Dialogue: Exploring Language and Anatomy in Dante and Joyce.

Conference Presentations:

* “Che è quel ch’i’odo. Sere, issa vegg’io Pola appo del Carnaro: Dante in Joyce’s language acquisition.” Conference: Dante Futures, University of Leeds, 17-18 November 2023.

 * “A Tale of Two Cities: An Affective Study of Dante’s Florence and Joyce’s Dublin.” Conference: The 2023 SIS Themed Conference ‘Affect, Emotion, Sensation’, University of Cambridge, Selwyn College, 7–8 September 2023.

 * “Joyce and Dante: reading Inferno.” Conference: XII Annual Graduate Conference in Italian Studies, University College Cork, 9-10 June 2023.

* “Dante nell’officina di Joyce: l’Inferno e la sperimentazione linguistica”. Conference: Congresso Dantesco Internazionale, Ravenna, 17-20 May 2023.

* “Dream, memory and hallucination in Joyce and Dante.” Conference: XV James Joyce Italian Foundation, University Roma Tre, 2-3 February 2023.

* “Mapping Dante’s Inferno onto Joyce’s Dubliners.” Conference: Dante Futures, University College Cork, 11-12 November 2022.

* “Influences of Dante’s Purgatorio in Joyce’s Ulysses: a pilgrimage of redemption.” Conference: XIV James Joyce Italian Foundation, University Roma Tre, 28-29 April 2022.

* “The Borders of Italy by Joyce and Dante”. Conference: OmniJoyce, International James Joyce Foundation, online, 14-16 June 2021.

* “Gabriel Conroy: The Fall into Inferno.” Conference: XIII James Joyce Italian Foundation, University Roma Tre, 30-31 January 2020.

Funding: Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship

Email contacts: 122120320@umail.ucc.ie / chiaravalcelli@gmail.com 

Francesca Nieddu

Supervisor: Dr. Silvia Ross

Title of Thesis: The Genres of the Family Novel, Family Memoir and Childhood Memoir in Italian Women’s Writing from the 20th Century to the Present

Undergraduate degree: Bachelor of Arts, Università di Cagliari, 2019

Master’s degree: MA in Italian Studies, European Literary Cultures & Linguistics, Alma Mater Studiorum – Università di Bologna, 2022.

Publications

Articles in academic journals:

* “‘Destinazione Aracoeli’: riandare al materno con il corpo della memoria”, in OBLIO, 13, June 2023, pp. 131-144.

*"Le declinazioni del genere delle memorie di famiglia nella scrittura autobiografica di Goliarda Sapienza", in Quaderni d'Italianistica, 44.2, 2023, pp. 27-54.

*"Uno studio intermediale degli intertesti morantiani ne Le pupille di Alice Rohrwacher", in Annali di Italianistica, 42, 2024, pp. 319-351.

Conference Presentations:

* “‘Destinazione Aracoeli’: riandare al materno con il corpo della memoria”, Conference: “Omaggio ad Elsa Morante: per i quarant’anni di Aracoeli”, Università di Cagliari, 19- 20 May 2022.

* “Tutte le vite iniziano con una donna”: un dialogo intertestuale fra Giulia Caminito e le sue Amatissime, Day Seminar: Il corpo delle donne fra narrazione cinematografica e narrazione letteraria nel contemporaneo estremo, Università di Cagliari, 5 May 2023

* “The Contamination between the Anti-Bildungsroman and the Family Novel in L'acqua del lago non è mai dolce by Giulia Caminito: Outlining a Hybrid Family Novel”, XII Annual Graduate Conference in Italian Studies, University College Cork, 9-10 June 2023.

*“La memoria materiale e mediale nelle narrazioni di famiglia: Lettera aperta di Goliarda Sapienza e Un’ora sola ti vorrei di Alina Marazzi” Conference: “Davanti a te - il nostro modo di vivere- tutto diventa un luogo comune: eccentricità e attualità della scrittura di Goliarda Sapienza”, Università di Cagliari, 16-17 maggio 2024.

Funding: Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship.

Email contacts: 122115423@umail.ucc.ie / francescanieddu2@gmail.com 

Tommaso Verga

Giulia Bernuzzi

Supervisors: Dr. Marco Amici and Dr. Mark Chu

Title of Thesis: Climate Change and Urban Space in Contemporary Italian Literature

Undergraduate degree: Bachelor of Arts, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano, 2021

Master's degree: Master of Arts, Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2023

Publications

Articles in academic journals:

* "The adaptation of Pirandello’s Enrico IV into a comic book: Regni and Bianchi’s Project” in Pirandello Studies, 43, 2023.

Other publications:

*“Scrittura e variazioni tra Settecento e Novecento. Jacques e il suo padrone di Milan Kundera” in Webzine Theatron 2.0, 2021.

*Libri in pellicola. Casi editoriali del cinema italiano. Milano, EDUcatt, 2020.

Conference Presentations:

* "Calvino’s Invisible Cities and its relationship to modernist and postmodernist architecture: re-narrating the urban landscape”. Graduate Symposium JHU-Yale Mutamenti. Overcoming Crises, University of Yale, 27-28 October 2023.

* "Tra letteratura e architettura: come le opere di Calvino aiutano a ripensare il conglomerato urbano”. XII Italian Studies Postgraduate Conference, University College Cork, 9-10 June 2023.

* “Tra letteratura e architettura. Come le Città invisibili di Calvino aiutano a ripensare il conglomerato urbano”. Masterlanguage Symposium Narrazioni e Memorie di un’Italia divisa: Roma laboratorio di Storia/storie, Universiteit van Amsterdam, April 2023.

* “Alla ricerca della religione perduta (?): le declinazioni del postsecolare in The Young Pope e È stata la mano di Dio”. KNIR Symposium Narrazioni e Memorie di un’Italia divisa e postsecolare, Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut Rome, April 2022. 

* “Reimagining the Anthropocene: Exploring Italian Literary Responses to Climate Change through Urban Reshaping”. AAIS Conference, Sant’Anna Institute, Sorrento, 6-9 June 2024.

* “Reimagining the Anthropocene: Exploring Urban Reshaping and Literary Response to Climate Crisis in Alessandra Montrucchio’s E poi la sete”. Research seminar organized by the Rethinking Spatial Humanities Research Cluster and the Department of Italian on the occasion of the XXIV Settimana della Lingua Italiana nel Mondo, UCC, 16 October 2024.

* “Radici della resilienza: piante, letteratura e adattamento urbano all’epoca del cambiamento climatico”. XXVI Congresso AIPI, “Verde brillante”: riposizionare piante, giardini e foreste nella letteratura, nel cinema e nelle arti visive dell’Antropocene”, Universidad de Sevilla, 7-9 November 2024.

* “Imagining Venice’s Future: Intersections of Literature, Urban Space, and Climate Crisis in Antonio Scurati’s La seconda mezzanotte”. ASMI Annual Conference: Italy and Its Environments, Senate House, University of London, 29-30 November 2024.

* “Memory as Resistance: Contesting Climate Crisis and Identity in Antonio Scurati’s La seconda mezzanotte”. 2024 SIS PG Colloquium “Memory and Italian Culture”, University College Cork, 6 December 2024.  

Funding: Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship.

Email contacts: 123121362@umail.ucc.ie / giuliabernuzzi11@gmail.com