SCHOLARSHIP | PUBLICATIONS
As a scholar, I am interested in contemporary artists, whose work resides at the intersection of performance, social justice, and activism. I investigate the positionality of performance in relation to transnational social movements, as well as the tensions between artmaking and social justice in theatre production, criticism, and canon formation.
My research interests include theatre and performance studies; translation/adaptation; Italian/Italian diasporic literary and cultural studies; and queer feminist theories. I am also interested in multilingualism on stage, the intermingling of Italian national and regional languages in performance, and the embodied politics of migration in the 21st century.
My areas of expertise are: activism and performance; devised and collective creation; and Italian contemporary theatre. Specifically, I study the works of contemporary women and queer Italian playwrights, directors, and performers, paying particular attention to how they disrupt canonical of narratives of gender, race, sexuality, and disability.
I presented at national and international conferences on Italian Contemporary Theatre, the use of dialects on the Italian Stage, and Italian women directors. I am a founding member of the International Network of Italian Theatre. In 2014, I spearheaded the Emma Dante Project, which brought Dante’s company, Sud Costa Occidentale, to The Ohio State University for a three-days event. The Project included an international symposium, an exhibition, and a documentary screening on Dante’s work.
My published work includes articles for TheatreForum on The Builders Association (TF41) and on the theatre of Emma Dante (TF45). My essay “Seeing the Unseen, Re-directing Discourse: Emma Dante and Contemporary Italian Women Directors in the Berlusconi Era” is included in the 2018 volume “La Riflessione Etica nel Teatro Contemporaneo Italiano” (Ethical Thoughts in Italian Contemporary Theatre) edited by Cristina Perissinotto and Patrizia Piredda.
My current book manuscript continues my research on Dante and other contemporary Italian directors in the Berlusconi Era.