Department of French and Italian

• Italian cinema
• Modern Italian literature and culture
• Italian emigration

I began film studies at the University of Michigan and at Iowa University. My first hands-on experience with film making was with Giuseppe De Santis at Middlebury College. My research has been primarily in the areas of Film Studies and Modern and Contemporary Italian Literature and Culture. My interests include Pasolini, Scola, Wertmüller, De Santis, Rossellini, Amelio, Roversi, Montaldo, Rimanelli, Nanni Loy, Tornatore, Moretti and Monicelli. I am also interested in Italian American/Canadian writers and poetry from emigrants. Other interests include photography, political songs and the relationship between popular cinema and political power. I am currently working on the Americanization of Italian cinema during the Cold War.

Books

• The Films of Gianni Amelio. The Search for a Cinema of Social Conscience True to his Roots. Pesaro: Metauro Editori, 2009.
• Ripensare il Neorealismo: Cinema, Letteratura, Mondo (a cura e con saggo di Antonio Vitti). Pesaro: Metauro Editori, 2008.
• Incontri Culturali da oltre oceano (a cura e con saggo di Antonio Vitti). Pesaro: Metauro Editori, 2008.
• Peppe De Santis secondo se stesso. Conferenze, conversazioni e sogni nel cassetto di uno scomodo scrittore di campagna (a cura e con saggi di Antonio Vitti). Pesaro: Metauro Editori, 2007.
• Incontri con il cinema italiano. (a cura di Antonio Vitti) Caltannissetta: Sciascia Editore, 2003.
• Giuseppe De Santis and Postwar Italian Cinema, Toronto: UP of Toronto, 2002.

Articles

• “Il cinema italiano oggi” in Cultura & Comunicazione. Lingue e linguaggi/ Comunicanione e mass media/Didattica/Cultura. Perugia: Guerra Edizioni, giugno 2007, pp. 50-51.
• “‘Nati due volte’ di Giuseppe Pontiggia e ‘Le chiavi di casa’ di Gianni Amelio” Esperienze Letterarie XXXI, 2006, pp. 107-116.
• “Voglio dire che cosa penso, ma che penso? Ovvero la condizione esilica in
  Aprile di Nanni Moretti” in Cross-Cultural Relations and Exile, Legas Publishing, Spring 2005.
• Riso amaro/Bitter Rice, in The Cinema of Italy, ed. Giorgio Bertellini. London: Wall Wallflower Press, 2004, pp. 53-60.

• Directing Practicum with film director Giuseppe De Santis
• New Italian Cinema from 1975 to present
• Film and Video camera in language learning for the Summer Institute for Teachers of Italian at Middlebury College, summer of 1995
• Courses on all aspects of Italian Cinema, Postwar Italian Cinema
• Neorealism and Contemporary Italian Cinema and Literature
• The Southern Question in Literature and Films
• The Fabulous Fifties in Italian Films
• Italian Regional Differences: Viaggio nel cinema contemporaneo
• Italian Resistance in Novels and Films
• In Search of a New Italian National Identity after Fascism
• La Sicilia in novelle, romanzi e film

• Dana Fellowship, Wake Forest University, 1986-2008
• Reid-Doyle Prize for Excellence in Teaching, Wake Forest University, 1990-91
• Certificate of Distinction for outstanding teaching based upon current and past evaluation in ADVTGE Magazine, April 14, 1986
• Outstanding Teaching Award, Wayne State University, 1981-82
• Rackham Fellowship, Wayne State University, 1979-80
• Maria G. Lalli Fellowship for graduate study in Italian, 1975