Department of French and Italian

• Renaissance and early modern literature and culture, with emphases on humanism, epic, comedy, macaronic and pastoral

I was trained in Italy and the US as a historian and critic of Italian literature. My research focuses on Renaissance and early modern literature and culture, particularly the macaronic, pastoral and lyric genres, as well as comedy, heroic and mock-heroic poetry. My interests include literary memory and genealogy, comedy as a shaping force of the Italian literary tradition, the relationship between ‘high’ literature and popular culture, and the interplay of philology and criticism. In my work, I address the ethical and political implications of literature, specifically the humanist concept of literary education (the humanæ litteræ) as a path toward a more civilized and ‘humane’ humanity and the relationship between literary creation and political power. I recently published a critical edition of partially unpublished works by the 16th-century philologist and critic Lodovico Castelvetro and a book titled Commedia e civiltà: Dinamiche anticonflittuali nella letteratura italiana del Cinquecento focusing on the literary culture of Renaissance classicism, the dominant cultural model in early modern courtly and aristocratic society.

Books

• Commedia e civiltà. Dinamiche anticonflittuali nella letteratura italiana del Cinquecento (Ravenna: Longo Editore, 2022). 142 pp. Winner of the 2022 American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI) Book Award in the category of “Literary, Critical Theory, and Cultural Studies.”
• Lodovico Castelvetro. Parere sopra una comedia di Aristophano et sopra ciascuna di Plauto. Ed. critica a cura di Massimo Scalabrini (Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 2015). 126 pp. Winner of the XXXII edition (2016) of the Premio “Letteratura” poesia, narrativa, saggistica (sec. XIV, Saggio edito) awarded by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura of Naples (Italy) and the journal “Nuove Lettere.”
• Folengo in America, Ed. Massimo Scalabrini (Ravenna: Longo, 2012), 216 pp.
• L’incarnazione del macaronico: Percorsi nel comico folenghiano (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003). 190 pp.

Articles

• “Comicità e vanto nella letteratura rusticale e nenciale.” Giornale storico della letteratura italiana CLXXXVII (2010): 530-542.
• “Pastoral Postures: Some Renaissance Versions of Pastoral.” (with Davide Stimilli). Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance LXXI/1 (2009): 35-60.
• “Esempi di onomastica comica tra Boccaccio e Ariosto.” Strumenti critici XXIV/1 (2009): 55-68.
• “The Peasant and the Monster in the Macaronic Works of Teofilo Folengo.” MLN 123/1 (2008): 179-191.
• “Città e campagna nel macaronico folenghiano: Una lettura di Baldus VI 67-229.” Esperienze letterarie XXXI/3 (2006): 43-60.
• “Gli amori ridicoli dell’eroicomico: Tassoni e la storia di Lucrezia.” MLN 120/1 (2005): 223-238.
• “‘Il piggiore uomo forse che mai nascesse’: La novella di ser Ciappelletto e la poetica del comico.” Italian Quarterly XLI/159-160 (2004): 55-60.
• “Un inedito travestimento secentesco del Baldus.” Rivista di letteratura italiana XIX/1 (2001): 173-179.
• “Umanesimo e anti-umanesimo in Giovanni Della Casa.” Schede umanistiche ns 1999, 1: 81-96.

• The Pen and the Sword: Literature and Power in Early Modern Europe
• The Cultures of the Italian Renaissance
• Laughter, Humor and Wit in the Italian Renaissance
• Masterpieces of Italian Literature I and II
• Italian Short Stories: From the Middle Ages to the Present
• Forms of Civility in the Italian Renaissance
• Teorie e pratiche del classicismo rinascimentale
• Teorie e pratiche dell’anticlassicismo rinascimentale
• The Italian Erudite Comedy
• Macaronico e ‘altro’ Rinascimento
• Ariosto and Folengo
• Categorie dell’eroico e dell’eroicomico
• ‘High’ and ‘Low’ in Italian Renaissance Literature
• What is Italian Pastoral? Pastoral Tradition and Italian Renaissance
• Renaissance Humanism

• 2022 American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI) Book Award in the category of “Literary, Critical Theory, and Cultural Studies” for the book Commedia e civiltà: Dinamiche anticonflittuali nella letteratura italiana del Cinquecento (Ravenna: Longo, 2022).
• Premio “Letteratura” poesia, narrativa, saggistica (sec. XIV, Saggio edito), awarded by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura of Naples (Italy) and the journal “Nuove Lettere,” for Lodovico Castelvetro, Parere sopra una comedia di Aristophano et sopra ciascuna di Plauto. Ed. critica a cura di Massimo Scalabrini (Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 2015), XXXII edition (2016)
• Trustees Teaching Award, Indiana University – Bloomington, 2001-02, 2009-10, 2013-14
• Lester J. Cappon Fellowship in Documentary Editing, The Newberry Library, 1-6/2006
• Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, Indiana University - Bloomington, 2004-05
• College Arts and Humanities Institute Fellowship (one course release), Indiana University – Bloomington, 2004-05
• James Phillip Holland Award for Exemplary Teaching, Indiana University – Bloomington, 2002-03
• Sterling Prize Fellowship, Yale University, 1992-94
• Baltz-Seronde Fellowship, Yale University, 1992-94
• University of Bologna Graduate Student Exchange Award, Indiana University - Bloomington, 1991-92
• Erasmus Scholarship, Pembroke College, Oxford - The European Union, 4-7/1989