Italian Art Film Culture
My research on Italian cinema centers on film as a site of collaboration, cultural history, and exchange between media. I am especially interested in how films emerge through relationships among directors, writers, artistic traditions, and wider intellectual worlds. I investigate processes of authorship, intermediality, and cultural memory. More broadly, I am drawn to Italian cinema for the way it joins formal richness with larger human and historical questions, making it a particularly vital space for thinking about how images carry meaning across time.
Selected Studies
“The Genesis of Steiner: La dolce vita as Authorial Melting Pot.” Federico Fellini: Centenary Essays. Eds. A. Zambenedetti, J. Whitehead, M. Malvesio. Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 2025. 177-189.
“Perspectives on Tonino Guerra: Interviews with Rebecca West, Federico Pacchioni, Giame Alonge and Goffredo Fofi.” Interviewed by Frank Burke. Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies 11.1 (2023): 77-97.
The Image of the Puppet in Italian Theater, Literature, and Film. Pesaro: Metauro Editore, 2020 / London: Palgrave Macmillan 2022
“Fellini and Esotericism: An Ambiguous Adherence.” Wiley Blackwell Companion to Federico Fellini. Eds. Frank Burke and Marguerite Waller. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2020. 95-108.
“Focus on Film: La strada”. The Total Art: Italian Cinema from Silent Screen to Digital Image Ed. Joseph Luzzi. New York City: Bloomsbury Academic. 2020. 323-328.
A History of Italian Cinema (2nd edition). New York/London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017 (Co-authored with Peter Bondanella).
“‘È la vita anche la morte’ Il Purgatorio astrale del Mastorna” Fellini and Dante. L’aldilà della visione. Genova: Sagep Editori,2016. 93-97.
“Pasolini a passo di danza: cortocircuiti est(etici) intorno alla figura di Fellini”. Rivista Luci e Ombre. Trimestrale di informazionecinematografica e culturale. 3.3 (April-June 2015). Online journal.
Inspiring Fellini: Literary Collaborations Behind the Scenes. Toronto Italian Studies Series. Toronto: The University of Toronto Press. 2014.
Pier Paolo Pasolini: Prospettive americane. Pesaro, Italy: Metauro Editore, 2015 (Co-edited with Fulvio Orsitto).
“Volgarità e grazia: il cinema di figura di Lina Wertmüller.” L'ANELLO che non tiene: Journal of Modern Italian Literature. 24.12 (Spring-Fall 2012): 147-160.
“Giuseppe Tornatore in viaggio attraverso il padre.” Incontri cinematografici e culturali tra due mondi. Ed. Antonio C. Vitti. Pesaro: Metauro Edizioni, 2012.205-215.
“Intervista a Tullio Pinelli” Italica. 85.2-3 (Summer/Autumn 2009): 311-318.
“Pasolini in North America: A Bibliographical Essay on Scholarship Between 1989 and 2007.” Studi pasoliniani 2 (2008): 139-154.
“Il retro di ‘Happy Country’: il processo Tarnowska e altri frammenti.” Fellini-Amarcord. Rivista di studi felliniani / Fellinian Studies Magazine 1-2 (August 2007): 61-70.
“The American Fanciullino in ‘Happy Country.’” Fellini-Amarcord. Rivista di studi felliniani / Fellinian Studies Magazine 1-2 (October 2006): 15-25.
Selected Speaking Engagements
Presentation of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Il Decameron (1971), part of the series on Early 1970s Italian Cinema in collaboration with the University of Notre Dame and BeBartolo Performing Arts Center. Virtual address at the Browning Cinema, Notre Dame, Indiana, August 31, 2023.
“An Introduction to the Italian Silver Screen”. Virtual address hosted by the Italian Cultural Center of Minneapolis-St. Paul and Ferrari. February 25, 2023.
Interviewed on Italian Cinema by America’s #1 Travel Radio Show, RMWorldTravel with Robert & Mary Carey and Rudy Maxa, “Let’s Go America! Tour – Rome”. October 28, 2022.
“Transhistoricity: Pasolini and the Puppet Metaphor.” One Hundred Years of Pasolini: A Translational Gathering of Critical Voices. Invited panelist at a symposium organized by The George L. Graziadio Center for Italian Studies, California State University - Long Beach. March 4th, 2022.
“Zanzotto, Fellini, Intermediality: a Dialogue with Professor John P. Welle and Professor Federico Pacchioni”. Opening Talk of the Virtual Seminar Series Weaving Media in Modern and Contemporary Italian Poetry organized by Trinity College Dublin in collaboration with Interdisciplinary Italy. February 16, 2022. Virtual.
“The Creative Tools of Cultures: Lessons from Italian Cinema.” The 2021 Michele D. Serra Lecture on Italian Cinema. Florida Atlantic University. Boca Raton, Florida. November 19, 2021.
“Viaggio nel Cinema III: Arthouse Film between Fantasy and Realism” Virtual talk at 12th Italian Film Festival Minneapolis/St. Paul. Hosted by the Italian Cultural Center of Minneapolis/St. Paul and the MSP Film Society. February 27, 2021.
“Viaggio nel Cinema II: Popular Italian Film Genres, the Case of Tragicomedy” Virtual talk at 12th Italian Film Festival Minneapolis/St. Paul. Hosted by the Italian Cultural Center of Minneapolis/St. Paul and the MSP Film Society. February 20, 2021.
“Viaggio nel Cinema I: An Introduction to the Italian Silver Screen.” Virtual talk at 12th Italian Film Festival Minneapolis/St. Paul. Hosted by the Italian Cultural Center of Minneapolis/St. Paul and the MSP Film Society. February 13, 2021.
“Master of Imaginative Synthesis: Federico Fellini at 100.” Virtual panelist. Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles. May 28, 2020.
“The Genesis of Steiner: La dolce vita as Authorial Melting Pot.” Fellini, Italy, Cinema: International Conference on the Centenary of Federico Fellini’s Birth. Hosted by the University of Toronto & Università Roma Tre. Virtual conference. October 16, 2020.
“Youth, Meaning, and Time in Alice Rohrwacher’s Films.” Intersections: The Arts and the Concept of Time. Kent State University in Florence, Italy, May 28-30, 2019.
“A Spiritual Space for New Generations: Alice Rohrwacher, Italy.” PAMLA (Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association). San Diego, California. November 13-16, 2019.
“A Fellinian Ascendant: the Auteur in Contemporary Italian Cinema.” Fellini Today: A Symposium in Honor of Peter Bondanella. Panelist. Indiana University Bloomington. Bloomington. April 18, 2018.
“Poetry in Place: Tonino Guerra's Eclectic Model.” PAMLA (Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association). Bellingham, Washington. November 9-11, 2018.
“Tonino Guerra’s Poetry of Space.” Intersections: The Arts and the Concept of Space. Kent State University in Florence, Italy, May 31-June 1, 2018.
“Weaving Present and Past in Contemporary Italian Film Drama.” Intersections: Italy in Music, Art, Literature, and Cinema. Kent State University in Florence, Italy. May 31-June 1, 2017.
“The Theatricality of Profession in Matteo Garrone’s Cinema.” PAMLA (Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association). Honolulu, Hawaii. November, 10-12, 2017.
“Unscripting the Script: Fellini’s Quest for Visual Poetry.” Talk. Spalding University, Master of Fine Arts in Writing, Residency Program. Rome, Italy. July 5, 2016.
“Mia Madre by Nanni Moretti”. Panelist at Reel Talk with critic Stephen Farber, Landmarks Theaters, Los Angeles, March 21, 2016.
“È la vita anche la morte”: il purgatorio astrale del Mastorna” Talk at Fellini & Dante. L’aldilà della visione. Convegno internazionale di studi. Biblioteca Classense, Ravenna, 29-30 maggio, 2015.
“Tra poesia e politica: i burattini in Novecento di Bertolucci” The Sixth Annual Film Symposium on New Trends in Modern and Contemporary Italian Cinema. Indiana University Bloomington. April 22-25, 2015.
Keynote Speaker at the Italian American Lawyers Association of Los Angeles meeting. “Thinking Italianess: Images and Patterns.” Casa Italiana, Los Angeles, California. August 27, 2014.
“Mapping the Authorial Genesis of Fellini’s Cinema.” Talk. Colgate University, Hamilton, New York. January 31, 2012.
“Italian American Film and the Sicilian Puppet.” Italy in the Age of Globalization. California State University, Chico. October 22-23, 2012.
“Pirandello and the Philosophic Eye of Cinema.” MLA (Modern Language Association) Annual Convention, Seattle, Washington. January 6, 2012.