Cultural and Intellectual History
Faculty research at the intersections of cultural and intellectual history spans time periods, societies, genres, media, and languages. It includes the study of philosophical, religious, social, political, and scientific thought, of literature, arts, visual culture, beliefs, and ideas – in their complexity, interconnectedness, and dynamics. We explore the links between idea systems and social contexts, individuals and groups, and modes and forms of intellectual and artistic expression. The issues of cultural transmission, adoption, adjustment, change, and innovation are in the foreground of our research interests.
Early modern European culture; translation studies; history of Italian theatre and performance; the relationship between fact and fictionFabio Battista
Assistant Professor of Italian
Literature and Culture, film, visual Arts, memory and trauma, Spanish Civil War, women writers, cultural studies, Transatlantic studies, and gender studiesAna Corbalán
Professor of Spanish
Safa Elnaili
Associate Professor of Arabic, Director of Arabic ProgramLibyan literature, literary translation, folktales, the Arabian Nights, stylistics analysis, critical discourse analysis
Medieval and early modern literature and theater; gender and women’s writing; literary representations of military-historical events; spectacle and performance; print and manuscript history; prophecy and eschatology; rhetoric; intersections of Italian, Spanish, and French cultural production Jessica Goethals
Associate Professor of Italian
Yunuen Gómez-Ocampo
Instructor of Spanish
Latin American, Latinx & Caribbean Studies, migration and Border Studies, gender studies, women writers, testimonial genres, translation studies, literary publishing
Xabier Granja
Associate Professor of Spanish, Spanish Undergraduate Director
Gender studies, women writers, Early Modernity, social justice, hegemony and power, queer theory
Alessandro Martina
Instructor of Italian20th Century Italian history and literature, political history, memory studies, translation and translation theory, representations of Italian language and history in international mediaAnnemarie Lisko
Instructor of Italian
Ancient Greek and Latin poetics, animal studies and posthumanism, mythology and folklore, Hellenistic and Roman epic and didactic, Classical receptionColin MacCormack
Instructor of Classics
Yuliya Minets
Associate Professor of Classics
Late Antiquity; Early Christianity; Byzantine Studies; Syriac Studies; Coptic Studies; Languages and identities in the ancient Mediterranean
Alessandra Montalbano
Associate Professor of Italian
Modern and contemporary Italian literature, culture, philosophy, and history, literary criticism, aesthetics, phenomenology, and gender and trauma studies
Jean Luc Robin
Associate Professor of French, Director of French Undergraduate Studies17th-Century Literature & Thought: Descartes, French classical literature and scientific revolution, Molière
Ignacio F. Rodeño
Professor of SpanishUS Latina/o, Caribbean, and Mexican literatures and cultures; Hispanic autobiography and narratives of the self; literary theory, and transatlantic studies
Claudia Romanelli
Associate Professor of Italian, Italian Program Director, Italian Undergraduate Advisor
Italian cinema in a transnational context, film history and theory, screenwriting practices, international co-productions, collaborative authorship, contemporary Italian literature, postcolonial studies, mixed- and intermedia
April Stevens
Assistant Professor of French; Faculty Advisor, Cercle Français; French Language Program DirectorKirk M. Summers
Professor of Classics; Director, Classics ProgramReformation (especially the Reformed/Calvinist movement), Neo-Latin, Roman religion, Lucretius, and Cicero
Women and democracy, women and antiquity, gender studies, epic poetry, Greek tragedyTatiana Tsakiropoulou-Summers
Associate Professor of Classics
African women’s writing (Central Africa and Mali), Arab women writers, feminisms, cultural studies, sociolinguistics, immigrationCheryl Toman
Department Chair, Professor of French
K. Maxime Vignon
Assistant Professor of French, Coordinator of Affairs for African and International Graduate Students in French
Linguistics, Francophone studies, international trade, geopolitics, second language acquisition