Dr Claudia Dellacasa

  • Lecturer (Italian) (Italian)

Biography

Before working at the University of Glasgow as a Lecturer in Italian, I was an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow at University College Dublin (School of English, Drama and Film), working on a project titled 'Intersectional Eco-Polyphony: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Species Dialogues in Contemporary Women's Writing'. At UCD, I was an active member of the Environmental Humanities research strand. Earlier on, I taught between the Romance Seminar and the International Literatures area at the University of Tübingen (DE), and in the Department of English and American Studies at Augsburg University (DE), with a focus on ecocriticism and post-humanism.

I obtained my PhD at Durham University (UK), with a project on the contact between Italian author Italo Calvino and Japanese culture in the late 1970s, which I read as the epitome of Calvino’s gradual relativisation of Eurocentrism, logocentrism, and anthropocentrism. My thesis was awarded the British-Italian Society Postgraduate Prize in 2021. In the context of this research, in 2019 I spent 3 months at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) in Kyoto.

My MA thesis in Italian Linguistics investigated the linguistic structure of Calvino’s novel Il barone rampante. My previous BA thesis was also a linguistic work, which approached Calvino’s Le città invisibili with the tools of a lexical, syntactical, and structural comment. During both my MA (in Modern Philology) and BA (in Modern Literature), I was based at La Sapienza University of Rome.

I am an editor of the literary magazine La Balena Bianca and an Honorary Fellow in the Durham Centre for Culture and Ecology. I represented postgraduate students in the Modern Humanities Research Association between 2018 and 2019, in which context I was editor of the peer-reviewed journal MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities. I am also co-founder of Notes in Italian Studies, an online open-access journal funded by the Society for Italian Studies, and EDI representative for the SIS.

Research interests

My current research is in the field of the environmental humanities, focusing on Italian and Anglophone texts that gesture towards what I define an ‘intersectional eco-polyphony’ – an understanding of experimental poems and eco-fictions where the categories of species, cultural, and gender identities are mutually constitutive, and where this mutuality is reflected in the very form of the texts. Most of the authors I am currently working on share an interest or are actively involved in Buddhism.

Both in my research and in my teaching, I work at the intersection of Italian Studies and Comparative Literature. My PhD project, on which my first monograph is based (Italo Calvino and Japan: A Journey through the Shallow Depths of Signs, Legenda 2024), explores Italo Calvino’s fascination with Japanese literature and Zen Buddhism. This is the first study to restore to the Italian author’s writing the dynamics of East-West dialogues, addressing Japanese gardens and temples, but also literary and artistic expressions, as the spaces through which Calvino developed a landmark feature of his distinctive cultural ecology: a renewed awareness of the interdependency between human and other-than-human forms of life and communication.

My main research interests are:
- modern and contemporary Italian literature
- comparative literature, philosophy, and spirituality
- East-West dialogues
- material ecocriticism and biosemiotics
- eco-feminism and post-colonial ecocriticism

 

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018
Number of items: 16.

2024

Dellacasa, C. (2024) Italo Calvino and Japan: A Journey through the Shallow Depths of Signs. Series: Italian perspectives, 62. Legenda: Cambridge. ISBN 9781839543012 (doi: 10.59860/ip.b7cf54a)

Dellacasa, C. (2024) The voice of vibrant matter: eco-polyphony in Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being. ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, (doi: 10.1093/isle/isae007) (Early Online Publication)

Dellacasa, C. (2024) Chandra Livia Candiani’s Buddhism: crossing cultural and species boundaries to become a co-dividual. Italian Studies, 79(1), pp. 34-46. (doi: 10.1080/00751634.2024.2317613)

2023

Cervelli, F. and Dellacasa, C. (2023) Invisible cities in Japan: fluid resonances in architecture and literature. In: Baldi, E. and Schwartz, C. (eds.) Circulation, Translation and Reception Across Borders: Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities Around the World. Routledge: New York, pp. 211-227. ISBN 9781032277653 (doi: 10.4324/9781003293996-14)

Dellacasa, C. and Saporito, P. (2023) Introduction: cross-cultural articulations of Italian ecocriticism. Italianist, 43(3), pp. 361-371. (doi: 10.1080/02614340.2023.2273106)

Saporito, P. and Dellacasa, C. (2023) Più forti dell'acciaio: un'intervista con Chiara Sambuchi = Stronger than steel: an interview with Chiara Sambuchi. Italianist, 43(3), pp. 468-477. (doi: 10.1080/02614340.2023.2236369)

Dellacasa, C. (2023) Antonia Pozzi’s and Nan Shepherd’s mountains: a matter of affect. Italianist, 43(3), pp. 423-438. (doi: 10.1080/02614340.2023.2179782)

Dellacasa, C. (2023) The Author in Criticism: Italo Calvino’s Authorial Image in Italy, the United States, and the United Kingdom, by Elio Attilio Baldi, Madison and Teaneck, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2020, 297 pp., £33 (paperback), ISBN 9781683931911. Italian Studies, 78(2), pp. 249-250. (doi: 10.1080/00751634.2023.2221136)[Book Review]

Dellacasa, C. (2023) Calvino and Japanese gardens: a ‘trajectivity’ between the human and more-than-human. Italian Studies, 78(2), pp. 228-241. (doi: 10.1080/00751634.2023.2217596)

2022

Dellacasa, C. (2022) Zen as everyday praxis: a way out of Italo Calvino's neurosis. Journal of Romance Studies, 22(1), pp. 1-28. (doi: 10.3828/jrs.2022.1)

2021

Cataldi, B. R., Dellacasa, C. and Hughes, L. (2021) Italy at work: representations of labour in Italian culture. Notes in Italian Studies, 1, pp. 5-8.

2020

Dellacasa, C. (2020) Italo Calvino in Japan, Japan in Italo Calvino. In: Zhang, G. and Mignone, M. (eds.) Exchanges and Parallels between Italy and East Asia. Cambridge Scholars Publishing: Newcastle upon Tyne, pp. 61-79. ISBN 9781527542495

2019

Dellacasa, C. and McIntyre, H. (2019) Introduction: reframing exoticism in European literature. MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities, 14, pp. 1-8. (doi: 10.59860/wph.i697196)

Dellacasa, C. (2019) La lingua degli alberi = The language in the trees. Bollettino di italianistica = Bulletin of Italian Studies, 1, pp. 127-139. (doi: 10.7367/93490)

Dellacasa, C. (2019) Italo Calvino in Giappone: Mille giardini verso il vuoto = Italo Calvino in Japan: A thousand gardens towards the void. 立命館言語文化研究 = Ritsumeikan Studies in Language and Culture, 31(2), pp. 93-123.

2018

Dellacasa, C. and Gudmunsen, D. (2018) Introduction: the sacred in the secular in European literature. MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities, 13, pp. 1-10.

This list was generated on Thu Oct 3 18:06:50 2024 BST.
Number of items: 16.

Articles

Dellacasa, C. (2024) The voice of vibrant matter: eco-polyphony in Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being. ISLE: Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment, (doi: 10.1093/isle/isae007) (Early Online Publication)

Dellacasa, C. (2024) Chandra Livia Candiani’s Buddhism: crossing cultural and species boundaries to become a co-dividual. Italian Studies, 79(1), pp. 34-46. (doi: 10.1080/00751634.2024.2317613)

Dellacasa, C. and Saporito, P. (2023) Introduction: cross-cultural articulations of Italian ecocriticism. Italianist, 43(3), pp. 361-371. (doi: 10.1080/02614340.2023.2273106)

Saporito, P. and Dellacasa, C. (2023) Più forti dell'acciaio: un'intervista con Chiara Sambuchi = Stronger than steel: an interview with Chiara Sambuchi. Italianist, 43(3), pp. 468-477. (doi: 10.1080/02614340.2023.2236369)

Dellacasa, C. (2023) Antonia Pozzi’s and Nan Shepherd’s mountains: a matter of affect. Italianist, 43(3), pp. 423-438. (doi: 10.1080/02614340.2023.2179782)

Dellacasa, C. (2023) Calvino and Japanese gardens: a ‘trajectivity’ between the human and more-than-human. Italian Studies, 78(2), pp. 228-241. (doi: 10.1080/00751634.2023.2217596)

Dellacasa, C. (2022) Zen as everyday praxis: a way out of Italo Calvino's neurosis. Journal of Romance Studies, 22(1), pp. 1-28. (doi: 10.3828/jrs.2022.1)

Cataldi, B. R., Dellacasa, C. and Hughes, L. (2021) Italy at work: representations of labour in Italian culture. Notes in Italian Studies, 1, pp. 5-8.

Dellacasa, C. and McIntyre, H. (2019) Introduction: reframing exoticism in European literature. MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities, 14, pp. 1-8. (doi: 10.59860/wph.i697196)

Dellacasa, C. (2019) La lingua degli alberi = The language in the trees. Bollettino di italianistica = Bulletin of Italian Studies, 1, pp. 127-139. (doi: 10.7367/93490)

Dellacasa, C. (2019) Italo Calvino in Giappone: Mille giardini verso il vuoto = Italo Calvino in Japan: A thousand gardens towards the void. 立命館言語文化研究 = Ritsumeikan Studies in Language and Culture, 31(2), pp. 93-123.

Dellacasa, C. and Gudmunsen, D. (2018) Introduction: the sacred in the secular in European literature. MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities, 13, pp. 1-10.

Books

Dellacasa, C. (2024) Italo Calvino and Japan: A Journey through the Shallow Depths of Signs. Series: Italian perspectives, 62. Legenda: Cambridge. ISBN 9781839543012 (doi: 10.59860/ip.b7cf54a)

Book Sections

Cervelli, F. and Dellacasa, C. (2023) Invisible cities in Japan: fluid resonances in architecture and literature. In: Baldi, E. and Schwartz, C. (eds.) Circulation, Translation and Reception Across Borders: Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities Around the World. Routledge: New York, pp. 211-227. ISBN 9781032277653 (doi: 10.4324/9781003293996-14)

Dellacasa, C. (2020) Italo Calvino in Japan, Japan in Italo Calvino. In: Zhang, G. and Mignone, M. (eds.) Exchanges and Parallels between Italy and East Asia. Cambridge Scholars Publishing: Newcastle upon Tyne, pp. 61-79. ISBN 9781527542495

Book Reviews

Dellacasa, C. (2023) The Author in Criticism: Italo Calvino’s Authorial Image in Italy, the United States, and the United Kingdom, by Elio Attilio Baldi, Madison and Teaneck, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2020, 297 pp., £33 (paperback), ISBN 9781683931911. Italian Studies, 78(2), pp. 249-250. (doi: 10.1080/00751634.2023.2221136)[Book Review]

This list was generated on Thu Oct 3 18:06:50 2024 BST.

Grants

2022 – 2024

Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship 

Irish Research Council, Dublin (IE).

2021 – 2022

Teach@Tübingen Postdoctoral Fellowship 

University of Tübingen, Tübingen (DE).

2019

AHRC International Placement Scheme 

International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken), Kyōto (JP).

2017 – 2021

AHRC Northern Bridge 

Fully funded doctoral studentship. Durham University (UK).

Supervision

I am interested in receiving proposals for BA/MA dissertations and PhD research projects in the following areas:

- modern and contemporary Italian literature 

- critical studies of the Italian environment (in connection with plant studies, animal studies, ecofeminism, environmentalism of the poor, ecological conflicts)

- comparative readings of Italian and Asian traditions

 

Teaching

After delivering classes in Italian literature and language across the degree programme at Durham, where I obtained the Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy in 2021, I designed and coordinated modules in the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Tübingen (International Literatures and Italian), for both BA and MA students, focusing on ecocriticism and posthumanism. These include the module ‘Representing Human Absence. A Cross-Cultural Approach to Italian Literature and Art beyond the Human’, which addressed Italian narrative, poetic, pictorial and photographic traditions from the nineteenth century onwards, in conversation with works from the English, American, French, German, Russian, and Japanese traditions. In 2021/2022, for the MA in American Studies at the University of Augsburg, I also designed and convened a module entitled ‘Dialogues beyond the Human’, which applied material, post-colonial, and feminist ecocriticism to relevant books from the contemporary scene of environmental writing.

Professional activities & recognition

Prizes, awards & distinctions

  • 2020: Durham University Student Achievement Award (Durham University)
  • 2021: Best PhD thesis in Italian Studies in the UK and Ireland (British-Italian Society)
  • 2022: Top-ranked postdoctoral scholar in the domain of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (Government of Ireland Maurice J. Bric Medal of Excellence)
  • 2023: Emerging Researcher Award (University College Dublin Earth Institute)

Research fellowships

  • 2017 - 2021: Arts and Humanities Research Council Northern Bridge
  • 2019 - 2019: Arts and Humanities Research Council International Placement Scheme
  • 2021 - 2022: Teach@Tübingen Postdoctoral Fellowship
  • 2022 - 2024: Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship
  • 2023 - 2023: Fondazione Cini - Centro Vittore Branca Residential Fellowship

Editorial boards

  • 2018 - 2019: Modern Humanities Research Association Working Papers in the Humanities
  • 2020 - 2022: Notes in Italian Studies

Professional & learned societies

  • 2018 - 2019: Postgraduate representative, Modern Humanities Research Association
  • 2023: EDI representative, Society for Italian Studies