News & Events

Professor Akash Kumar is a scholar of medieval Italian literature. He specifically focuses on the history of science and philosophy, Mediterranean Studies, and digital humanities. Professor Kumar is also a founding member of the Cosmopolitan Italies Collective; a member of the executive committee of the Critical Race, Diasporas, and Migrations Caucus of the American Association of Italian Studies; and has served as a member of the editorial board of Digital Dante.

Lauren Bartone is a PhD student in Italian Studies with a designated emphasis in folklore. Her background as a visual artist strongly informs her approach to studying Italian culture. Before joining the Department of Italian Studies at Berkeley, she completed a B.A. in Fine Art at UCLA, followed by an M.A. in Education at UC Berkeley, and an M.F.A. at Vermont College of Fine Arts.

A Berkeley EECS alumna who studies Italian while completing her M.S., Asli Akalin, has been featured on the Arts and Humanities website as part of the campaign to celebrate language learning at Berkeley. The accompanying banners for this campaign will be placed on light posts across campus this semester.

Yuqi Tian majored in Italian Studies, Geography, Comparative Literature with minors in Gender & Women's Studies and a Certificate in New Media. She was part of the campus-wide campaign to celebrate multi-lingualism and language learning on the UC Berkeley Campus from 2023-2025. This short interview reveals Yuqi's love for Italian Studies and language learning. 

Why settle for just learning Italian or cooking Italian food while you can do that at the same time?

Complimenti to Cristina Farronato on being awarded a BLC Fellowship for Spring 2024!

Congratulations to Mariagrazia De Luca on being awarded a Daniel E. Koshland Jr. Fellowship in the Art of Teaching Writing!

Complimenti to Cristina Farronato for her simultaneous interpretation of groundbreaking writer and filmmaker Antonio Dikele Distefano’s remarks after a screening of his new film Autumn Beat at the SF Italian Cultural Institute’s celebration of Black Italian arts and cultures.

Congratulations to doctoral candidate Michele Segretario who has won the 2022 Italian American Studies Association Annual Memorial Fellowship Award for his dissertation-in-progress, titled “The Traveling Soundscape – An Acoustic Ethnography of the Italian Migration.” The award is offered to “the author of the year’s outstanding doctoral dissertation or masters thesis proposal or project in Italian American and Italian Diaspora Studies.”

Please join us in congratulating our alumna Elisa Russian, who has accepted a one-year postdoctoral position in the French Department of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland as the recipient of a Swiss Government Excellence Postdoctoral Fellowship!

Annamaria Bellezza has received a 2022 Distinguished Teaching Award for her inspiring and transformational teaching! This award is the campus’s most prestigious honor for teaching and it recognizes teaching that incites intellectual curiosity in students, engages them thoroughly in the enterprise of learning, and has a lifelong impact.

Congratulazioni! The Department of Italian Studies is delighted to announce Professor Henrike C. Lange’spromotion to Associate Professor with tenure. Professor Lange is a scholar of Italian and European medieval and early modern art, architecture, history, visual culture, and literature.

Mia Fuller has been appointed as Gladyce Arata Terrill Distinguished Professor effective July 1, 2020. We add our warm congratulations to the Berkeley chancellor’s on this well-deserved honor, reserved for distinguished faculty members.

Congratulations to Annamaria Bellezza on the publication of her article “Developing Performative Competence and Teacher Artistry: A Pedagogical Imperative in the Multicultural Classroom” in the L2 Journal, Volume 12, Issue 3 (November 2020). Please click here to read the article.

We are very pleased to announce that Dr. Diego Pirillo has received a Barra Foundation Fellowship at the American Philosophical Society’s Library & Museum. These funding opportunities provide 1- to 3- months of support for researchers in residence and are open to scholars in all fields who show a demonstrated need to use the Library & Museum’s collections for their project.

Please click here for more information about the Fellowship and this year’s cohort.