Giulio Genovese.

Italian Studies · Dante and his afterlives

Giulio
Genovese

I am a Visiting Assistant Professor of Italian at John Carroll University, in the Department of Ancient and Modern Languages and Cultures, where I lead the Italian section and collaborate with the Sabo Center for Languages and Cultures. My work ranges from Dante Studies and the transnational afterlives of his poem to twentieth-century women's writing.

I received my PhD in Italian Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, with a dissertation on Dante's afterlives in post-1968 Italy. Before coming to John Carroll, I taught at Bryn Mawr College and The Pennsylvania State University, after earlier degrees at the Università della Svizzera italiana, in Lugano, and the University of Bologna.

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Portrait of Giulio Genovese

Contact

Research interests

  • Dante & the reception of the Commedia
  • The Purgatorio: florilegia & authorship
  • Political & queer appropriations after 1968
  • Twentieth- & twenty-first-century women writers
  • Reception · adaptation · intermediality

Education

  • PhD, Italian Studies — Univ. of Pennsylvania, 2024
  • MA — Università della Svizzera italiana, Lugano, 2017
  • BA, Lettere moderne — Univ. of Bologna, 2015

I Research

The long life of a poem

My research follows the afterlives of Dante's Commedia — the ways the poem has been read, excerpted, rewritten, and reimagined long after the Middle Ages. My first book, A Militant Dante: Sociopolitical Uses of the Sommo Poeta in Post-1968 Italy, traces how Italian poets, filmmakers, and activists turned Dante into a political and countercultural weapon during the anni di piombo and the years of gay liberation, drawing on archival and underground materials of the period.

I also work on the medieval Dante, and above all on the Purgatorio: on the florilegia that carried his verses to early readers, and on the idea of authorship that Dante fashions across the second cantica, where the poet stages his own making as he climbs the mountain.

A third strand of my work turns to twentieth- and twenty-first-century women writers — among them Goliarda Sapienza and Elena Ferrante — and to the questions of gender, authorship, and tradition their writing raises.

Book projects

  • A Militant Dante
    Sociopolitical Uses of the Sommo Poeta in Post-1968 Italy — monograph in progress.
  • A Hundred Years of Goliarda Sapienza (1924–2024)
    Co-edited with Beatrice Basile. New York: Peter Lang — forthcoming, December 2026.

II Publications

Selected writing

Books

  • A Hundred Years of Goliarda Sapienza (1924–2024). Co-edited with Beatrice Basile. New York: Peter Lang. Forthcoming 2026
  • A Militant Dante: Sociopolitical Uses of the Sommo Poeta in Post-1968 Italy. In progress

Articles in peer-reviewed journals

  • 2026“Gli anni di Porpora. Raccontare e raccontarsi.” NeMLA Italian Studies, special issue (forthcoming).
  • 2024“Dante Underground: Queer Militancy and the Sommo Poeta (1972–1982).” Dante Studies 142: 67–83.
  • 2024“Leonardo Sciascia and Elio Petri's Todo Modo: Intersemiotic Uses of Dante during the anni di piombo.” Immagine. Note di storia del cinema 24: 45–62.
  • 2023“La Commedia in giallo: tre esempi di riscritture dantesche.” Perspectives médiévales 44. Read online →

Chapters in books

  • 2027“No Women in Heaven: Monique Wittig's Overturning of Dante's Commedia in Virgile, non (1985).” In The Routledge Companion to Dante, ed. Elizabeth Coggeshall and Alyssa Granacki (forthcoming).
  • 2025“Dantismi queer nella letteratura americana contemporanea.” In La mondializzazione di Dante II: Le aree extraeuropee, 115–125. Ravenna: Angelo Longo Editore.
  • 2022“Convergence Culture: Marco Martinelli and Ermanna Montanari's Staging of Dante.” In La mondializzazione di Dante I: Europa, 179–190. Ravenna: Angelo Longo Editore.
  • 2021“Hidden Authoriality in Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels.” In Ferrante Unframed: Authorship, Reception and Feminist Praxis in the Works of Elena Ferrante, 89–100. Florence: Società editrice Fiorentina.

Reviews & other

  • 2019“Staging Dante Today: A Three-Day Residency of Teatro delle Albe at the University of Pennsylvania.” Bibliotheca Dantesca 2: 161–167.
  • 2026Review of K. P. Clarke, Dante's Divine Comedy: A Reading Guide. Italian Modern Language Notes 141: 255–257.
  • 2024Review of La vita bugiarda degli adulti / The Lying Life of Adults (dir. Edoardo De Angelis). gender/sexuality/Italy 10: 210–212.
  • 2020Review of Alberto Casadei, Dante. Storia avventurosa della Divina Commedia. Bibliotheca Dantesca 3: 186–188.

III Teaching

Reading the present through the past

I teach across the Italian curriculum, from beginning language to advanced seminars. My content courses seek to open questions about identity and belonging, and let students read the present through the past, and the past through the present.

Selected courses

  • Buon Appetito: Food, Culture and Justice in ItalyJohn Carroll
  • What the Hell? Dante ReimaginedBryn Mawr
  • Tales of Love and Mischief: Boccaccio & Marguerite de NavarreBryn Mawr
  • Italian Society in FilmsBryn Mawr

I have also taught Italian language at every level at the University of Pennsylvania, Bryn Mawr College, Penn State, and John Carroll. Full teaching history in my CV.

Curriculum Vitae

Updated August 2026 · employment, education, publications, talks, teaching & service.

Download CV (PDF)

IV Contact

Get in touch

I'm always glad to hear from students, colleagues, and collaborators.

ggenovese@jcu.edu

John Carroll University · Department of Ancient and Modern Languages and Cultures
Cleveland, Ohio