Italian Studies
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Associate Professor Eva Del Soldato Selected as Recipient of 2025-26 Rome Prize
Associate Professor Eva Del Soldato (Italian Studies) is among 35 recipients of the 2025-26 Rome Prize, awarded by the American Academy in Rome to support innovative fellows in the arts, humanities, and sciences.
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Congratulations! Massimiliano Lorenzon's Successful Dissertation Defense
We are delighted to share that Massimiliano Lorenzon successfully defended his dissertation, titled "Teaching and Learning the Italian Vernacular in Sixteenth-Century Western Europe: Pedagogy, Texts, and Practices," on Thursday, April 17. Congratulations, Massimili
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Congratulations! Deion Dresser's Successful Dissertation Defense
We are delighted to share that Deion Dresser successfully defended his dissertation, titled "Rebirth of Maternal Ethics: Italian Feminist Thought from Sexual Difference to Affirmative Biopolitics," on Wednesday, April 16. Congratulations, Deion!
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Anne Bolt, Phi Beta Kappa!
Congratulations to Anne Bolt, a Penn Italian Studies Major, for being inducted into Phi Beta Kappa in 2025! The Phi Beta Kappa Society honors exceptional scholarly achievement in the liberal arts and sciences.
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Congratulations to Deion Dresser, finalist in the 2025 Penn Grad Talks
FIGS Italian Studies PhD student Deion Dresser is a finalist for the annual Penn Grad Talks! Please support his work by attending the TED Talk-style presentations on Friday, February 24 at Widener Lecture Hall, Penn Museum.
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In memory of Will Noel
Will Noel, John T. Maltsberger III '55 Associate University Librarian for Special Collections at Princeton, and former Director of the Kislak Center and the Schoenberg Institute at Penn, passed away on April 30th.
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Dr. Juliette Bellacosa
On April 19th, 2024, our Ph.D. Candidate Juliette Bellacosa defended her dissertation titled “Through the Eyes of the Beholder: Peter Greenaway’s Resurrection of the Italian Renaissance.” Congratulations, Doctor Bellacosa!
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Dr. Giulio Genovese
On February 2, 2024, our Ph.D. Candidate Giulio Genovese defended his dissertation titled "A militant Dante: sociopolitical uses of the Sommo Poeta in post-1968 Italy." Congratulations, Doctor Genovese!
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Congratulations to Julia Heim on her new edited volume: Spaghetti Sissies: Queering Italian American Media (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023)
Congratulations to Julia Heim, whose new co-edited volume has just appeared! Through consistent filmic representation, the image of Italian Americans has become a set of immediately recognizable characters: the hyper-macho blue-collar greaser, the anti-intellectual GTL Guido, the child-obsessed mamm Read More -
Dr. Tommaso De Robertis
On July 11, 2023, our Ph.D. Candidate Tommaso De Robertis defended his dissertation titled "The sense of smell in the Renaissance: Philosophical and medical discussions in Italy (ca 1450–1600)." Congratulations, Doctor De Robertis! Read More
Italian Studies at Penn embraces research and teaching concerning agents, people and institutions--with related linguistic, intellectual and artistic objects and media--mostly originating from Italian-speaking geographical areas and featuring relationships with the Italian language, its dialects, and the Latinate tradition, from the Medieval period to today.