PhD in Italian Studies, Brown University (2020) 

MA in Italian Studies, Florida State University (2014) 

Laurea in Filologia Moderna, University of Pavia (2012)

I am a literary historian specializing in Italian language and culture, travel literature, Holocaust studies, digital humanities and GIS applications for cultural studies. My doctoral research focused on the impact of the Holocaust in postwar culture. I’m also interested in the relevance of Holocaust memory in a global age marked by resurgences of ethnic hatred, state-sanctioned violence, religious and political persecution. In the field of medieval and early modern studies I’ve been researching on travel narratives connecting Europe and Asia – especially, but not only, Marco Polo – and the use of digital technologies in literary and historical analysis. I am working on a digital mapping of Marco Polo’s narrative, www.mappingpolo.com, and serve as digital editor and contributor for the website of the Association of Italian Teachers in China, www.aiilic.com. 

Before joining Wenzhou-Kean, I have been working at Guangzhou Maritime University, the Society of Fellows at SUSTech – the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen – and conducted research at the University of Pavia, Trinity College Dublin. University of Cambridge, Brown University, Hamburg Universität. Working languages: Italian, English, French. Learning German, Chinese and a bit of Spanish. 

My research is mainly oriented towards Italian language and literature, travel literature across Europe and Asia, digital humanities and Holocaust studies, with a broader interest in global history and use of digital technologies – particularly web design – in teaching.

Digital Projects 

• Mapping Polo. A Georeferenced Map of the Divisament dou Monde, www.mappingpolo.com  

Edited Volumes 

• T. Pepe and A. Sartori (eds), Perspectives on Italian Difference, Italian Differences in Perspectives. Selected Papers of Chiasmi, Harvard-Brown Graduate Conference in Italian Studies, Providence: Brown University Center for Digital Scholarship, 2018. 

Peer Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters 

1. Stephanie Neu-Wendel, Maria Zannini, Daniele Comberiati, Tommaso Pepe, "Verdrängung, Neuverhandlung, Institutionalisierung: Funktion und Wandel der Erinnerungsforschung und der Erinnerungskulturen in Italien" [Repression, Renegotiation, Institutionalization: Function and Change of Remembrance Research and Cultures of Remembrance in Italy], Romanische Forschungen, 135(3/4), December 2023, pp. 389-422. 

2. "Puovoirs de l'horreur. Curzio Malaparte, Julia Kristeva e le scritture dell'abiezione" [Powers of Horror: Curzio Malaparte, Julia Kristeva and the Writing of Abjection], in Curzio Malaparte e la cultura europea. Cartografia dei palinsesti letterari, ed. by Maria Pia De Paulis, Florence: Franco Cesati, 2022, pp. 375-392. 

3. 'Le parole inascoltate. Primo Levi, Giacomo Debenedetti e la difficile memoria della Shoah nell'Italia del dopoguerra' [The Unlistened Words: Primo Levi, Giacomo Debenedetti, and the Difficult Memory of the Shoah in Postwar Italy], Ritsumeikan Studies in Language and Culture, 33(2), Novembre 2021, pp. 155-170. 

4. “«Uno carnefice, l’altro vittima». Abstention from Existence and De-/Articulations of the Victim-Perpetrator Symmetry in The Novel of Ferrara by Giorgio Bassani”, Horizonte. Italianistische Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaft und Gegenwartsliteratur, 5, 2020, 112-139. 

5. “Holocaust autofiction? Il Kaputt/כפרות di Curzio Malaparte” ['Holocaust autofiction? Curzio Malaparte’s Kaputt/כפרות], in Elena Pirvu (ed.) Lingua e letteratura italiana nel presente e nella storia, Florence: Franco Cesati, 2020, 498-508. 

6. “Le «città proibite» di Curzio Malaparte e Alceo Valcini: narrazioni, diffrazioni e rinegoziazioni letterarie del ghetto di Varsavia in due scrittori italiani del dopoguerra [Curzio Malaparte and Alceo Valcini’s “Forbidden Cities”: Narratives, Diffractions and Literary Re-Negotations of the Warsaw Ghetto in Two Italian Postwar Writers], Laboratoire Italien, 24, 2020. 

7. “Quasimodo and the Spiritualization of Cruelty, Saba’s Uncanny «Shortcuts», Montale’s Grotesque Imaginary: The Multiple Genealogies of Italian Poetry on the Jewish Genocide”, Enthymema. International Journal of Literary Criticism, XXIII, 2019, 139-156. 

8. “Difference in Perspectives/Hybrid Perspectives. An Introduction”, in Perspectives on Italian Difference, Italian Differences in Perspectives. Providence: Brown University Center for Digital Scholarship, 2018, 1-10 (co-authored with Andrea Sartori). 

9. “«The Persecution Continues»: Giacomo Debenedetti, Giorgio Bassani and a Counter-Memory of the Shoah in Postwar Italy”, Horizonte. Italienische Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaft und Gegenwartsliteratur, 3, 2018, 78-114. 

10. “Impossible Visions: Transpositions of Holocaust Cinema in Hotel Rwanda and S-21, the Khmer Rouge Killing Machine” in Yves-Antoine Clemmen, Margit Grieb, Will Lehman (eds.), Essays in World Languages and Literature: Stereotypes and the Challenges of Representation, Boca Raton, FL: Brown Walker Press, 2017, 13-26. 

11. “La doppia traccia: itinerari della rappresentazione del genocidio ebraico nella poesia italiana del Novecento (Quasimodo, Sereni, Levi, Bruck)” [The Double Trace: Itineraries of Representation of the Jewish Genocide in Italian Twentieth Century Poetry (Quasimodo, Sereni, Levi, Bruck), in Sibilla Destefani (ed.), Da Primo Levi ai figli dei salvati. Incursioni critiche nella letteratura della Shoah, Florence: La Giuntina, 2017, 207-227. 

12. “Genesi di Se questo è un uomo e autoriscritture leviane del Lager' [Genesis of If This is Man and Levi’s Multiple Narrations of the Lager], Misure Critiche, 2016, 2, 199-231. 

13. 'Una complessa chiarezza: gli ipertesti di Primo Levi' [A Complex Clarity: Primo Levi’s Hypertexts], Ticontre. Teoria Testo Traduzione, 6, 2016, 23-43. 

14. “Su una riscrittura della Tregua: La prova di Marco Belpoliti” [A Re-writing of La tregua: Marco Belpoliti’s La prova], Italianistica, I, 2016, 181-204. 

15. “Realism of the Testimony, Symbologies and Memory: Phases and Perspectives in the Plurilingual Experimentation of Primo Levi”, in Contemporary Approaches to World Languages, Boca Raton, FL: Brown Walker Press, 2015, pp. 155-170. 

16. “Sopra un oceano dipinto di parole: fasi e prospettive della sperimentazione plurilingue in Primo Levi” [Upon an Ocean Made of Words: Phases and Perspectives in Primo Levi’s Plurilingual Experimentation], Carte italiane, 10, 2015, 61-87. 

17. “Anabasi, speculazione e caduta: i volti della poesia incerta di Primo Levi” [Anabasis, Speculation, Fall: The Perspectives of Primo Levi’s Uncertain Poetry], Testo, XXIV, 68, December 2014, 91-109. 

18. “La ricezione di Montale nel mondo anglosassone. Con alcune osservazioni variantistiche a margine di una antologia di traduzioni” [Montale’s Reception in the Anglophone World: With some Philological Observations on an Anthology of Translations], Il confronto letterario, 61(2), July 2014, 81-110. 

HIST 1062 – World of History