My name is Laura Ingallinella, and I am an Assistant Professor of Italian Studies at the University of Toronto, with a cross-appointment in the Renaissance Studies Program at Victoria College. My research focuses on the intersection of identity politics and literary expression in late medieval and Renaissance Italy. In particular, I specialize in transregional and cross-linguistic exchanges, with a focus on the processes of transculturation initiated by merchants traveling across Europe and the Mediterranean in the early Renaissance. I have published several peer-reviewed essays relevant to critical philology, premodern translation studies, the reception of Dante’s Divine Comedy, manuscript studies, gender and sexuality, and premodern critical race studies.

I am now completing my first book, “Nations of the Book: Trade, Travel, and Transcultural Literacy in the Early Renaissance (1350-1550),” and have started working on my second project, tentatively titled “Her White Breast: Intersections of Race, Gender, and Power in Renaissance Italian Drama.”

After earning a B.A. (laurea triennale) and M.A. (laurea magistrale) in philology and modern languages and literature at the University of Catania, I earned my Ph.D. in Italian Philology at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa.

Prior to joining the University of Toronto, I was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Wellesley College, cross-appointed between the department of Italian Studies and the Medieval and Renaissance Program, where I taught courses on Dante in English translation, women’s literature in Europe and the Mediterranean, premodern globalities, and identity politics in Renaissance literature. Before joining Wellesley College, I held a predoctoral appointment in which I served as Associate Editor for Speculum, the journal of medieval studies published by the Medieval Academy of America.

I am currently a member of the Centre for the Renaissance and Reformation Studies (CRRS) (2022-) and a Fellow of Victoria University (2022-) at the University of Toronto. I also work on the Nominating Committee of the Dante Society of America (2021-) and am a member of the Cosmopolitan Collective.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

medieval and early modern Italian and French literature; Romance philology; manuscript studies; drama and theater studies; hagiography and homiletics; gender and sexuality; premodern critical race studies (PCRS)

CONTACT

Email: laura.ingallinella@utoronto.ca
Twitter: @lauraingalli
Mastodon: @lauraingalli@hcommons.social