Laura Chiesa

Visiting Assistant Professor
Office: 927 Clemens Hall
Phone: (716) 645-0872
Email: lchiesa@buffalo.edu
Website: Personal site

Degrees

• Ph.D., Comparative Literature, UCLA
• D.E.A, Philosophy, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris)
• Laurea, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, Università di Pisa

Areas of Specialization

• Modern and Contemporary Italian Studies
• Critical Theory
• Architecture, Film and Visual Arts

Selected publications

• "Superstudio Double-Take: Rescue Operations in the Realms of Architecture," Neoavanguardia: Italian Experimental Literature and Arts in The 1960s. Eds. Mario Moroni and Luca Somigli (U. of Toronto Press) Forthcoming 2008 (28 ms. pages).
• "Italo Calvino and Georges Perec: the Multiple and Contrasting Emotions of Cities and Puzzles," special issue of Romanic Review "Italy and France: Imagined Geographies," Ed. Laura Wittman, Vol. 97, issue 3/4 (May-Nov. 2006): 401-421.
• "Transnational Multimedia: Fortunato Depero's Impressions of New York City (1928-1930)," CIS, California Italian Studies, forthcoming September 2009 (48 ms. pages).

Web projects

• Avventura, a web-based multimedia companion for first-, second-, third-year students of Italian language and culture.

Current Research Projects

• Adapting dissertation manuscript Space as Storyteller into a book on the new and critical notion of space that develops in the 20th century at the intersection of architectural experimentation, literary theory and the practice of writing
• A book project tentatively titled Almost Abstract: Italian Multimedia Experimentations which focuses on the Italian mediascape in literature, film, and visual arts from the '30s to today

Awards

• Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America Fellowship, Columbia University
• Dissertation Fellowship, UCLA
• Pre-doctoral Fellowship, Northwestern University
• "Paris Program in Critical Theory" Fellowship, UCLA
• Fulbright Fellowship

Courses

• ITA410 Modern Italian Studies. Italian Avant-Garde and Neo-Avant-Garde
• ITA321. Italian Conversation and Civilization
• ITA322 Italian Cinematic Histories and Poetics
• ITA422. Paesaggi italiani: letteratura e cinema
• ITA499 Introduction to Italian Contemporary Studies