Marco Arnaudo
• Assistant Professor
of Italian
• Director of Graduate Studies in
Italian
Office: Ballantine Hall
633
Office phone: 855-7812
Email: marnaudo @indiana.edu
Research areas:
Baroque and early modern literature in Italy; 20th- and 21st-century popular culture.
Education:
- Ph.D., Romance Languages and Literatures, Harvard (2006)
- Ph.D., Italian, Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa (2004)
- B.A., History of Literary Criticism, Pisa University (2000)
Background:
My research and teaching interests focus on Italian culture of the Baroque period, with a particular attention to the connections between art and literature. This led to the publication of my first book, which analyzes the influence of optical illusions on 17th-century Italian culture. In this work I discuss how literary authors describe optical illusions in their writings, how they use them as metaphors for philosophical discourse, and how they are occasionally inspired by the cognitive mechanisms of optical illusions and try to reproduce the same effects through words in their texts. I am also interested in contemporary popular culture, especially detective stories, spy stories, and comic books - about which I have written several articles and contributed chapters to collective books.
My teaching combines these
specific research interests
with my passion for lively
discussions with my students.
I have taught courses
on Baroque literature,
17th- and 18th-century
theater, Italian immigration,
detectives and spies
in fiction, and history
of the superhero genre.
Courses recently taught:
- Teatro del ’600 e del ’700
- Rome: The City and the Myth
- Cloak & Dagger: Detectives and Spies from Sherlock Holmes to James Bond and Beyond
- Journeys and Migrations, from Italy to the Rest of the World
- Prosa italiana del '600
- Giallo e mystery
- Heroes, Superheroes, and Antiheroes
- Masterpieces of Italian Literature I
- Masterpieces of Italian Literature II
- Letteratura e cultura del Barocco italiano
Publication Highlights:
Books
Giulio Strozzi. Il natal di Amore. First modern edition of the text, based on its 1629 version. Includes a critical introduction and notes. Roma-Padova: Antenore (2010) LV+276 pp.
Il trionfo di Vertunno - Illusioni ottiche e cultura letteraria nell’Età della Controriforma. Lucca: Pacini Fazzi, 2008. 281 pp.
La pagina breve: Antologia di racconti italiani del Novecento. Rapallo (Italy): Cideb, 2004.
Articles
“L’altra dissimulazione: Accetto, Pallavicino, Machiavelli.” Italica 86.3 (2009)
“Sul significato del giocoliere nel Cannocchiale aristotelico di Emanuele Tesauro.” Studi secenteschi 50 (2009)
“Reminiscenze di Dante nei poemi epici del Seicento.” Seicento e Settecento 3 (2008)
“Against Chapter XXXVI: Sequels and Remakes of Collodi’s Pinocchio in Italian Literature.” Forum Italicum (2007).
“Alla palestra dell’intelletto: Una lettura del Candelaiodi Giordano Bruno.” Italica 85 (2007).
“Il personaggio come genere: Batman, gli Elseworldse la serialità.” Contemporanea(2007).
“Un Inferno barocco: Dante, Stigliani, Marino e l’intertestualità.” Studi secenteschi 47 (2006). 89-104.
“Belfagor come casistica: Una lettura della Favola machiavelliana.” Italianistica34 (2005). 13-26.
“Attilio Mussino, autore di Pinocchio: Un esperimento di ibridazione tra cinema, letteratura e fumetto nel primo Novecento italiano.” Contemporanea2 (2004). 67-93.
“Il bestiario di Machiavelli tra emblematica e naturalismo.” Italica 81 (2003). 313-33.
