Massimo Scalabrini
• Associate Professor of
Italian
• Director of Undergraduate
Studies, Italian
• Affiliated Faculty member
in West European Studies
and International Studies
Office: Ballantine Hall
634
Office phone: 855-8044
Email: mscalabr @indiana.edu
Research areas:
Renaissance and early modern literature and culture (lyric poetry, heroic and mock-heroic poetry, macaronic literature, comic literature, the pastoral tradition, humanism).
Education:
- PhD, Italian, Yale University, 1998
- Laurea summa cum laude in Lettere Moderne, Università di Bologna, 1990
Background:
I was trained in Italy and the US as a historian and critic of Italian literature. My research focuses on Renaissance and early modern literature and culture, particularly the macaronic, pastoral and lyric genres, as well as comedy, heroic and mock-heroic poetry. My interests include literary memory and genealogy, comedy as a shaping force of the Italian literary tradition, the relationship between ‘high’ literature and popular culture, and the interplay of philology and criticism. In my work, I address the ethical and political implications of literature, specifically the humanistic concept of literary education (the humanæ litteræ) as a path toward a more civilized and ‘humane’ humanity and the relationship between literary creation and political power. My current book project carries the tentative title The Poetics of Comedy in the Italian Renaissance, and I am also preparing a critical edition of unpublished works by the 16th-century philologist and critic Lodovico Castelvetro.
Selected awards:
- Lester J. Cappon Fellowship in Documentary Editing, The Newberry Library, 2006
- Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, Indiana University - Bloomington, 2004-05
- James Phillip Holland Award for Exemplary Teaching, Indiana University – Bloomington, 2002-03
- Trustees Teaching Award, Indiana University - Bloomington, 2001-02
- Sterling Prize Fellowship, Yale University, 1992-94
- Baltz-Seronde Fellowship, Yale University, 1992-94
- University of Bologna Graduate Student Exchange Award, Indiana University - Bloomington, 1991-92
- Erasmus Scholarship, Pembroke College, Oxford - The European Union, 1989
Courses recently taught:
- Literature and Power in Early Modern Europe.
- Masterpieces of Italian Literature I.
- Masterpieces of Italian Literature II.
- Momenti e figure del comico rinascimentale.
- Italian Short Stories (From the Middle Ages to the Present).
- Renaissance Humanism.
- Categorie dell’eroico e dell’eroicomico: Ariosto, Tasso, Tassoni.
- What is Italian Pastoral? Pastoral Tradition and Italian Renaissance.
- Eros and Comedy in Italian Renaissance Literature.
Publication highlights:
Book
L’incarnazione del macaronico: Percorsi nel comico folenghiano (Bologna: il Mulino, 2003). 190 pp.
Articles
“The Peasant and the Monster in the Macaronic Works of Teofilo Folengo.” MLN 123/1 (2008): 179-191.
“Città e campagna nel macaronico folenghiano: Una lettura di Baldus VI 67-229.” Esperienze letterarie XXXI/3 (2006): 43-60.
“Gli amori ridicoli dell’eroicomico: Tassoni e la storia di Lucrezia.” MLN 120/1 (2005): 223-238.
“‘Il piggiore uomo forse che mai nascesse’: La novella di ser Ciappelletto e la poetica del comico.” Italian Quarterly XLI/159-160 (2004): 55-60.
“Una predica macaronica tra folklore e agiografia (Baldus, IX 1-373).” Letteratura in forma di sermone: I rapporti tra predicazione e letteratura nei secoli XIII-XVI. Atti del Seminario di studi (Bologna 15-17 novembre 2001). Eds. Ginetta Auzzas, Giovanni Baffetti and Carlo Delcorno (Firenze: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 2003): 189-200.
“Un inedito travestimento secentesco del Baldus.” Rivista di letteratura italiana XIX/1 (2001): 173-179.
“Umanesimo e anti-umanesimo in Giovanni Della Casa.” Schede umanistiche ns 1999, 1: 81-96.
