Faculty news: Dr. Gioia Woods presentation at the Italian Embassy in Washington D.C.

Posted by Rebekah Pratt-Sturges on October 26, 2023

Congratulations to CCS Professor of Humanities Dr. Gioia Woods on her recent invited presentation at the Italian Cultural Institute in the Italian Embassy in Washington D.C. on Oct. 19, 2023! The discussion featured faculty from four universities to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Italo Calvino and the enduring relevance of his writing in the twenty-first century. The panel engaged in a conversation about Calvino’s insights and wrestled with topics such as A.I., the role of literature, and the urban and natural environments.

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Italo Calvino’s birth, the Italian Cultural Institute of Washington, DC and the Department of Italian Studies at Georgetown University invite you to a discussion on the author’s enduring relevance in the 21st century. Recent developments have indeed drawn attention to Calvino’s keen foresight and uncanny ability to anticipate the challenges we are facing today. A panel of specialists will engage in a conversation on Calvino’s insights, wrestling with topics such as artificial intelligence, the role of literature, and the urban and natural environments. With the participation of: Laura Benedetti (Georgetown University) Letizia Modena (Vanderbilt University) Gioia Woods (Northern Arizona University) Luca Zipoli (Bryn Mawr College) Laura Benedetti is the Laura and Gaetano De Sole Professor of Contemporary Italian Culture and the Chair of the Department of Italian Studies at Georgetown University. Her publications span seven hundred years, from Dante to Elena Ferrante, and include two novels, Un paese di carta and Secondo piano. The recipient of the Flaiano International Prize (for her volume The Tigress in the Snow: Motherhood and Literature in 20th-Century Italy), Laura Benedetti has delivered lectures at major universities and cultural venues in Europe and North America, as well as Egypt and Japan. Letizia Modena is Associate Professor of Italian at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee (USA), where she is also co-director of the Urban Humanities Postdoctoral Program. She is the author of Italo Calvino's Architecture of Lightness: The Utopian Imagination in An Age of Urban Crisis (Routledge, 2011, 2014), which focuses on the urbanistic roots of the bestselling novel Invisible Cities (1972), a perennial favorite of contemporary architects, city planners, and designers. Today, her research covers the intersections of the arts and urban studies on questions of representation, spatial justice, and equity. Gioia Woods is Professor of Humanities and Chair of the Department of Comparative Cultural Studies at Northern Arizona University. She is a scholar of American and global literatures of the mid-twentieth century and an environmental humanist. Her recent articles on Italo Calvino focus on his environmental awareness and advocacy. Her forthcoming book is Reinvent America and the World: Lawrence Ferlinghetti, City Lights Bookstore, and Literary Resistance. Luca Zipoli is Assistant Professor in the Department of Transnational Italian Studies at Bryn Mawr College. He holds a Ph.D. in Italian literature from the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, where he also pursued his undergraduate degree. Before joining Bryn Mawr College, he researched and taught at Princeton University, New York University, and the Princeton Study Abroad Program. His main research interests include Early Modern and Modern Italian Literature, with a specific focus on how the Italian Avant-Garde revived and adapted Italy's literary tradition throughout the 20th century.

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