Degrees:

M.Phil., Italian Literature, Columbia University
M.A., Italian Literary Studies, Middlebury College Language Schools
B.A., International Politics and Economics, Middlebury College

My specialization is in the poetry and prose of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with a focus on gender and the interplay of society and literature. My dissertation, "‘Tanto la vinse l'amor del figliulo': Historicizing Maternity (and the Child) in Boccaccio's Ninfale fiesolano and Decameron", explores the representation of maternity - conception, pregnancy, childbirth, and childrearing - and the image of children in Boccaccio's works through readings in the social history of women and the family and the medical literature of obstetrics and gynecology. My project seeks to reconnect these works to their social and historical contexts; I am particularly interested in how these literary texts reflect, and comment upon, contemporary discourses about the role of women and children and ideologies of motherhood in the patrilineal society of fourteenth-century Tuscany. My approach is both historicized and interdisciplinary. Presently, my research is heavily weighted toward the social history of women, and considers medieval physiological theories of sex; writings on conception, gestation, contraception, and abortifacients; childrearing practices; family structure; baptismal kinship; and laws related to inheritance, widowhood, and the guardianship of children.

Conferences/ Publications:

"‘Più pesante e fatta tutta svogliata e cascante': Pregnancy in a Nymph's Tale (Ninfale fiesolano)." American Association for Italian Studies (AAIS), New York, NY, May 2009.

"‘E quivi partorí un altro figliuol maschio': Historicizing Maternity and the Child in Boccaccio's Ninfale fiesolano and Decameron." Nel mezzo del cammin... An Early Modern, Interdisciplinary, Works-in-Progress Colloquium, New York University, February 2009.

"‘Che il fanciullin suo avea per mano': The ‘Presence' of the Child in Decameron VII, 3," La Fusta, Vol. XVI (Fall 2008): 42-60.

 Review article of William R. Levin, The Allegory of Mercy at the Misericordia in Florence: Historiography, Context, Iconography, and the Documentation of Confraternal Charity. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2004. Heliotropia 5.1-2 (2008), Online journal of the American Boccaccio Association.

"‘L'una vegghiava a studio de la culla': Maternity as Social Critique in Dante's Paradiso." Northeast Modern Language Association, Buffalo, NY, April 2008.

"‘Tanto la vinse l'amor del figliulo': Children and the Practices of Maternity in Dante and Boccaccio." Invited lecture at the University of New Hampshire, November 2007.

"Paternal Affect, Maternal Neglect, Fraternal Indifference: The ‘Presence' of the Child in Decameron VII, 3." (P)ages of Youth Graduate Student Conference, Rutgers University, October 2007.

Teaching:

Elementary Italian I and II (Columbia University)

Intermediate Italian I (University of New Hampshire)

Introduction to Italian Culture and Civilization II: Age of Enlightenment, Romanticism, Modernism (University of New Hampshire)