2026 Faculty

Luca Barra is Full Professor at Università di Bologna, where he teaches Radio and Television History, Cultures of Television Production and Serial Tv Production, and a former post-doctoral research fellow at Università Cattolica, Milan. His research mainly focuses on television production and distribution cultures, comedy and humour TV genres, the international circulation of media products (and their national mediations), the history of Italian television, and the evolution of the contemporary media landscape. He is the author of the books La sitcom. Genere, evoluzione, prospettive (Carocci, 2020), Palinsesto (Laterza, 2015) and Risate in scatola (Vita e Pensiero, 2012), co-editor of A European Television Fiction Renaissance. Premium Production Models and Transnational Circulation (with M. Scaglioni, Routledge, 2021), Media-storie. Lezioni indimenticate di Peppino Ortoleva (with G. C. Calvagno, Viella, 2020), Taboo Comedy (with C. Bucaria, Palgrave, 2015), Backstage (with T. Bonini and S. Splendore, Unicopli, 2015) and Tutta un’altra fiction (with M. Scaglioni, Carocci, 2013), and has written essays in various edited volumes and journals. He is editorial consultant for Italian TV studies journal Link. Idee per la televisione and the co-director of SuperTele book series published by minimum fax. He is currently in the board of directors of Italian culture and politics journal Il Mulino, coordinator of the second cycle degree in INCOM – Information, Cultures and Media Organization and member of the scientific committee of the Master in Music Production and Promotion at Università di Bologna.

Alessio Baldini (PhD, University of Siena) is Associate Professor in Italian Culture at the University of Leeds. His main research interests revolve around the interplay between ethics and the narratives arts with a focus on how storytelling across narrative genres (novels, films, TV series) and media (literature, cinema, television) can reflect and shape moral and social imaginaries.

Guy Borlée is the coordinator of the international festival Il Cinema Ritrovato, dedicated to the study of film history. he is specialized in search of the best film sources at the international level, in the management of a large production team, in the creation of musical accompaniment for silent films, in the organization of international conferences and in the economic management of events. Since 1995, he is the coordinator of the summer programming Sotto le Stelle del Cinema, screenings of classics films open-air on Piazza Maggiore (central square of Bologna).

Elisa Farinacci is a junior research fellow in Cinema, Photography, and Television at the Department of the Arts of the University of Bologna. She earned a Ph.D. with a double degree in History at the Department of History, Culture, and Civilization of the University of Bologna and in Cultural Anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. At the Department of the Arts, she has been conducting research on the circulation and reception of contemporary Italian audiovisual products in Europe and the USA. She is also collaborating with the Research Center on Media Education, Innovation, and Education Technology (CREMIT) of the Catholic University of Milan. At CREMIT she is overseeing a project on the use of audiovisual products in educational environments. She is also the curator of the international column “Global Cremit: International Perspectives” and a member of the editorial board of "il Mulino". Since 2018, she has been co-organizing the Summer School "Mediating Italy in Global Culture".

Giancarlo Lombardi conducted his undergraduate studies in Italy, where he began his investigation of contemporary world literature.  He came to the United States in 1990,  and obtained a Ph.D. in Romance Studies at Cornell University, where he pursued his interests in 19th and 20th century Italian, French, English, and American literature, literary theory, film studies, and cultural studies.  He taught Italian cinema at the University of Rochester, and then spent four years at Smith College, where he taught Italian language and literature.  Since 1999, he has been working at the College of Staten Island, where he coordinated the Italian program as well as teaching courses in Italian, Film Studies, American Studies, Women’s Studies as well as Science, Letters and Society.  In 2002, he received an appointment in the Comparative Literature program at the Graduate Center, where he has taught courses on Italian Cinema, Italian Women Writers, the Decadent Movement, and Gender Studies. Since 2014, he has been serving as Executive Officer (Chair) of the PhD/MA Program in Comparative Literature at the Graduate Center

Matteo Marinello is a research fellow at the Department of Arts of the University of Bologna, where he worked on the research projects Circulating Populist Sentiments in 21st Century Film and TV Fiction in Italy (Prin 2022) and ATlas - Atlas of Italian Local Televisions (Prin 2020). After graduating in Historical sciences at the University of Padua (2020), he obtained his PhD in Visual, Performing and Media Arts from the University of Bologna (2023). His studies focus on television history, comedy and the relationship between politics and entertainment. He is the author of several essays on these topics and two monographs entitled Austere Risate. Comicità e politica nella televisione italiana (1969-1982) [Austere Laughter. Comedy and Politics in the Italian Television] (Carocci, 2025), and Backstage all'italiana. Televisione, comicità e immaginario nazionale in “Boris” [Backstage Italian Style. Television, Comedy and National Imaginary in "Boris"] (Infinito Edizioni, 2022). He is a part of the editorial board of Studi culturali and he’s adjunct professor of Histories and Cultures of Television at the University of Bari and of Media Marketing at the University of Bologna.

Dana Renga researches and teaches on Italian film and media studies, with a focus on television. She is core faculty in The Film Studies Program, and affiliated faculty in The Department of Comparative Studies and The Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She teaches courses on Italian film and television at both the undergraduate and graduate level and regularly teaches General Education courses. In addition to two monographs, one co-authored book, and an edited volume, she has published over forty articles and book chapters on Italian cinema and television, Italian popular culture, and modern and contemporary Italian poetry and literature. Her most recent monograph from 2019 is called Watching Sympathetic Perpetrators on Italian Television: Gomorrah and Beyond and offers the first comprehensive study of recent, popular Italian television. She is currently working on a book called #castingstardom (a project on casting practices in the US and in Italy), on a co-edited volume called Contemporary Italian Youth Television (with Luca Barra, Danielle Hipkins, and Catherine O'Rawe) and on second co-edited volume tentatively titled Transnational Italian Crime and the Making of Italy (with Stephanie Malia Hom).

Emiliano Rossi holds a PhD in Cinema, Photography and Television at the Department of the Arts, University of Bologna, and is involved as a post-doc researcher in ATLas - Atlas of Local Television project. His main area of interest is television, framed on a historical, social and productive level. He teaches Organisation and Management of Multimedia Systems at the University of Bologna, where he is also responsible of the Television and Web TV laboratory and class tutor of Media Management and Economics and Marketing of Audiovisual Media courses. He also works as an adjunct professor in Radio-Tv Theories and Techniques at Università degli Studi di Padova and Università degli Studi di Udine. Together with Elisa Farinacci, he has been part of the organizing committee of the summer school since 2019; since 2024 he has been part of the school's teaching staff. Some reflections of this experience have converged in a report published by La Valle dell’Eden (“Mediating Italy in Global Culture: l’esperienza di una summer school internazionale all’Università di Bologna”, co-authored with Elisa Farinacci). He took part in several national and international conferences, and his monography (Schermi di trasporto. Storia, produzione, immaginari) was published in 2023; his writings have appeared in volumes and journals, including Cinéma & Cie, Cinergie. Il cinema e le altre arti, Imago. Studi di cinema e media, La Valle dell’Eden, VIEW. Journal of European Television History and Culture.

Romana Andò is Associate Professor of Sociology of Cultural Processes at Sapienza University of Rome, where she teaches Fashion Branding and Consumer Experience, Fashion and Gender and until 2023 Sociology of communication and fashion. From 2018 to 2024, she served as President of the Master’s Degree Programme in Fashion Studies. Since 2025, she has been President of the Master’s Degree Programme in Fashion Theory and Practices at Sapienza University and Unitelma Sapienza. Since 2023 she has been coordinator of the PNRR Fashion Cultural Heritage thematic line. Memories, museums, experience within the CHANGES – Spoke 2 project, on the museumisation of fashion. Among her research topics: fashion consumption, fashion and sustainability, audience research, fandom studies, adolescence and media. She edited the Italian translation of the volume by A. Rocamora and A. Smelik Thinking through fashion (Thinking through fashion, Meltemi 2022)

Paola Bonifazio is Associate Professor of Italian at the University of Texas at Austin. She received her PhD in Italian Studies from New York University (2008) and her M.A. in Italian and Film Studies from the University of Pittsburgh (2003). In 2011-12 she was National Endowment for the Humanities/Andrew Mellon Rome Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Rome. Her research interests focus on Italian film and cultural studies, documentary history and theory, and gender studies. Her first book Schooling in Modernity: The Politics of Sponsored Films in Postwar Italy (University of Toronto Press, 2014) explores short film productions sponsored by state and non-state agencies to promote modernization and industry, and to govern the Italian people’s conduct. She is also Associate Editor of the on-line peer reviewed journal gender/sexuality/italy. In 2020 Photoromance: A Feminist Reading of Popular Culture (MIT Press), her second book, was published.

Jülide Etem is Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia, where she directs the Film Studies Concentration. Her research examines the institutional life of media, analyzing how film and other media operate within systems of governance, diplomacy, education, and public health. Her work focuses on the infrastructures, technologies, and policy frameworks that shape the production, circulation, and reception of media, highlighting their role in shaping public opinion, producing knowledge, and managing populations in both local and transnational contexts. She is the author of Film Diplomacy: A Media History of Turkey–US Relations (Columbia University Press, 2026).

Charles L. Leavitt IV is the William Payden Associate Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures, Associate Director of the Center for Italian Studies, and a concurrent professor in the Department of Film, Television and Theatre at the University of Notre Dame. A Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, Leavitt studies modern Italian culture in a comparative context. He is the author of the prize-winning monograph Italian Neorealism: A Cultural History (University of Toronto Press, 2020).

Giacomo Manzoli is Full Professor of History of Italian Cinema at the University of Bologna, where he also teaches History of Italian Cinema and Audiovisual Forms of the Popular Culture. Currently, he is the president-in-chief of CUC - Consulta Universitaria del Cinema. He has been visiting professor at Urbino University, Catholic University in Milan and Tonji University of Shanghai, and he has held the course of Modernity Italian Style at Brown University, Providence, USA (2011 and 2017). He directed the Study Program of DAMS, Drama, Arts, Film and Music Studies from 2007 to 2010 and the Master Program in Film, Television and Multimedia Production from 2012 to 2014. He published several monographs and articles in journals and reviews. His current research is focused on the relationship between film industry and symbolic forms in contemporary Italian cinema, especially with regards to the role of public funding in promoting specific aesthetics and politics. He is also member of the board of the following journals: Studi culturali (il Mulino), Bianco & Nero (CSC), The Italianist (Maney), L’avventura (il Mulino), and co-director (with Mariagrazia Fanchi and Tomaso Subini) of Schermi. Storie e culture del cinema e dei media in Italia (University of Milan).

Professor Marini-Maio completed her Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania, specializing in Italian cinema. She is the Editor of the international open-access peer reviewed journal "gender/sexuality/italy". Her main fields of research are film studies, Italian cinema, and theater, particularly the intersections between politics, gender, cultural representations, popular culture, the narrative mode, and collective memory. She recently published a book on Silvio Berlusconi in cinema. Her monograph on the representation of left-wing terrorism in Italian film and theatre is near to completion. In addition, she is currently doing research on the "decamerotici," a series of movies inspired by Boccaccio's Decameron produced in Italy in the 1970s, and on Le Winx, an international comic strip and video series for young girls created in Italy. She has published articles on Italian cinema and theatre, Italian teaching pedagogy, and technology-enhanced language learning. In these areas, she has also co-edited the scholarly volumes Set the Stage! Teaching Italian through Theater (Yale University Press, 2009) and Dramatic Interactions (Cambridge Scholars, 2011). At Dickinson she is the current Director of the Mosaics Programs, and she also serves as the Vice President of the American Association for Italian Studies.

Marta Rocchi is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Cinema, Photography, and Television at the University of Bologna. Her research focuses on the audiovisual communication of science and on qualitative-quantitative methodologies for the analysis of contemporary audiovisual seriality. She is involved in several national and international research projects and coordinates a project in collaboration with Save the Children on digital educational poverty. Her recent publications include Audiovisual Data: Data-Driven Perspectives for Media Studies (2024, edited with G. Avezzù), Investigating Medical Drama TV Series: Approaches and Perspectives (2024, edited with S. Antonioni), “Embedding Sustainability in Film and Television Industries: Framing Practices and Narratives for Strategic Sustainability Communication” (2025), “Environmental Misinformation and Audiovisual Serial Narratives: An Automatic Analysis of the Twitter Social Discursiveness on Seaspiracy” (2022), and “Women’s Labour in TV Series Production: A Comparative Analysis of Italian Generalist TV and Pay Platforms (2016–2019)” (2023).