Alessandro Giardino
Alessandro Giardino earned his Ph.D from McGill University. Before that, he studied art history, semiotics, and literature at the Università di Bologna, University of California at Berkeley, and Université de Montréal. His areas of expertise include the Baroque, Mediterranean Studies, Italian and French literature and art, twentieth-century French philosophy and psychoanalysis. At SLU, Giardino has taught French and Italian language and literature classes at all levels, as well as courses in Mediterranean Studies. Giardino's current research has been focusing on two thematic areas: 1. The symbolic uses of Mediterranean culture and landscape in francophone women writers 2. Femininity in the early Baroque literature, art and philosophy of Southern Italy and Southern France.
Publications
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AND TALKS
BOOKS:
Alessandro Giardino Ed. Corporeality and Performativity in Baroque Naples. The Body of Naples. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017 (158 pages)
Alessandro Giardino. Giorgio Bassani. Percorsi dello sguardo nelle arti visive. Ravenna: Giorgio Pozzi Editore, 2013 (185 pages)
Winner of Roberto Nissim-Haggiag Prize, Meis Foundation & Bassani Foundation
ARTICLES:
“Les étrangères de Leïla Slimani: Marocaines "dévoilées" et femmes de revolte” Nouvelles Études Francophones (Fall 2018): 1-16 (under review)
“ Marguerite Yourcenar: Japan, and the Cult of the Aging Body” ACAH Conference Proceeding 2018 (June 2018): 1-11.
“ Caravaggio and the Enfranchisement of Women. New Discoveries” Theory in Action, Vol.10 N. 4 (Oct. 2017): 55-77.
“ Beheading: The Lesson of Caravaggio” NeMLA Italian Studies, Vol. 37 (Dec. 2016):158-177.
“Giorgio Bassani. Per una lettura interpretative dell’Airone, dagli scritti sull’arte al Nouveau Roman” Cuadernos de Filologia Italiana - Universidad Complutense Madrid, Vol. 23 (Dec. 2016): 11-25.
“The Seven Works of Mercy. Love between Astrology and Natural Generosity in the Naples of Tommaso Campanella” Aries. Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism – Brill, Vol.16-2 (Oct. 2016):1-22
“Françoise Sagan: La naissance des idées comme retour à la mer/mère” Mnemosyne Vol.9 (June 2016): 77-92
“Ellissi eccentriche: Giorgio Bassani, Hermann Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne” Ed. Valerio Capozzo. Giorgio Bassani. Lezioni Americane. Ravenna: G. Pozzi, 2016: 44-66
“Desire and its political significance: For a psychoanalytic reading of Giorgio Bassani’s gaze between Lida Mantovani e Gli ultimi anni di Clelia Trotti” Ed. Elena Borelli. The Fire Within: Desire in Italian Literature. New Castle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014: 229-46.
“Giorgio Bassani, il “subalterno” come esperienza dell’altro: per una nuova lettura di Gli occhiali d’oro, Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini e Dietro la porta” The Italianist (October 2013): 425-40.
“La passeggiata prima di cena: percorsi dello sguardo e la lezione di Georges Seurat” Quaderni di Italianistica Vol. 33 N. 2 (2012): 91-114.
“Liliana Cavani's La pelle: Debunking the Fake Promises of Postmodern Sexual Emancipation and the Silencing Effect of Cultural Oblivion" Carte italiane Vol. 7 (2011): 101-21.
“Esempi di riuso di manufatti industriali ed ipotesi gestionali” Comune di Napoli-Assessorato all’urbanistica, Unità di progetto interdipartimentale. Programma innovativo in ambito urbano (2008):1-20.
ONFERENCES
“Derrida Inconscient, between from and content” Derrida Today Conference 2018, May 23 -26, 2018.
“Il Caravaggio Napoletano, tra Religione Naturale e Spinta Comunitaria” Ischia International Festival of Philosophy 2017, Sept. 28 - Oct. 1, 2017.
“Caravaggio's Marginals” St. Lawrence Valley Associated Colleges 2017, Gender, Sex and Sexuality Conference “Disenfranchised,” Feb. 10-11, 2017.
Conference Presenter, “Caravaggio napoletano. Nuove scoperte e nuovi usi” AATI Conference 2016, June 22-27, 2016.
Conference Presenter, “Caravaggio’s Salome. The untold story of a femme fatale” AAIS Conference 2016, Apr. 21-23, 2016.
Conference presenter, “Elena Ferrante, Interferenze del linguaggio materno” CSIS Conference 2015, June 19-21, 2015.
Conference presenter, “The Kitsch as Grotesque, and the Neapolitan Tradition in Matteo Garrone and Paolo Sorrentino” NEMLA Conference 2015, Apr. 30-May 3, 2015.
Conference presenter, “Giuseppe Montesano's Neo-Baroque Naples: Rhetorical Strategies and the Literary Tradition” AAIS Conference 2015, March 26-29, 2015.
Conference presenter, “Giorgio Bassani: sguardi incrociati tra testo e paratesto. Per una nuova lettura dell'immaginario visivo bassaniano” ICOJIL Conference 2015, March 19-20, 2015.
Conference presenter, “Giorgio Bassani, lettore di James Joyce e Herman Melville. Il maestro dimenticato di Gianni Celati” AAIS Conference 2014, May 23-25, 2014
Conference presenter, “The ‘Crypt’ and the ‘Phantom’ in Adriana Varejão. A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Neo-Baroque Aesthetics” Columbia University- ICLS, “The Crypt(ic) Conference,” March 29, 2014.
Chair of the panel. “Between Literature and the Visual Arts: A Psychoanalytic Perspective” NEMLA Conference 2013, March, 21- 24, 2013.
Conference Presenter, “Libidinal Politics in Giorgio Bassani’s Il romanzo di Ferrara” NEMLA Conference 2013, March, 21- 24, 2013.
Organizer and Respondent. Professor Emeritus Renato Barilli, “The Debate between Modernity and Postmodernity in literature” McGill 2013, February, 8, 2013.
Conference Presenter, “Anna Banti: A ‘Translative’ Marginality between Giorgio Bassani and Susan Sontag” CUNY Conference 2012, “In Trans”, November 8-10, 2012.
Conference Presenter, “The Italian as a hypocrite: Struggles for Identity in Giorgio Bassani’s Il Romanzo di Ferrara” ASMI Conference 2011, December 15-16, 2011.
Conference Presenter, “Liliana Cavani e l’onda lunga degli anni ottanta” APIQ Conference, October 17, 2001
Conference Presenter, “Italianness and the 1980s” NEMLA Conference 2011, April 7-10, 2011.
Conference Presenter, “Liliana Cavani and the Silencing Oblivion” UCLA Conference “Forbidden Ideas,” October 23-30, 2010.
Conference Presenter, "Fashion and Design in Liliana Cavani`s Movies: The Long Wave of the 1980`s in the Definition of Gender and Lifestyle" CSIS Conference, May 28-30, 2010.