Marcella Salvi
Dr. Marcella Salvi is the Lewis Professor of Spanish and Italian in the Department of World Languages, Cultures, and Media at St. Lawrence University, where she has been teaching since 2002. She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Romance Languages and Literatures from the University of Oregon, and a Laurea in Modern Languages and Literatures from the Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli in Italy.
Dr. Salvi’s expertise lies in 16th- and 17th-century Spanish and Italian theatre, as well as the politics of memory in contemporary literature from these cultures. She teaches courses ranging from beginner to advanced levels of Spanish and Italian, and explores specialized topics like “Spain through Pedro Almodóvar’s Cinema” and “Italian Language & Culture through Cinema.”
Her recent scholarly work includes co-editing and co-translating an annotated bilingual edition of La prueba de los ingenios (1617) by Lope de Vega and co-editing and co-translating a bilingual English/Spanish anthology, Activism Through Poetry: Critical Spanish Poems in Translation. Dr. Salvi has also published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes on topics such as cultural hybridity in Baroque theater and the representation of memory and resilience in contemporary Spanish and Italian literature. She frequently presents her research at international conferences.
Publications
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AND TALKS
BOOKS:
La prueba de los ingenios/The Trial of Wits (1617) by Lope de Vega. Annotated Bilingual Spanish/English Edition. Co-edited and Co-translated with Rafael Castillo-Bejarano. Ibérica, New York: Peter Lang Publishing. Forthcoming in 2024.
Activism Through Poetry: Critical Spanish Poems in Translation. Bilingual English/Spanish Anthology. Co-edited and Co-translated with Marina Llorente. Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books (Rowman & Littlefield), May 2017.
Sites of Memory in Spain and Latin America: Trauma, Politics, and Resistance. Co-edited with Marina Llorente & Aída Díaz de León. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, September 2015.
Escenas en conflicto: el teatro español e italiano desde los márgenes del Barroco. Ibérica: Vol. 38. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, July 2005.
ARTICLES:
“The Re-Appearance of Lost Memory: Literature as Resilience in Carmen Martín Gaite and Elsa Morante.” In: Donne resilienti. Raccolta di saggi. Edited by G. Di Filippo, G. Spano, and M. Marino. Holden, MA: QuodManet. 2023: 27-44. (Double-blind peer review).
“Pulcinella and Capitan Matamoros: Staging the Body of Naples in a Cloak-and-Dagger Neapolitan Drama.” In: Corporeality and Performativity in Baroque Naples. The Body of Naples. Edited by Alessandro Giardino. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, November, 2017: 73-92.
“Introduction: The Poetics of Social Engagement in Contemporary Spain.” Co-authored with Marina Llorente. In: Activism Through Poetry: Critical Spanish Poems in Translation. Bilingual English/Spanish Anthology. Edited and Translated by M. Llorente and M. Salvi. Lanham, MD: Hamilton Books (Rowman & Littlefield), May 2017: 1-20.
“Hermafroditismo socio-cultural: Lope de Vega entre tradición e innovación en La prueba de los ingenios.” Bulletin of the Comediantes 69.1 (2017): 25-43. (Double-blind peer review).
“Metateatro e ibridismo sociale e culturale in Amor nello specchio di Giovan Battista Andreini.” Forum Italicum 49.3 (2015): 715-733. (Double-blind peer review).
“Everything is Coming to Light: Re-appearance of Lost History in Carmen Martín Gaite’s El cuarto de atrás.” In: Sites of Memory in Spain and Latin America: Trauma, Politics, and Resistance. Edited by A. Díaz de León, M. Llorente, M. Salvi. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, September 2015: 47-62.
“The Queen’s Two Bodies: Sexual Politics in Lope de Vega’s La reina Juana de Nápoles.” Bulletin of the Comediantes 57.1 (2005): 45-59. (Double-blind peer review).
“‘Il solito è sempre quello, l’insolito è più nuovo:’ Li buffoni e le prostitute di Margherita Costa fra tradizione e innovazione.” Forum Italicum 38.2 (2004): 376-99. (Double-blind peer review).
“La Soldadesca de Bartolomé de Torres Naharro: ‘Hibridismo’ cultural en la Italia española del Renacimiento.” Bulletin of the Comediantes 54.1 (2002): 11-31. (Double-blind peer review).
“Gian Lorenzo Bernini: L’impresario tra ‘macchinazioni’ teatrali e di Potere.” Fragmentos. Revista de língua e literatura estrangeiras. Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Estudos Italianos 21 (2001): 177-92. (Peer Review).
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
“Echoes across time: Neapolitan Specters in Caravaggio’s Literary Legacy.” American Association of Italian Studies (AAIS). 2024 Annual Conference. Sorrento, Italy. June 6–9, 2024.
“Il corpo di Napoli. Memoria e resilienza in Sindrome di Caravaggio.” The Annual Conference of the Canadian Society for Italian Studies. Montreal, May 4-7, 2023.
“‘Could that be the secret of art? To remember … For to invent, perhaps, is to remember’.” Literature and Re-appearance of Lost Memory in Carmen Martín Gaite and Elsa Morante.” Women of/in the Mediterranean: Women and Memory. The Sant’Anna Institute, Sorrento, Italy. June 21-22, 2019.
Discussant for the session: “Innovations in Language Learning with a focus on the language plus discipline degree.” The Global Liberal Arts in the 21st Century. Hamilton College, Clinton, NY. September 23-25, 2016.
Chair of the Session “The Body of Naples.” American Association of Italian Studies. 36th Annual Conference. Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. April 21-23, 2016.
“‘[i]f one never lost anything, literature would have no reason for being … How fortunate, everything is coming to light little by little’. Re-appearance of Lost History in Carmen Martín-Gaite’s The Back Room.” 1st Global Conference Testimony, Memory, Trauma, Truth, Engagement. Mansfield College. Oxford, England. July 29-31, 2014.
“Ibridismo sociale e culturale in ‘Amor nello specchio’ di Giovan Battista Andreini.” The Annual Conference of the Canadian Society for Italian Studies. Venice, Italy. June 2011.
“Conflitti di potere: professionisti, dilettanti e mecenati nel teatro di G.B. Andreini.” 38th Annual Northeast Modern Language Association Convention. Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. March 2007.
“La Lucilla costante: Staging the Spanish-Italian Rivalry in an Italian comedia de capa y espada.” Renaissance Society of America and the Society for Renaissance Studies, United Kingdom. Joint Annual Meeting. Cambridge Colleges, Cambridge, England. April 2005.
“Conflitti in scena: Gian Lorenzo Bernini e i giochi di potere nella corte italiana del XVII secolo.” American Association of Italian Studies. 24th Annual Conference. University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada. April-May 2004.
“Myth and History: The Representation of the Queen in a Seventeenth-Century Spanish Play.” The 11th Annual Conference for the Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies. UC Irvine Drama Department, Newport Beach, California. October 2003.
“Voci femminili del Seicento: l’universo teatrale di Margherita Costa tra prostitute e buffoni.” American Association of Italian Studies. 23rd Annual Conference. Georgetown University, Washington, DC. March 2003.
“Reinas, bufones y prostitutas: los márgenes teatrales de Ana Caro y Margherita Costa.” Seventh Annual Conference of the Asociación de Escritoras de España y las Américas. Portland University, Portland, Oregon. September 2002.