Dr. Susanna Scarparo
Cassamarca Unione latini nel Mondo Senior Lecturer
- Convenor of Italian Studies Program
- Level 9 and 10 language coordinator (Semesters 1 & 2)
- Honours coordinator (Semesters 1 & 2)
- ITA3330/ITA4340 Women in Italy: Representations and Realities
- VSA2260/VSA3260 Italy on Film
Qualifications
- MA (Otago University)
- PhD (University of Auckland)
- Member of the Modern Languages Association (MLA)
- Member of the American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI)
- Member of the American Association for Italian Studies (AAIS)
Research interests
- Contemporary women writers
- Gender studies
- Comparative literature
- Italian Cinema
- Life writing
- Italo-australian studies
- Italian migration to Australia
Current Research
Since my appointment at Monash, my research program has developed along four main trajectories within the broad interdisciplinary fields of Italian Studies and Comparative Literature: contemporary women writers (with special attention to autobiography and biography), Italian feminist theory (with special attention to sexual difference theory), Italian Australian studies (with special attention to migration and diaspora studies), and Italian cinema.
I am currently working on two projects. For the first, I am expanding my research expertise to include oral history and am combining my knowledge of literary studies, narrative theory and life writing with the study of Italian migration to Australia. For the second, I am combining my expertise in feminist theory with the study of Italian cinema.
My research project, “Marriage by Proxy: Gendered Narratives of Italian Immigrant Lives”, represents the first in-depth investigation of the distinct life patterns of Italian Australians who married by proxy. This form of marriage provided opportunities and challenges to both the individuals concerned and the broader Italian community in Australia.
For the second project, I am co-writing a book on Italian women film makers. This will be the first monograph to explore the role played by women in Italian cinema, paying particular attention to the following: How are women represented in recent films? How do these images conflict with traditional images of women in film? How do they perpetuate roles traditionally associated with women? How do women represent themselves within particular nations? How do these understandings and portrayals of self come to be? What are they based on and how do they differ from how others construct female identities in film?
Publications
Book
- 2005: Elusive Subjects: Biography
as Gendered Metafiction, Leicester: Troubador Publishing.
Introduction in Acrobat PDF format [96 KB] / Table of Contents in Acrobat PDF format / Order details
Edited Books
- 2006: Violent Depictions: Representing Violence Across Cultures, Cambridge Scholars Press. Co-edited with Sarah McDonald
- 2004: Across
Genres, Generations and Borders: Italian Women Writing Lives
, Newark: University of Delaware Press. Co-edited with Rita Wilson.
Table of Contents in Acrobat PDF format [92 KB] / Order details
Edited Special Issue
- 2005: Representing
Italian Diasporas in Australia: New Perspectives. Special
Issue of Studi D'Italianistica nell'Africa Australe/Italian
Studies in Southern Africa. Vol.18, n.1. (Co-edited with
Rita Wilson).
Table of Contents in Acrobat PDF format [76 KB]
Book Chapters
- 2006: “A Big Happy Family: Violence and Displaced Identities in Italo-Australian Fiction” in Violent Depictions: Representing Violence Across Cultures, Cambridge Scholars Press, pp. 32-46
- 2004a: “Imagining Homeland in Anna Maria Dell’Oso’s Autofictions” in Across Genres, Generations and Borders: Italian Women Writing Lives, Newark: University of Delaware Press, pp. 1-8. (with Rita Wilson)
- 2004b: “Re-Thinking the Politics and Practice of Life Writing” in Across Genres, Generations and Borders: Italian Women Writing Lives, Newark: University of Delaware Press, pp. 169-182 (with Rita Wilson).
- 2003: “Sposati per procura: an Italian Dreaming” Borderlines: Migrazioni e Identità Nel Novecento. Eds. Jennifer Burns and Loredana Polezzi. Isernia: Cosmo Iannone Editore, pp. 55-62. (with Kerstin Pilz).
Journal Articles
- 2007: “Back to the Future: the Comencini Sisters and Their Search for a Cinematic language” Studies In European Cinema (vol. 4, no.2) 137-148 (with Bernadette Luciano)
- 2005a: “In the Name of the Mother: Sexual Difference and the Practice of ‘Entrustment.’” Cultural Studies Review (vol. 11, no. 2) 36-48
- 2005b: “La destrezza di guardare oltre”: Close-up on the Representation of Women in Silvio Soldini’s Le acrobate e Pane e tulipani, with Teresa Tufano, in Studi D’Italianistica Nell’Africa Australe / Italian Studies in Southern Africa (vol. 18, n. 2) 120-143
- 2004a: “Feminist Intellectuals as Public Figures in Contemporary Italy” Australian Feminist Studies (vol. 19, no. 44) 201-212.
- 2004b: “Going Public” www.diotimafilosofe.it
- 002a: “‛Sono uno storico in quanto scrittore’: Imagining the Past in Maria Bellonci’s Rinascimento Privato.” MLN (vol. 117, no. 1) 227-240.
- 2002b: “Artemisia: The Invention of a ‘Real’ Woman” Italica (vol. 79, no. 3) 305-320.
- 2002c: “Talking Back: Biography as Friendship in Anna Banti’s Artemisia” Studi D’Italianistica Nell’Africa Australe / Italian Studies in Southern Africa (vol 15, no. 2) 66-81.
Interview
- “Crafting Stories, Speaking Personally: In Conversation with Anna Maria Dell’Oso” Studi D’Italianistica Nell’Africa Australe / Italian Studies in Southern Africa (Vol 18, no. 1)160-180.
Contact Details
Room: W531 Building 11, Clayton Campus
Email: Susanna.Scarparo@arts.monash.edu.au
Phone: 9905 2222
Fax: 9905 5437
Inquiries: 9905 5223 / 9905 2281