Ricerc@Sapienza

My main research interests lie in the investigation of postmodernism in literature, theory, and popular culture, with specific attention to the works of Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Robert Coover, Paul Auster, William T. Vollmann. I am also particularly interested in the works of postwar and contemporary American writers such as Vladimir Nabokov, Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, especially in their relationship with nineteenth-century US literary tradition. Another important field of research concerns the dialectics between skepticism and confidence (from a political, historical, philosophical, and religious perspective) in Herman Melville’s prose and poetical works, as well as the analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s literary works and ideas with specific attention to their influence on Melville’s poetics. I am also interested in the language of comics and graphic novels, and the historical and formal connection with non-graphic literature. I am currently investigating some experimental techniques (autofiction, postmemorial narratives, historiographic metafiction) employed by contemporary writers to reconfigure historical events and challenge traditional models of representation.