Valeria Dani

As I outline in my Personal Statement, the field of Italian Studies is brilliantly rethinking the core of its curricula, the focus of its scholarship, and the pedagogical praxis it enacts in the classroom. The 2020 uprising inspired a generation of young academics (collaborating in what is called the 'Cosmopolitan Collective') to defy the white and androcentric canon that has long characterized the discipline, in favor of a work that centers the writers and the debates that have been silenced by colonial oppression. I follow very closely the redefinition enacted by this group: the conversations fostered, and the resources shared, resonate with the way I try to decolonize my syllabi and to enact an anti-racist and critical pedagogy.