LITERARY CURRICULUM
CURRICULUM LETTERARIO
Elena Bastianoni
elena.bastianoni@phd.unipi.it
[L-LIN/10]
This research intends to explore some of the most significant representations of pandemics in Anglophone literature, ranging from the Nineteenth Century to the present time. By considering Assmann’s concept of cultural memory and the importance of digital humanities in the process of coping with the crisis caused by the pandemic, the project aims at investigating how the literatures of the Anglophone world have represented historical and imaginary epidemics, playing a vital role in preserving the cultural heritage. In this sense, the project will contribute to memory studies by creating an interactive and digitalized Atlas of the Pandemic. By carrying out an accurate analysis of some works by Margaret Atwood, Meg Mundell and Emma Donoghue, namely The Year of the Flood, The Trespassers and The Pull of the Stars, we will try to use Anglophone pandemic literature as a privileged point of view from which to study the long-debated connection between damaged ecology and epidemics, with a special attention to Ecocriticism and the genre of dystopian fiction. Finally, by drawing on the notions of trauma and psychophysical healing, the project will investigate the role of Anglophone pandemic literature as a powerful means of providing awareness of the trauma inflicted by the pandemic experience and offering practical solutions in moments of crisis, promoting the importance of solidarity and an attitude of respect towards the environment and choosing a peaceful coexistence between the living beings who inhabit the earth.
Supervisors: prof. Biancamaria Rizzardi, prof. Fausto Ciompi
Angel Antonio De Oliveira Amata
a.deoliveiraamata@studenti.unipi.it
Reimagining Literature: A Comparative Analysis of Novels and Graphic Novels.
[L-LIN/10]
The aim of this project is to analyse a selection of texts from 19th-century English literature through the graphic novel medium. This project, located at the crossroads of narratology, adaptation studies, and comics studies, intends to draw attention on the strong connection between the literary world and its graphic counterpart, from early 20th-century Modernist influences to contemporary transmedia storytelling. This study will focus on different aspects of literary criticism and textual analysis: firstly, it will tackle theoretical — semiotic and narratological — issues connected with the passage from the linguistic medium to such a hybrid product as the graphic novel, in which different semiotic systems are blended; on the other hand, it will take into account the broader cultural implications inherent in the appropriation of literary classics — canonical texts belonging to traditional highbrow culture — by a genre typically associated with popular culture, a field that has gained more and more attention in the contemporary critical debate, from Umberto Eco’s pronouncements to the achievements of cultural studies.
Supervisors: Prof. Roberta Ferrari, Prof. Sara Soncini.
Alessia Guidi
alessia.guidi@phd.unipi.it
[L-LIN/10]
The aim of this research is to carry out an analysis of the literary strategies and symbolical and archetypal elements of science fiction and dystopian narrative in contemporary Anglo-American literature. My study will start by highlighting the levels of construction of fictional worlds and how humans relate to these alternative versions of reality. It will subsequently focus on a number of novels which have not yet been fully investigated from this specific perspective. Light will be shed on the ways characters’ attitudes and points of view encourage the reader to reflect on the epistemological and ontological structures of different universes, including the one he/she lives in. By adopting a Junghian approach and the interpretative paradigms of Women’s Studies, I will single out the peculiar traits of the female protagonists in their contextual dimension. In essence, my research concentrates on the potential and critical value of the science fiction genre as revisited by contemporary female writers.
Supervisors: prof. Laura Giovannelli, prof. Simona Beccone
Andrea Lupi
andrea.lupi@phd.unipi.it
“You must not deny the body”: Corporeal Encounters in T. S. Eliot’s Writings
[L-LIN/10]
The current research project seeks to examine the relevance of the corporeal sphere and its interaction with the world at the core of T. S. Eliot’s works, including his poetry, plays, and criticism. By closely reading a selection of primary texts along with secondary literature, this doctoral research posits the deep entanglements between corporeality and literature in modernism, and most specifically in Eliot, as explored in critical and aesthetic terms. Relying on the notion of the body as performative and interrelational, I will contribute to the on-going reassessment of Eliot’s oeuvre, rendering a further level of significance, so far only partially recognised by critics, and shedding light on the complexity and plurality of experiences and issues mediated by the body – e.g. epistemology, gender and sexuality, the relationship with the non-human. It will be hence questioned how Eliot engages with corporeality in his works, what his philosophical, critical, and aesthetic understanding of the body-world relationship is, and in what ways he interacts with his contemporaries’ theories and achievements around the nature and workings of the body.
Supervisors: prof. Laura Giovannelli, prof. Fausto Ciompi
Caterina Russo
caterina.russo@phd.unipi.it
The exile in Spanish literature of the Golden Age
[L-LIN/05]
The research project intends to offer a study on exile in the literary production of the Spanish Golden Age, about the category of destierro. Firstly, exile is defined as a literary theme, starting from the tools provided by thematic criticism. Then, a series of categories useful for the critical analysis of the literary cases. Finally, the textual corpus is presented, indicating the expected results of its analysis in a thematic key. Respect to the subject, the term destierro (deprivation of land, as shown by the suffix des-), refers to the legal institution, which provided for a spatial removal from the place of residence, to restore the balance of power. Currently, there is a lack of a thematic study related to this modality of the theme. Therefore, in this research, I will try to offer a critical analysis of the philological-literary aspects, but from a global and transversal perspective that can touch on different fields of research (for example, sociocultural or political-philosophical issues).
Supervisors: prof. Enrico Di Pastena, prof. Federica Cappelli
CURRICULUM LINGUISTICO
Paola Esposito
paola.esposito@phd.unipi.it
Future between temporality and modality: the paths of diachronic typology
[L-LIN/01]
This project proposes an analysis of the grammaticalization of the future morphology in Classical Arabic and in some Arabic varieties spoken in Maghreb from the perspective of diachronic typology. In the face of the grammaticalization processes currently identified in this field of study, the following research project will explore the possible existence of alternative paths, with particular attention to the lexical sources out of which future morphemes can develop. For this purpose, this study will provide for an enlargement of the database both on the diatopic and diachronic axis, by means of the inclusion of varieties generally underrepresented in typological studies on this subject. In pursuing this goal, the focus will be on the modal functions which can be encoded by the future morphemes: these functions give fundamental information to shed light not only on the mechanisms of semantic change involved in the development of future values, but also on the nature of this ambiguous linguistic category.
Supervisors: prof. Francesco Rovai, prof. Daniele Mascitelli
Agnese Lombardi
agnese.lombardi@phd.unipi.it
Neural language model enriched with lexical semantics and cognitive implications
[L-LIN/01]
This project aims to create a Neural Language Model (NLM) based on Transformer, built combining the semantic representations automatically extracted from the texts (contextualized embedding abstracting the entire sentence) with the graphs containing the lexical semantic information, to obtain enriched semantic representations. The lexical semantic knowledge is represented with a graph that extracts the information from parsed corpora, using syntactic relations as an approximation of defined lexical semantics. The hypothesis is that the use of enriched semantic representations improves the performance of the model, specifically in the processing of tasks that require complex semantic composition. Once pretrained, the model might be fine-tuned to process real-word tasks. In a second step, the model will be evaluated on the processing of linguistic tasks, also in comparison to the performance of human subject on the same tasks. The project aims to contribute to the state of art on three perspectives. First, the computational perspective, improving the semantic compositionality of NLM. The second is the bare theoretical linguistic one, because it clarifies how speakers process lexical semantics properties and how they interact with each other. The last one is the cognitive one: considering the comparison between the results of the model and those of the speakers, can the NLM be considered also a cognitive model of language processing?
Supervisors: prof. Alessandro Lenci, prof. Domenica Romagno