Evelyn Ferraro

Assistant Professor

Evelyn Ferraro is Assistant Professor of Italian Studies at Santa Clara University. She holds a Laurea in Foreign Languages and Literatures/English from the University of Palermo, Italy; M.A.s in Translation and Comparative Literature (University of Essex, U.K.) and Italian Language and Literature (University of Pittsburgh); and a Ph.D. in Italian Studies from Brown University. Her research is situated within Transnational Italian Studies, an interdisciplinary field that challenges exclusionary notions of national belonging, citizenship, and cultural identity. She examines Italy’s migratory and colonial histories and their legacies, uncovering marginalized voices and tracing transnational and transhistorical connections that reshape ideas of identity, memory, and belonging. Her work has appeared in venues such as Forum Italicum, Italian Studies, California Italian Studies, Quaderni d’italianistica, the Italian American Review, and altrelettere, and in recent years has especially focused on California Italian American narratives, women’s voices, questions of place and displacement, and the intergenerational transmission of memory. She also serves as Book Review Editor for Altreitalie, an international journal on Italian migrations worldwide.

In addition to her research, she is deeply committed to teaching and student learning. She teaches all levels of Italian, from introductory language and first-year core courses (e.g., ITAL 11A–12A “Italy, Gateway of Cultures”) to advanced language and cultural analysis, and upper-division interdisciplinary courses on the Italian American experience, immigration in Italian cinema and literature, ecocriticism, translation, food culture, and an Internship course. Following Santa Clara’s teacher-scholar model, she integrates research and mentorship into her teaching, as highlighted in her article “Curriculum, Archives, and the Digital Turn.” At the University level, she serves as Faculty Director of the Unity Residential Learning Community (RLC), providing intellectual leadership and mentoring in her residence hall, hosting weekly community hours, offering quarterly advising programs, and integrating academic and co-curricular programming. The Unity RLC theme—“diversity as a catalyst for social and civic engagement”—aligns with her teaching and research and advances SCU’s DEI goals.

Awards:

She was the recipient of the inaugural 2020 Leonardo Award in the Humanities (Italian Scientists and Scholars of North America Foundation, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter and the Leonardo da Vinci Society of San Francisco); the National Italian American Foundation Fellowship; and the American Italian Historical Association Memorial Fellowship.

RESEARCH INTERESTS:

Italian and Italian American literature and culture (post-1861)
Migrations (from and to Italy), Italian national identity, transnational literature and cinema
Colonialism, Postcolonial Italy, Black Italian literature and culture
Postcolonial theories, Migration and Diaspora studies, theories of space, place, and identity Women Studies in Italian America
Sicily: Cultural history, representations of Otherness
Italian Studies and Digital Humanities

Courses

ITAL 1: Elementary Italian 1

ITAL 2: Elementary Italian 2

ITAL 12A: Italy, Gateway of Cultures (Core Curriculum: Cultures & Ideas 2)

ITAL 100: Advanced Italian 1- Italian through Italian Cuisine

ITAL 101: Introduction to Cultural Analysis

ITAL 106: Advanced Italian Conversation

ITAL 113: Introduction to Italian Cinema

ITAL 154: Nature and the Italian Literary Imagination

ITAL 197 (Special Topics): Immigration Culture in Italy

ITAL 185: The Italian American Experience (Core Curriculum: Diversity; Pathway: American Studies)

ITAL 187 (in English) and ITAL 187I (in Italian): Destination Italy: Immigration in Film and literature (Core Curriculum: Civic Engagement; Pathway: Cinema Studies)

Publications

For more information, see: Scholar Commons - Evelyn Ferraro

PEER REVIEWED ARTICLES

“Curriculum, Archives, and the Digital Turn: The Italian American Experience and the Transnational Approach to Community-Based Learning.” Italian American Review 14.2 (2024): 164-185.
“Place and transmemory in California Italian American literary narratives: Dorothy Bryant’s Miss Giardino.” Forum Italicum 57.2 (2023). 612-640. Special Issue: Critical Issues in Transnational Italian Studies. Guest editors: Serena Bassi, Loredana Polezzi, Giulia Riccò.
‘La tradizione è come il mare’: Giuseppe Pitrè’s Transnational Approach to Folk and Fairy Tales in the New Italy. Italian Studies. [Published May 2022.]
“Jewish Refugee Women, Transnational Coalition Politics, and Affect in Ebe Cagli Seidenberg’s Come ospiti: Eva ed altri.” California Italian Studies. Special Issue: Italia Senza Frontiere/Borderless Italy. 9.1 (2019).
“Space and Relic in Frank Paci’s Black Madonna.” Quaderni d’italianistica. 39.1 (2018). 173-193.
“Casting Sound: Modality and Poetics in Gabriella Ghermandi’s Regina di fiori e di perle.” Co-authored with Laura Dolp. altrelettere (2016): 30 pp.
“Drawing Testimony, Coming to Writing: Ebe Cagli Seidenberg’s Le sabbie del silenzio and Il Tempo dei Dioscuri.” NeMLA Italian Studies. Special Issue: The Jewish Experience in Contemporary Italy. 37 (2015): 140-64.
“Between Italy and America: Exile and Suspension in Ebe Cagli Seidenberg’s Il Tempo dei Dioscuri.” Carte Italiane: A Journal of Italian Studies. Ed. Sarah A. Carey and Brendan W. Hennessey. 5 (2009): 181-98.

BOOK CHAPTERS

“Songs of Passage and Sacrifice: Gabriella Ghermandi’s Stories in Performance.” Co-authored with Laura Dolp. Artistic Citizenship: Artistry, Social Responsibility, and Ethical Praxis. Ed. David J. Elliott, Marissa Silverman, and Wayne Bowman. Oxford UP, 2016. 415-45.

“Italianization of Emigration to Canada: Or, What is the Role of the Italies outside of Italy?” The Cultures of Italian Migration: Diverse Trajectories and Discrete Perspectives. Ed. Graziella Parati and Anthony J. Tamburri. Madison, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson UP, 2011. 95-107.

“Southern Encounters in the City: Reconfiguring the South from the Liminal Space.” Small Towns, Big Cities: The Urban Experience of Italian Americans. Ed. Dennis Barone and Stefano Luconi. New York, NY: American Italian Historical Association, 2010. 219-27.

ONLINE ENTRIES

“Ebe Cagli Seidenberg,” entry for the Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women’s Writing. School of Advanced Study, University of London, 2012. Revised, expanded, published Fall 2021.

TRANSLATIONS

Growing up Italian/Crescere italiana. Poem by Maria Mazzotti Gillan. Voices of Multiple Italy | Voci di un’Italia molteplice. Ed. Francesco Chianese, 2025.

“Post-‘Colonia:’ Emigration, Colonialism, and Immigration in Contemporary Italy/ La post‘colonia’ degli emigranti nell’Italia dell’immigrazione.” Essay by Teresa Fiore. L’Italia postcoloniale. Ed. Cristina Lombardi-Diop and Caterina Romeo. Le Monnier Università/Mondadori Education: Firenze, 2014.