Previous research

In my thesis, I examined the extent to which theoretical models of fantastic literature could be applied to children’s literature. Based on the Italian children’s author Gianni Rodari, whose texts did not reflect any given descriptions of the literary fantastic, I showed that the two concepts lightness and play, which are normally considered incompatible with the fantastic dark and menacing aesthetics, characterized his short prose on several different levels. I also argued that Rodari’s texts were the incorporation of an Italian literary tradition – from Ariosto to Calvino – in which the fantastic is not necessarily reflected in a dark or terrifying way.

Current research

In recent years I have been interested in various aspects of literary mediation and intercultural communication. I have published studies of the literary flow between Sweden and Italy, case studies in the Swedish and international reception of Italian writers and articles on the complex dynamics in the process of literary mediation. My current research focuses on intercultural actors – such as translators, introducers, literary agents, editors – and their influence over the Italian literature in Sweden and how it has been introduced and received in the Swedish literary system.

Another area of interest to me is the construction of the Nordic – ”nordicity” – and how it manifests itself in modern Italian prose, especially in travel writing and the emerging migrant literature.

I coordinate a research collaboration between Stockholm University and Sapienza Università di Roma, and I am also a member of their college for international graduate school specializing in gender studies.

Categories

Comparative literature – translation studies – children’s literature – gender studies.