Irene Lottini holds a PhD in comparative studies from the University of Siena (Italy). At the University of Iowa, she directs the Italian program, serves as course supervisor for the Elementary Italian I and II sequence, and teaches language, literature, and culture courses. She is the recipient of the 2022-23 Collegiate Teaching Award. Her main research interests focus on Italian silent cinema, contemporary cinema, the relationship between film and the other arts, and Italian American cinema. Her publications include essays on Italian literature, 1910s cinema, modern and contemporary film. She has presented papers on silent, modern, and contemporary cinema at numerous national and international conferences.

Selected Courses

• ITAL:1000 – First-Year Seminar – Italian Fashion: Style, Culture, and Society
• ITAL:1101 – Elementary Italian I
• ITAL:1102 – Elementary Italian II
• ITAL:2550 – Images of Modern Italy
• ITAL:2660 – The Italian American Experience
• ITAL:2770 – The Mafia and the Movies: Defying the Myth
• ITAL:4633 – Dante’s Inferno

Selected Publications

• “Emotional Outbursts. Italian Americans in D.W. Griffith’s Films.” Italian Americans in Films and Other Media, edited by Daniele Fioretti and Fulvio Orsitto, Palgrave Macmillan, Forthcoming.

• “Storia, memora e racconto: identità multiculturale in Harem Suare di Ferzan Ozpetek.” Composite Identities, edited by Anna Maria Chierici and Fulvio Orsitto, LED Edizioni Universitarie. Forthcoming, pp. 31-43.

• “The Italian American Prizefighter. Ethnicity in Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull (1980)”. D. Fioretti & F. Orsitto (Eds.), Italian Americans in Films: Establishing and Challenging Italian American Identities, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022, pp. 99-118.

• “La zattera della Medusa. Metafore del potere da Leonardo Sciascia a Roberto Andò.” Crocevia Italia: L'Italia contemporanea tra letteratura, cinema e musica, edited by Francesco Ciabattoni, Fulvio Orsitto, and Simona Wright, LED Edizioni Universitarie, 2022, pp. 65-76.

• “The Soldier and the Cinematic Lieutenant. The Great War in Italian Silent Cinema (1915-18).” Italy in the Era of the Great War, edited by Vanda Wilcox, Brill, 2018, pp. 350-70.

• “Silenzi, cadute e interpolazioni. Il ‘gag’ da Gianni Celati a Davide Ferrario.” Attraversamenti culturali. Cinema, letteratura, musica e arti visuali nell’Italia contemporanea, edited by Fulvio Orsitto and Simona Wright, Franco Cesati Editore, 2016, pp. 67-76.

• “From Pinocchio to Cuore: Children in Early Italian Cinema.” New Vision of the Child in Italian Cinema, edited by Danielle Hipkins and Roger Pitt, Peter Lang, pp. 151-68.

• “Intersezioni e metamorfosi. Gianluigi Toccafondo tra cinema, pittura, letteratura e musica.” Contaminazioni culturali. Musica, teatro, cinema e letteratura nell’Italia contemporanea, edited by Fulvio Orsitto and Simona Wright, Vecchiarelli, 2014, pp. 99-114.

• “‘Il delirio del lungometraggio.’ Cinema as Mass Phenomenon in Early Twentieth Century Italian Culture.” Popular Italian Cinema, edited by Louis Bayman and Sergio Rigoletto, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, pp. 147-62.

Associations

• American Association for Italian Studies
• American Association of Teachers of Italian
• Canadian Association for Italian Studies
• Italian American Studies Association
• Northeast Modern Language Association