Katja Liimatta CV

Katja Liimatta is a lecturer in the Department of French and Italian at the University of Iowa since 2000. She has a Laurea in lingue e letterature straniere moderne (Università degli studi di Torino, 1993), a Master’s in Italian (University of Virginia, 1995) and a Ph.D in Romance Languages and Literatures (University of Pennsylvania, 2000). Katja’s main areas of interest are Contemporary Italian Literature and Women’s Studies. Her doctoral dissertation is entitled Woman as the “Other”: Questions of Identity in Elsa Morante’s La Storia. She has published articles on Elsa Morante, Gaspara Stampa, and Giovanni Pascoli.

Katja has been teaching a variety of Italian classes for 21 years at the University of Iowa, including Elementary Italian, Intensive Italian, Intermediate Italian, Conversational Italian, Contemporary Italian Poetry and Theatre, and Medieval and Renaissance Italian Literature. Besides teaching, she co-organizes and takes part in departmental activities, such as Tavola italiana and Giornata italiana. Her goal is to teach students the Italian language and increase their familiarity with many aspects of Italian culture, such as history, social life, music, and the arts.

Publications

• "Conflitto tra carne e spirito: ambiguita' neoplatonica nella poesia di Gaspara Stampa," Italian Culture, volume XIX, number 1 (2001), pp. 1-14.
• "Ida's Jewish Quest in Elsa Morante's La Storia, " Italian Culture, volume XVIII, number 1 (2000), pp. 103-123.
• "Body and Identity in Morante's La Storia and Moravia's La Ciociara," Romance Languages Annual 1999.
• "Impressionismo di parole e suoni nella poesia di Pascoli," Italian Culture, volume XVII, number 2 (1999), pp. 61-77.
• "Feminism, Feminine Historiography and Elsa Morante's La Storia," Romance Languages Annual, volume X, tome 1 (1998), pp. 281-287.
• "The Historical Novel in Italy: Tradition and Innovation," Working Papers in Romance Languages and Literatures, volume 3 (1998-1999), pp. 29-40.

Book reviews

• Marco Bardini. Morante Elsa. Italiana. Di professione, poeta. Pisa: Nistri-Lischi, 1999. Forthcoming in Italian Quarterly.