Staff Profile

Education

• • Phd
  • 2013
  • Relations Beyond Encounters: Reinterpreting Post-Coloniality in Egyptian and Italian Literatures and Identities between 1826 and 1940 Phd in Comparative Literature The scope of this dissertation is to examine the representations of Egypt in modern Italian literature. By closely analyzing Egyptian, Italian and French texts related to the colonial moment and the Italian intellectual environment during fascism the aim of this dissertation is to revise current views of colonial relations between Egypt and Europe. Informed by a historical and a theoretical analysis that deal with the rise of nationhood, the regulation of national identity, and intellectuals’ responses to these changes, this thesis seeks to demonstrate the inadequacies of the terms “national” and “colonial” to account for the “intermingling” and “interdependent” work of the texts examined. The novels and poems, originally composed in Arabic, Italian and French, host representational features that reveal the polyphonic character of the lives of Italian immigrants in Egypt during the early twentieth century. Such polyphony invalidates fascist efforts at establishing a national identity based on the illusion of an essential national character and a homogenous cultural background.

Career Progression