Italian Studies

Tommaso graduated from the University of Pavia, Italy, with a thesis on the poetic work of Primo Levi. Before joining the Italian Department at Brown he was a visiting student at the Trinity College Dublin and at the University of Cambridge and language instructor at Florida State University. His research interests converge on the study of the cultural memory of the Shoah in the Italian context and on the interrelation between colonial and anti-Semitic racial policies. His dissertation project, The Shoah and Italian Writers. Perspectives on Postwar Nontestimonial Literature, explores the development of Italy's champ littéraire of nontestimonial literature about the Jewish genocide. In addition, Tommaso is working on a monographic volume dedicated to the study of macrotextual structures in the narrative work of Primo Levi (Scrittura chiara, scrittura del complesso. Quattro esercizi sulle macrotestualità di Primo Levi). His articles have appeared in Testo, Carte Italiane, Italianistica, Il confronto letterario, Ticontre, Horizonte, and he has presented his research in conferences in the USA, UK, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Italy. In 2018, he co-organized the 11th edition of Chiasmi, the Harvard-Brown Graduate Conference in Italian Studies. Primary Advisor: Suzanne Stewart-Steinberg.