Faculty of Modern and听Medieval Languages and Linguistics Raised Faculty Building, room 202 海角社区 Sidgwick Avenue 海角社区 CB3 9DA United Kingdom
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In 2013, I received a BA in Italian Literature from Universit脿 degli Studi di Catania with a thesis on Paolo Volponi鈥檚 Le mosche del capitale. I then moved to Venice, where I completed an听MA in Italian Philology and Literature in 2016, with a thesis concerning thresholds, margins and exile in Paolo Volponi鈥檚 prose and poetry.
Between 2015 and 2016, I spent six months in Paris, at Universit茅 Paris Nanterre, as part of an Erasmus+ programme.
In 2017, I started a PhD in Italian at Selwyn College, 海角社区, supervised by Prof. Robert S. C. Gordon and fully funded by a Keith Sykes Postgraduate Research Scholarship (three years). In July 2021, I defended my doctoral thesis, 'Industrial Writing and Anticolonial Discourse in Italy, 1955鈥�1965', concerning some intersections between Italian industrial literature of the 1950s and 1960s and the anticolonial thought which in the same years circulated around Europe and was enthusiastically received in Italy by industrial writers.听
Thanks to an MHRA postdoctoral research scholarship that I was awarded in 2022鈥�2023, I recently submitted the manuscript of my first monograph, growing out of my PhD, to the Legenda series 'Italian Perspectives' (working title: The Colonial Allegory: Narratives of Industry and Decolonisation in Italy, 1955鈥�1965'). Since my PhD,听I have听contributed听to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and to the organisation of research events听in the Faculty.
Between September and December 2023, I was a fellow (Rome Awardee) at the British School at Rome, where I had the opportunity to work on a project entitled听Black Rome: The Second Congress of Black Writers and Artists (Rome, March-April 1959). In June 2024, I co-organised with Luca Peretti a workshop on the Rome Congress at KNIR, in Rome:听The Second Congress of Black Writers and Artists, 65 years later.
Thanks to a Gulbenkian Early-Career Research Fellowship at Churchill College, I am听currently working on a research project on anthologies of African, African-American and Afro-Diasporic听literatures published in Italy from 1945 to the present:听https://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/fellows/dr-erica-bellia/
Together with Liesbeth Fran莽ois (Spanish), I am a convenor of the听Narratives of Unpaid Labour听seminar series:听/rights-wrongs-prison-work-italy-experiential-narratives-cultural-representations-monica-jansen
Since 2021, I have offered undergraduate lectures and postgraduate seminars on several topics as part of the following papers:
- IT1/ITA3: Postcolonial Italian Literature: Shirin Ramzanali Fazel, Lontano da Mogadiscio
- IT3: Italian Cinema
- IT4: Primo Levi; Contemporary Women鈥檚 Autobiography: Luisa Passerini and Igiaba Scego
- IT5: Carlo Levi鈥檚 South(s) (co-taught with Dr Michele Maiolani in 2022-2023)
- IT9 & IT6: 鈥業talian Photo-texts After 1945鈥�
- IT6: 鈥楾ransnational Italy鈥� (co-taught with Dr听Luigi Pinton in 2021-2022 and 2022-2023)
- IT6: 鈥業talian Industrial Literature and Film' (co-taught with Prof. Pierpaolo Antonello in 2021-2022); '"Fondata sul lavoro": Labour Narratives in Postwar Italy'
- ITA1: Italian Language Supplementary Classes
- ITB1
- Two sessions of IT20th century: New Commitments, on 鈥楾he Long 1960s鈥� and 鈥業talian Colonialism, Anticolonialism and Postcolonialism鈥�
For all these modules, I have also supervised essays, long essays as well as optional dissertations.
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My research interests also include:
- Italian post-war literature and cultural history
- Industrial literature and the relationships between literature and labour
- Modernism and Neo-Modernism
- Transnational Italian Studies
- Colonial, Anticolonial and Postcolonial Italy
During my academic path, I have also developed a parallel interest in Anglo-American Literature (Ca鈥� Foscari-Harvard Summer School, Venice, June-July 2014).
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I am currently working on a research project on anthologies of African, African-American and Afro-Diasporic听literatures published in Italy from 1945 to the present:听https://www.chu.cam.ac.uk/fellows/dr-erica-bellia/
I am听part of the OBERT听(Observatoire Europ茅en des R茅cits du Travail - European Observatory of Labour Narratives), in which I contributed to found a听working group on Migration and Labour, looking at artistic representations of migration and labour in world literature and art of the 20th and 21st centuries.
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FORTHCOMING
Monograph:
- 听Narratives of Industry and Decolonisation in Italy 1955-1965: An Allegorical Reading听(Legenda, 2025)
IN PREPARATION
- Erica Bellia, 'Like a Congress of Italian Socialists': The Second Congress of Black Writers and Artists in the Italian Periodical Press (journal article)
PUBLISHED
Peer-reviewed journal articles:
- 听Erica Bellia, 鈥楽triking Women in Italian Industrial Literature of the Economic Miracle鈥�, Women Language Literature in Italy, special issue co-edited by Serena Laiena and Elena Emma Sottilotta, 2024
- Erica Bellia, 鈥楽ciascia e il montaggio di scritture altrui鈥�, Todomodo: A Journal of Sciascia Studies, 14 (2024)
- Erica Bellia, 鈥樷�淐ome il lavoro dei corallai鈥�: note sui contributi di Leonardo Sciascia a Galleria鈥�, Todomodo, 11 (2021), 217鈥�228
- Erica Bellia, 鈥楥olonizzati o colonizzatori? L鈥檃nticolonialismo olivettiano sulle pagine di 颁辞尘耻苍颈迟脿, 1954鈥�1964鈥�, in Umanesimo e tecnologia: il laboratorio Olivetti, ed. by Daniele Balicco (special issue of L鈥檕spite ingrato, n.s., 6 (2021)), pp. 89-97
- Erica Bellia, 鈥樷�淭radire la propria condizione鈥�: rappresentazioni dell鈥檌ntellettuale nell鈥檕pera di Paolo Volponi鈥�, Il lavoro della letteratura: forme, temi, metafore di un conflitto occultato e di un鈥檈mancipazione a venire (special issue of L鈥檕spite ingrato, online edition, 2018), 259鈥�280
- Erica Bellia, 鈥樷�淪ugli scalini di una casa altrui鈥�: soglie, margini, esilio in Memoriale di Paolo Volponi鈥�, Studi Novecenteschi, 94 (2017), 341鈥�363
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Book chapters:
- Erica Bellia, 鈥楢lgeria: anno settimo. Note su un documentario ritrovato鈥�, book chapter, in Con le mani libere: il cinema italiano e la liberazione dell鈥橝lgeria, ed. by Luca Peretti and Paola Scarnati (Arcidosso, GR: Effigi, 2022), pp. 163鈥�178
- Erica Bellia, 鈥淣oi siamo tutti colonizzati dalla tecnica鈥�: riviste industriali e pensiero anticolonialista nell鈥橧talia degli anni Cinquanta e Sessanta鈥�, book chapter, in Fabrica in fabula: industria ed editoria culturale nel Novecento, a cura di Silvia Cavalli, Davide Savio and Carmen Van den Bergh (Florence: Franco Cesati, 2022), pp. 139鈥�148
- Erica Bellia, 鈥楾ommaso Di Ciaula鈥檚 Tuta blu (1978): The Voice and Body of the Working Class鈥�, book chapter, in Italian Industrial Literature and Film: Perspectives on the Representation of Postwar Labor, ed. by Carlo Baghetti, Jim Carter and Lorenzo Marmo (Bern: Peter Lang, 2021), pp. 349鈥�358
- Erica Bellia, 鈥樷�淟a citt脿 materna鈥�: Urbino nel Lanciatore di Giavellotto di Paolo Volponi鈥�, book chapter, in Idee, forme e racconto della citt脿 nella narrativa italiana (Florence: Franco Cesati, 2020), pp. 39鈥�47
- Erica Bellia, 鈥�Viaggio in Barberia di Luciano Bianciardi: appunti per una teoria dell鈥檃nti-viaggio?鈥�, book chapter, in 鈥楿n viaggio realmente avvenuto鈥�: studi in onore di Ricciarda Ricorda, ed. by Alessandro Cinquegrani and Ilaria Crotti (Venice: Edizioni Ca鈥� Foscari, 2019), pp. 345鈥�354
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Translations (English to Italian)
- David Forgacs, 鈥業taliani in Algeri鈥�, trans. by Erica Bellia, in Con le mani libere: il cinema italiano e la liberazione dell鈥橝lgeria, ed. by Luca Peretti and Paola Scarnati (Arcidosso, GR: Effigi, 2022), pp. 99鈥�120
- Viviane Saglier, 鈥樷�漊n mondo completamente nuovo in cui molte cose rimasero uguali鈥�. La rappresentazione delle donne in Les mains livres鈥�, trans. by Erica Bellia, in Con le mani libere: il cinema italiano e la liberazione dell鈥橝lgeria, ed. by Luca Peretti and Paola Scarnati (Arcidosso, GR: Effigi, 2022), pp. 233鈥�248
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