Filomena MITRANO

I was educated at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA (MA and PhD in English), and at “Sapienza” University of Rome (BA, Modern Languages and Literatures; PhD, Literatures in English). At Rutgers, I studied with leading modernist scholar Marianne DeKoven and renowned feminist theorist Catharine R. Stimpson. My core research interest is the link between Modernism and Theory (understood as a dynamic transatlantic current of critical thought). I have explored the mutual implication of modernist aesthetic production and the critical thought it inspired through key American women writers like Gertrude Stein and Susan Sontag. This line of research has yielded the trilogy: Gertrude Stein: Woman Without Qualities (Ashgate 2005); In the Archive of Longing: Susan Sontag’s Critical Modernism (Edinburgh University Press 2016); Literary Critique, Modernism and the Transformation of Theory (Edinburgh University Press 2022). My research has resulted in a supple and extended concept of modernism: through the perspective of “Italian Theory,” I posit an unfinished modernism, whose occluded strains are circulated across time and different geographical, and make sense, are given credit, and become valuable at a particular time, on certain conceptual horizons. As a consequence,  notions of transfer, displacement, circulation, and adaptability become key words in my current research.  Within the Department of Linguistic and Comparative Cultural Studies at Ca’ Foscari, I  am the coordinator of a research group on  Displacement/Adaptation/Transformation,”  part of  our Department’s “Excellence Project” [Progetto di Eccellenza] on “Adaptation/Adaptability” funded by the Italian Government. Based on the premise that geographical movement is, at the same time, a conceptual reorientation, the research group explores the circulation and regeneration of literary forms, critical and philosophical traditions, and period concepts like “modernism.”

My articles on  theory, psychoanalysis, the visual arts, American literature  have appeared in international literary journals, including Women’s Studies, Modern Fiction Studies, Modernism/modernity, Review of International American Studies, and in philosophical journals like Azimuth: Philosophical Coordinates in Modern and Contemporary Age and, more recently, SHIFT: International Journal of Philosophical Studies.  I have also authored two books on language, Language and Public Culture (Edizioni Q 2008) and English for American Studies: The Delectable Speaker, especially designed for the language curriculum at Ca’ Foscari.

My new book,  Antigone e il legame di fratellanza,  has just come out with Edizioni Grennelle and has been presented in Venice, at Galleria “Visioni Altre,” Campo del Ghetto Novo 2918, Venice (12 October 2024) and in Milan, at Milan BookCity,  Piccolo Teatro Grassi (16 November 2024).

I am Associate Professor of Anglo-American Literatures in the Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies. In November 2023 I was one of the winners of the Department’s research prize for my two 2022 monographs: Literary Critique, Modernism and the Transformation of Theory (Edinburgh University Press) and La critica sconfinata. Introduzione al pensiero di Susan Sontag (Quodlibet). I also serve as the Erasmus + and Overseas Departmental coordinator.

 Before coming to Ca’ Foscari, I taught “Critical Methodologies” at “Sapienza” University of Rome and Literature and Composition at Loyola University Chicago, the John Felice Rome Center. I held the position of Visiting Lecturer at The Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts, Mount Holyoke College.

 I am the co-founder, with Prof. Max Saunders (University of Birmingham), of EMU (European Modernist Union) and I regularly host EMU symposia in Venice. I founded and  coordinated the Discourses of Modernity Seminar (2015-2019), Loyola University  Chicago, the Johns Felice Rome Center, and am one of the founding members of  the Italian Thought Network (2016).

I am an alumna of  the Five College Women’s Studies Research Center, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, USA,  where I was a Research Associate in 2010, at the start of my research on Susan Sontag, and of the School of Criticism and Critical Theory, Cornell University, where I studied with Jacqueline Rose (Psychoanalysis and Modern Culture).

I welcome theses supervision at all levels.

Forthcoming speaking engagements:

Indian Institute of Technology, Dhanbad, India, lecture series on  “Women Writers and Thinkers in the Modern Critical Tradition,” Feb. 10-13, 2024, online.

An invited series of lectures as part of a new program financed by the Government of India titled Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) in Higher Education aimed at tapping the talent pool of scientists and entrepreneurs, internationally to encourage their engagement with the institutes of Higher Education in India so as to augment the country's existing academic resources, accelerate the pace of quality reform, and elevate India's scientific and technological capacity to global excellence.

February 10, 2024. “Introduction: What is Critique? “

February  11, 2024.  “Weak Theories of the Subject”

February  12, 2024.  Feminism and Form

February 13, 2024. From Biopolitics to Charme (The Thinkers of Antigone)

What students say about me:

 “An amazing course. It has been one of the best parts of my exchange and one of the best courses of my overall university studies.”

BJORK NORGAARD ANDERSEN, exchange MA student from Copenhagen, in my course “Critical Thinking” –  2023/2024

Professor Mitrano's "Critical Thinking" course brought me back to the bachelor courses I had at Bennington College in the US; it was done in a true spirit of learning through conversation and exploration of the study materials.

IGNJAT MILENKOVIC, Ca’ Foscari MA International Student, in my course “Critical Thinking” –  2023/2024

“Critical Thinking” is not only a university course but a lesson for a lifetime, one that puts you in contact with the gift of a mind that works to answer the most powerful and difficult questions of our time.

EMMA TORRE, Ca’ Foscari MA Student, in my course “Critical Thinking” –  2023/2024