Overview
Valeria Dani received her Ph.D. in Italian Studies from Cornell after having previously studied at Sapienza University of Rome and The Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Her research focuses on contemporary poetry with strong interests in critical theory, feminism, and film studies. Dani employs hermeneutics and Jewish mysticism to generate new theoretical synergies between the Italian lyric, cinema, and gender. Her project, Anadiplosis/Climax. Ascensions and Downfalls in Italian Poetry, studies the rhetorical figure of repetition known as "anadiplosis," which Dani analyzes both from a historical and theoretical perspective, wielding it as a tool to intervene in debates around the philosophy of language, political theology, and the limits of representation.
During 2018-2019 Valeria Dani worked at the John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines as a Lecturer of Academic Writing, where she returns every summer to teach a variety of writing workshops (e.g., “Cinema and Power”; “Women and Horror”; “The Weird and the Eerie”; “Home Is Where the Horror Is”) for the Pre-Collegiate Summer Scholars Program.
After being a proud member of the Cornell Prison Education Program, as part of which she has led advanced seminars (“Introduction to Criticism and Theory”; “Introduction to Feminist and Gender Studies”) and foundational English classes (“World Literature” and “Mythology”) in multiple maximum-security prisons in Upstate New York, Dani was awarded a prestigious Mellon/ACLS Public Fellowship (2020-2022).
Dani is an active translator of Italian theory: among other projects, her book-length English translation of Giorgio Agamben’s A che punto siamo? L’epidemia come politica (Where Are We Now? The Epidemic as Politics) was published in 2021 by Eris press in the UK and Rowman & Littlefield in the United States.
Research Focus
- Italian Poetry
- Italian Cinema
- Jewish Mysticism
- Feminist and Gender Studies
- Critical Theory
- The Cinematic Representation of Women in Horror Movies
- Translation Studies
Publications
- “‘Moribondo Cristo le rispose:/non mi toccare!’: Touch, Isolation, and the Agonizing Flesh in Amelia Rosselli’s Variazioni belliche”, California Italian Studies, 11, n.1, 2022.
- “‘Adesso tornerai a scrivere poesie’ Antonia Pozzi’s Unfinished Prose and the Lyrical Vocation”, L’Anello che non tiene. Journal of Modern Italian Literature, 29-32, n.1, 2020.
- “IF: An Altarpiece for Amelia Rosselli”, Vassar Review, 2019.
- “La Colonia Fascista di Sciesopoli: Trasformazione e Abbandono”, La Rassegna Mensile di Israel, n.1-2, 2018.
- “Cerco nella sabbia/il sole e il pianto/dei mondi. Scrittura, nominazione e metamorfosi in Antonia Pozzi”, Smerilliana, n.16, 2014.
