E D U C A T I O N
Columbia University
Ph.D. in Italian 2008, with Certificate in Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Dissertation: The Life of Cunizza da Romano: A Study of Marriage and Violence in Dante’s Italy
Brooklyn Law School
J.D. 1995.
Brown University
Doctoral Candidate in the History of Art, Spring – Fall 1988, with University Fellowship.
Princeton University
A.B. in the History of Art and Archaeology, cum laude, 1987.
T E A C H I N G E X P E R I E N C E
Fashion Institute of Technology, The State University of New York
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Certificate of Continuous Employment, Spring 2017 – Present.
Adjunct Lecturer, Spring 2013 – Fall 2016, Department of Modern Languages and Cultures.
· Italian 111, 112, and 122 (Italian Conversation). Elementary Italian language, incorporating arts-based grammar quizzes of my design, including diverse moments in Italian cultural history (e.g., a documentary on American soldiers of color, “Buffalo Soldiers,” in Italy in 1945; Renaissance paintings by Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael); coordinated film, photography, music, art and journalism.
New York University
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Fall 2020 (Arts and Cultures Across Antiquity [Cultural Foundations I]), Summer 2020 (Cultural Foundations II), Fall 2018 (Cultural Foundations I), Spring 2018 (Cultural Foundations II), Fall 2014 (Cultural Foundations I), Department of Global Liberal Studies.
· Cultural Foundations II. Core curriculum medieval and Renaissance literature, including Dante’s Inferno, Boccaccio’s Decameron, Gaspara Stampa’s poetry, Machiavelli’s Mandragola, Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, Molière’s Misanthrope. Designed midterm with textual analysis in relation to Renaissance illuminations of Dante and Boccaccio. Crafted essay assignments on themes of good government in Boccaccio’s Decameron and Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.
· Cultural Foundations I. Core curriculum ancient literature course, including Gilgamesh, encomia of Enheduanna, Homer’s Odyssey, Aristophanes’s Lysistrata, lyrics of Sappho and Catullus, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, The Bible. Assigned informal presentations in small groups for each text, e.g., analysis of ancient Midrash on passages in the Hebrew Bible. Crafted written assignments, including a midterm scavenger hunt at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a short paper comparing poems of Sappho and Catullus, a paper on Ovid’s politics, and an exam on Gnostic Gospel of Judas and the Gospel of John.
Lehman College, The City University of New York
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Fall 2016, Department of English.
· English Composition I. Writing class, part of the coordinated Freshman-Year Initiative, in which freshmen attend all their courses with the same group. Designed, taught, and evaluated writing assignments, including three formal essays, weekly low-stakes writing, as well as short answers to scaffolding questions. Structured group in-class textual analysis projects, leading to class discussions, with steps for the development of essays, as well as paradigms for incorporating evidence to support arguments. Delivered coordinated multi-media presentations, including film, music, graphic novels.
Hudson County Community College
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Fall 2012 – Spring 2013, English Department.
· English Composition 101, with readings by Sandra Cisneros, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Jhumpa Lahiri, among others, and weekly writing (and rewriting) assignments, contextualized with my multi-media presentations. Designed group discussions and crafted scaffolding exercises to lead students, step by step, in a manageable progression toward writing effective, cohesive, pointed prose. Organized field trip to historic theaters of Jersey City as the basis of assignments I designed on urban conservation. Showed coordinated short films to stimulate discussion.
Pace University
Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Modern Languages, Fall 2009–Spring 2010, and Fall 2012 – Fall 2013; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Modern Languages, Fall 2008 – Spring 2009.
· The Theater of Carlo Goldoni (1707 – 1793) as a Prism on Venetian Society, part of Learning Community Players, Parties and Politics in English and Italian Literature 1650 – 1800, with two literature courses taught in tandem, including readings in translation from Niccolò Machiavelli to Luigi Pirandello; presented art and journalism to set in context the portrayal of women; designed a scavenger hunt at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; organized trips to The New York Public Library’s Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and his Circle.
· Italian Writing Seminar, with weekly compositions in Italian.
· Elementary Italian 101 and 102.
College of Mount Saint Vincent
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Fall 2012, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures.
· Italian 101, with multimedia grammar lessons.
LIM College
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Fall 2012, Department of Arts and Communications.
· Advanced Italian, with coordinated curriculum on aspects of popular culture.
LaGuardia Community College, The City University of New York
Full-Time Substitute Assistant Professor, 2010 – 2012, Department of Education and Language Acquisition.
· Elementary Italian 101 and 102, with multimedia content-based grammar lessons of my own design.
· Advanced Italian, with readings selected from contemporary journalism and twentieth-century literature.
· Italian Literature, with readings including Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli, Gaspara Stampa, Galileo Galilei, Carlo Goldoni, Giuseppe Verdi, and Italo Calvino.
· Elementary French 101, with multimedia grammar lessons.
· Introduction to Bilingualism, an Urban Studies writing-intensive course, including recent readings on international and domestic policies and strategies for bilingualism.
The City University of New York
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Spring 2008 – Spring 2010.
· LaGuardia Community College, Department of Education and Language Acquisition, Spring 2010, Italian 101.
· Bronx Community College, Department of Modern Languages, Spring 2008 – Summer 2009; Spring 2010, Elementary Italian 11 and 12.
· John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Department of English, Fall 2009, Medieval and Early Modern Literature, from Dante to Molière.
· The City College of New York, Department of Foreign Languages, Spring 2009. Intensive Intermediate Italian, with readings and writing assignments about contemporary issues in Italy such as immigration.
Columbia University, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Graduate Associate, 2001 – 2006.
· Instructor: designed and taught hour-long graduate Italian orientation course, with manuscripts and early printed books related to Dante, Boccaccio and Petrarch, plus an introduction to Renaissance humanistic script.
· Exhibit Curator: “Paul Oskar Kristeller: His Manuscripts,” Spring 2004, which explored the legacy of Kristeller in the discipline of manuscript studies.
· Researcher: identified and catalogued Renaissance manuscript facsimiles in the Kristeller Collection; researched medieval and Renaissance manuscripts; wrote exhibit labels on liturgical books, Spring 2002.
A C A D E M I C P U B L I C A T I O N S
2022. “The Poverty Crisis in Higher Education,” Academe Blog, The Blog of Academe Magazine, The American Association of University Professors (19 July): https://academeblog.org/2022/07/19/the-poverty-crisis-in-higher-education/
2021. Luminoso: Learning Italian with Cultural Stars (New York: Printed by Kindle Direct Publishing). All profits from the book are assigned to EMERGENCY USA to fund medical care for survivors of war and poverty.
2020. Bright Words: Art-Based Intermediate ESL (New York: Printed by Kindle Direct Publishing).
2020 – 2021. TIGRIS Art-Based Language Resources, an online language learning site.
2019 – present. Online course, Italian Through Art: https://scuola-di-italiano-di-diana.teachable.com/p/italian-through-art/
2015. Stellare: Learning Italian with Cultural Stars (New York: Printed by Kindle Direct Publishing). All profits from the book are assigned to EMERGENCY USA to fund medical care for survivors of war and poverty.
Textbook adoptions:
Fall 2015 – Spring 2016, SUNY Fredonia.
2011. "Marriage and Political Violence in the Chronicles of the Medieval Veneto," Speculum 86:3 (July): 652-687.
2010. “The Speronella Chronicle,” and “Battista Pagliarino,” Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle (Leiden: Brill).
2002. “Il percorso iniziale nella carriera di Grazia Deledda,” trans. Sara Bellodi, Sardegna Mediterranea 6: 54-8.
F I C T I O N
2016. The Adventures of Mrs. Patropolis (New York: Printed by CreateSpace). New York stories, written for children from 4 to 8 years of age. http://theadventuresofmrspatropolis.blogspot.com/
B O O K A W A R D
2017. The Purple Dragonfly Book Award, First Place in the LGBT Category, for The Adventures of Mrs. Patropolis (2016).
R E A D I N G
2016 July. Word Up Community Bookshop, Washington Heights, New York City. Reading of The Adventures of Mrs. Patropolis (New York: Printed by CreateSpace, 2016).
B L O G
Pictures of Sicily: a blog about art and society: http://picturesofsicily.blogspot.com/
· 2021 (Interviews Summer of 2018): profile of an ebullient LGBTQ+ community activist organization called Stonewall in Siracusa; the winemaker Firriato’s carbon-zero eco-sustainable production; bringing Peppino Impastato as curriculum for teaching at a refugee center.
· 2018 (Interviews Summer 2017): reopening of the Palermo synagogue after more than 500 years; Mary Taylor Simeti and the power of Sicilian cuisine; photo essays on the public gardens in Taormina and Palermo Pride.
· 2013: behind-the-scenes look at a documentary on cuisine of the Aeolian Islands by the chef Fabrizia Lanza; a speech by Palermo’s Cardinal Romeo on the economic crisis; selected ancestors in the house of Lanza, as reported by Count Venceslau Lanza; and an interview with the director of the women’s organization, Arcidonna, Valeria Ajovalasit.
P R E S E N T A T I O N S
2022 April. Rutgers University and Farmingdale State College, SUNY, Promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Language and Culture Classroom, Conference Over Zoom. “Toward an Equitable Italian Classroom: Arts-Based Language Exercises Reflective of Italy’s Historical Diversity.”
2022 April. University of Toronto Queer(ing) Contemporary Italian Cultures: Home and Beyond, Virtual Symposium. “Queer Identities in Language Pedagogy.”
2021 March. Northeast Modern Language Association, Online. “The visual arts as sparks to language learning.”
2020 June [Accepted]. Canadian Association for Italian Studies [Canceled], Sorrento, Italy. “Language Acquisition as Media Studies, and The Inclusion of Historical Italian Diversity in the Language Classroom.”
2019 May. Conference of the Mediterranean Studies Association, Rethymno, Crete. “Language Acquisition as Media Studies and the Diversity of the Italian Mediterranean.”
2019 January. Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Language as Communication and Literacy Conference: Bridging Languages and Cultures in the Modern Classroom. With Alice B. Emery, “Two Accessible Arts-Based Language Texts: A Convivial Open-Resource Spanish Book and a Star-Studded Italian Book with Profits for the Refugees in Sicily.”
2018 June. Conference of the American Association of Teachers of Italian, Cagliari, Sardegna. Invited talk, “Toward effective word detectives: Italian through the arts.”
2017 – 2018. Offices of EMERGENCY USA, New York, New York. Monthly pro bono elementary Italian lesson with my book, Stellare: Learning Italian with Cultural Stars (2015), to raise awareness of EMERGENCY’s mobile health units at the sites of refugee landings in Sicily.
2017 June – July. Conference of the American Association of Teachers of Italian, Palermo, Sicily. Organized session of book presentations on language pedagogy and cultural history, including my own presentation of the forthcoming expanded edition of my book series, Stellare: Learning Italian with Cultural Stars.
2016 June. Offices of EMERGENCY USA, New York, New York. An Evening of Culture: Learning Italian with Cultural Stars, to support EMERGENCY USA, which delivers health care to survivors of war and poverty.
2016 January. Broadcast interview on Salon Radio, the radio program of the International Women Artists’ Salon. The women of Stellare: Learning Italian with Cultural Stars (2015).
2015 November. Fashion Institute of Technology of The State University of New York. “A new Italian language workbook for art lovers, Stellare: Learning Italian with Cultural Stars,” a pedagogical seminar for the faculty of the Modern Languages and Cultures Department.
2015 October. The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. “A new Italian language workbook for art lovers, Stellare: Learning Italian with Cultural Stars,” Italian Through Art: A Pedagogical Seminar for K-12 Teachers. Invited talk, with honorarium.
2015 October. Georgetown University, Department of Italian, Washington, D.C. Italian Language and Culture Conference, co-sponsored by the Italian Embassy and the Italian Cultural Institute. “A new Italian language workbook for art lovers, Stellare: Learning Italian with Cultural Stars.”
2015 June. Conference of The American Association of Teachers of Italian, Siena, Italy. Three presentations: (1) “’Tu vuò fà l’italiano:’ The Use of Song, Film and the Visual Arts in the Italian Language Classroom;” (2) “A New Italian Language Workbook, Stellare: Learning Italian with Cultural Stars;” and (3) a contribution to a panel discussion on contingent faculty. Chair of session, Teaching Italian through the Arts.
2013 October. Georgetown University, Department of Italian, Washington, D.C. Teaching Italian Culture Conference, co-sponsored by the Italian Embassy and the Italian Cultural Institute. “’Tu vuò fà l’italiano:’ The Use of Popular Song, Film and The Visual Arts to Teach Grammar.”
2012 July. Oxford/Cambridge International Chronicles Symposium, University of Oxford, England. “’Pricked by the spurs of love:’ Marriage and Tyranny in the Chronicles of the Medieval Veneto.”
2012 May. LaGuardia Community College, Queens, New York. “’Pricked by the spurs of love:’ Marriage and Tyranny in the Chronicles of the Medieval Veneto,” Social Science Faculty-Student Conference.
2012 May. Pan American International High School, Elmhurst, Queens, New York. “Why Teach?” Latino Youth for Higher Education Program, Career Day.
2011 October. LaGuardia Community College, Queens, New York. Italian Heritage Celebration. “’Tu vuò fà l’americano:’ From Sly Parody to Anthem of Globalization.”
2010 April. 2010 International Boccaccio Conference of the American Boccaccio Association, The University of Massachusetts, Amherst. “Bianca de’ Rossi: Giuseppe Betussi’s Cinquecento Addendum to Giovanni Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris, and the Medieval Veneto.”
2009 December. Modern Language Association Convention, Philadelphia. “Bianca de’ Rossi: Giuseppe Betussi’s Cinquecento Addendum to Giovanni Boccaccio’s De mulieribus claris, and the Medieval Veneto.”
2005 July. Long Beach Public Library. “Italian Renaissance Treasures of the Columbia Library.”
2004 July. Venice International University, Venice, Italy, Summer Institute. “’amorosi sospiri e lagrime:’ Concerning Some Images of Women in a Renaissance Edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy (Venice: Sessa, 1564).”
2002 October. The University of Pennsylvania, Department of Religious Studies. Panelist at presentation of E. Ann Matter’s translation of Grazia Deledda’s La Chiesa della Solitudine.
2001 July. The Newberry Library, Chicago. “Grazia Deledda: l’inizio della carriera,” Summer Institute in Italian Paleography with Armando and Franca Petrucci.
2001 April. Conference of the American Association of Italian Studies, University of Pennsylvania. “Advocacy on Behalf of Sardegna in Grazia Deledda’s Cenere (Ashes).” Organized session on Deledda.
G R A N T S
2019. New York University, Adjunct Faculty Professional Development Fund, Liberal Studies ($1,250), to attend the 2019 Conference of Mediterranean Studies Association in Rethymno, Crete.
2019 ($623), 2018 ($750), and 2017 ($1,500) and 2015 ($1,500). Fashion Institute of Technology, The State University of New York, Faculty Development Grant, to present at conferences.
2018 and 2015. American Association of Teachers of Italian, Grant to Attend the Conference in Italy ($500).
2011. Professional Staff Congress of the City University of New York Research Foundation Award, for a research project in Italy: “Emilia Brembati Solza (c. 1530-86): ‘Cicero could not have spoken better’” ($3,500).
2011. For the International Mother Language Day Celebration at LaGuardia Community College: (1) The LaGuardia Community College Association ($2,500); and (2) The Queens CUNY Languages Other Than English Consortium ($600).
2010. For the International Mother Language Day Celebration at LaGuardia Community College: (1) The LaGuardia Community College Association ($2,000); and (2) The Queens CUNY Languages Other Than English Consortium ($500).
2006. The Medieval Academy of America Grace Frank Dissertation Grant ($2,000).
2006. Columbia University Interdepartmental Committee on Medieval and Renaissance Studies Summer Fellowship ($3,000).
A C A D E M I C S E R V I C E
2017. Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, New York. Interviewed by Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society students for their project on conceptions of beauty and authority.
2010 – 2012. LaGuardia Community College, Queens, New York.
· 2011 – 2012. Participant, Writing in the Disciplines Seminar.
· 2012, March 14. Organizer, Language Course Fair.
· Organizer, International Mother Language Day Conference. Keynote speakers: (a) Dr. Aaron Fox, Columbia University Music Department (indigenous music of Alaska); (b) Paolo Javier, the Queens Poet Laureate (polyculturalism and urban poetry); (c) Dr. Shayoni Mitra of Barnard College’s Theater Department (the Indian popular theater of Habib Tanvir); and (d) Dr. Yvette Christiansë of Barnard College’s Africana Studies Department (her novel, based on a documented slave in pre-Apartheid South Africa, Unconfessed).
· 2011 – 2012. Participant, Teaching Online/Hybrid Courses Mini-Seminar.
· 2010 – 2012. Organizer, International Mother Language Day World Music Concert. Acquired grants, recruited performers, coordinated press release, coordinated with audio-visual and events departments, supervised faculty committee for design and food.
2012 April. World music festival, open to the public. Keynote performer: James Lovell, lauded in The New York Times as a star of the Afro-Caribbean Garifuna culture.
2011 March. World music festival, open to the public, commemorated in a NY1 news broadcast. Keynote speaker: Professor Aaron Fox, Chair of the Columbia University Music Department (with a presentation on repatriating rights to the indigenous music of Alaska). Musical performers (friends, alumni and students of LaGuardia) in languages of Jamaica, Korea, Bangladesh, American Sigh Language, Chinese, Bulgarian.
· 2011 Spring. Organizer, International Mother Language Student Essay Contest, with four top winners and eighteen entries, each with an essay concerning a work of literature or music in a mother language.
· 2010 – 2011. Coordinator of Italian Program: wrote syllabi and exams for all sections, and assisted Language Coordinator in determining course assignments and scheduling.
· 2010 – 2011. Departmental Representative, City University of New York World Languages Council, and Queens City University of New York Languages Other Than English Consortium.
· 2010 – 2011. Organizer, Italian Conversation Circle, weekly language-learning group, open to all members of the community, faculty, staff and students, at all levels, beginners to fluent speakers.
N E W S C O V E R A G E
2012. “Cultura garífuna este miércoles en LaGuardia,” QueensLatino.
http://www.queenslatino.com/cultura-garifuna-este-miercoles-en-laguardia/
A F F I L I A T I O N S
2021 – present. Advisory Board Member EMERGENCY USA. 2015 – present. Volunteer for EMERGENCY USA, medical N.G.O. for survivors of war and poverty.
· 2017 – 2018. Taught monthly pro bono Italian classes to raise awareness of and funds for EMERGENCY.
· 2018 February. Organized gathering for EMERGENCY supporters at Manhattan pub, The Tippler.