Academic publications
Academic publications
Embedded Files
For more information and to download selected publications, go to my google scholar profile or my academia.edu page. On the left: the trailer for my first book on J.G. Ballard
Critical Reception
The Somali Within (2015)
“A very welcome and significant contribution to the growing field of Italian postcolonial studies... offering a convincing in-depth textual analysis of a specifically postcolonial literature (though many of his insights could usefully also be stretched out to apply to the wider ‘migration’ field), as well as contributing an important linguistic study, which draws Translation Studies into productive proximity with a potential transcultural turn in Italian Studies in general.” — Emma Bond, Modern Language Review 116.2, April 2017, 524-25
“A new and original analysis... From how the Somali writers describe race and colour it is, in fact, possible to start a reflection that, from the colonial adventures and through the racial laws of 1938 and the apparent neglect of the colonies after World War II, reaches contemporary Italy and the current problems with racism.” — Daniele Comberiati, Crossings: Journal of Migration & Culture 2016, 247-49
“The postcolonial and transnational perspective of this work... calls for fresh and stimulating elaborations, making it a compelling reading also for readers who are not well acquainted with the body of literature here analysed.” — Lorenzo Mari, Interventions 19.1 (2016): 148-151.
“Rich in its theoretical approaches, Brioni’s study will be of immense interest to scholars of contemporary Italian culture, Italian postcolonialism and, indeed, to anyone interested in the ongoing debates surrounding ‘minor literature.’”— Renata Redford, Italica 93.4 (2016): 849-51
“The Somali Within is an innovative volume that discusses the Somali-Italian encounter, from the colonial period to the subsequent historical events intertwining the histories of Somalia and Italy well into their postcolonial present... Brioni’s volume is indeed a much needed and complex contribution to the study of Italian Somali literature which engages masterfully with these texts while redefining multiple theoretical problems.” — Elena Benelli, Italian Studies 73.4 (2018): 467-468.
“The Somali Within signals perhaps a new direction in the field of Italian migration literature in Italy... A valuable resource to scholars of Italian, minor, post-colonial, and migration literatures as well as those interested in how Italy’s colonial past can help explain contemporary views in Italy of language, race, and identity.” — Francesca Minonne, Quaderni d’Italianistica 38.2 (2018): 277-79.
The Horn of Africa and Italy (2018)
This collection can be particularly useful for Italian Studies scholars who might not be as familiar with the African perspective on and response to Italian colonialism as they are with the Italian. Furthermore, its call for the colonial legacy to be placed in a transnational framework gestures toward a promising new direction for studies on Italian colonialism and postcolonialism. Jessica L. Harris, Quaderni d'Italianistica, 39.1 (2019): 252-254.
The merit of this book is the attempt [...] to retrace colonial and postcolonial cultural relations between the Horn of Africa and Italy, paying attention to the racial dimension which shaped them and to the interplay of other elements, with all their ambivalence, complexities and nuances. Nicola Camilleri, Modern Italy, 25.4 (2020): 496-498.
Scrivere di Islam, Raccontare la diaspora (2020)
“The two authors ‘disturb’ us, the readers, who are suddenly forced to question their own political, historical and cultural position vis-à-vis the kaleidoscope of today’s contemporaneity. Scrivere di Islam. Raccontare la diaspora does not only give a methodologically concrete way of decentring binary oppositions—of scholar/writer, academic research/creative writing, colonizer/colonized—but it also challenges the notion of knowledge itself. As both authors agree, eventually, decolonization can happen when dialogue and continuous exchanges of memories and experiences are ongoing between different subjectivities”. Anna Finozzi, Annali d’Italianistica, 39 (2021): 570-571.
Italian Science Fiction (2019) and Ideologia e Rappresentazione (2020)
[On Italian Science Fiction] “This is a groundbreaking book that names the right names and mirrors in its discontinuous structure the discontinuity of Italian sf itself, a literature (in its widest sense) whose history must necessarily be non-linear and fractured.” —Umberto Rossi, Science Fiction Studies 47.1 (2020): 120-125.
“The strength of Brioni and Comberiati’s work is that it clarifies how the genre of science fiction is rooted in Italian culture, particularly in Italian cinema and literature. [...] their analysis presents an in-depth reading of how Italian science fiction is deeply connected to identity politics, and therefore reflects the historical and political changes that Italy endured as a nation.” Elisabetta Carraro, Quaderni d'italianistica 40. 2 (2019): 191-193.
“Italian Science Fiction segna [...] un punto importante negli studi internazionali sulla fantascienza, non solo nostrana. [...] il fatto che il genere in questi anni non viva la sua epoca più fulgida sembra anche aver raffreddato un po’ la voglia degli accademici di riaprirne i confini teorici e ristudiarne le configurazioni estetiche.
Magari questo volume potrebbe offrire una salutare scossa.” —Roy Menarini, Studi Culturali 1 (2020): 125-129.“Simone Brioni e Daniele Comberiati aggiungono una tappa significativa al percorso, ancora in divenire, di precisazione critica intorno alla fantascienza italiana. Accostando alla ricostruzione diacronica la disamina teorico-tematica per singole linee interpretative, i due studiosi discutono una diversificata fenomenologia e si inseriscono appieno nel clima di riscoperta critica del fantascientifico italiano.”— Carlotta Vacchelli, Simultanea 1.1. (2020). Online.
“Questi due volumi hanno il merito di offrire interpretazioni originali di opere poco studiate e di non trattare la fantascienza come un genere isolato dal resto del panorama artistico italiano. […] Si spera che questi volumi, così ricchi di spunti di riflessione, possano indurre altri ad avventurarsi in questi spazi ancora così poco esplorati.” —Elio Baldi, Annali d’Italianistica 1 (2020): 530-531.
“Suggerendo direzioni plurime per l’ampliamento degli studi sul fantascientifico, il libro di Brioni e Comberiati rilancia ancora una volta l’importanza di un genere spesso considerato minore, sottolineandone la crucialità per la comprensione della cultura italiana contemporanea.” —Alessandra Giro, Narrativa 42 (2021). Online
“Brioni and Comberiati’s text is of great interest to both the scholar and the general reader who has more than a passing interest in Italian history and culture, postcolonial studies, and the effective use of science fiction to explore and uncover the important social and political issues to yield insights. […] The book itself is well-grounded in postcolonial theory and by the end readers have seen, as promised, just who “The Other” is via the prism of one nation’s contemporary science fiction and are well-equipped to apply what was learned to other subjects. The authors have provided a sound template to anyone who might do a similar study featuring sf works from another country or region on a particular topic, and they offer up to the scholar suggestions of authors and works for study and possible future translation.” —Sean Memolo, Science Fiction Research Association Review 51.3 (2021): 278-281.
[On Ideologia e rappresentazione] “each chapter manages to rediscover some old and/or forgotten Italian sf novel, film, graphic narrative, or TV series deserving renewed attention and research; the authors connect it in unexpected ways to more recent and famous parts of the Italian sf canon. We are in a pioneering phase of sf studies and the Italian scene. This book, […] is a pathfinder, tracing promising inroads for future research and younger scholars” —Umberto Rossi, Extrapolations 62.3 (2021): 230-234.
[On Ideologia e rappresentazione] “Ideologia e rappresentazione de Brioni et Comberiati offre donc un point de vue innovant qui, en démontrant comment la science-fiction aborde des sujets fondamentaux liés à notre culture contemporaine, permet de réfléchir sur l’histoire italienne, son actualité et la construction de son identité nationale.” —Anna Chiara Palladino, Italies 25 (2021): 422-423.
L'Italia, l'altrove (2022)
The book makes an original contribution to the transnational turn recently adopted by Italian Studies. Offering a thoughtful and eclectic range of literary, filmic, and visual sources, it takes into account different space depictions and apprehends Italy in a polycentric, discontinuous, and global perspective. In doing so, the author aims to (1) show how discourses and images are capable of transforming and subverting hegemonic narratives about migration in Italy and beyond; and (2) manifest alternative visions of inclusion into society, citizenship, and language." Jacopo Francesco Mascoli, Annali d'Italianistica (2023)
Creatività diasporiche (2023)
"Read as a whole, the volume offers a broad-focused take on transnational contemporary Italy, reflecting the dynamic and plural histories traversing Italian language and territory, and the synergy between academic and artistic discourses. Its conversational tone and linguistic accessibility do not diminish the contribution of the academic discourse sustaining the volume, but rather signal its political and cultural significance." Federica di Blasio, Annali d'Italianistica (2024)
Bibliography
1. Books
Shrapnel (Brescia: Casa della Memoria, 2025).
L’Italia, l’altrove: luoghi, spazi e attraversamenti nel cinema e nella letteratura sulla migrazione (Venezia: Cà Foscari UP, 2022).
Simone Brioni and Shirin Ramzanali Fazel. Scrivere di Islam. Raccontare la diaspora. (Venezia: Cà Foscari UP, 2020).
Simone Brioni and Daniele Comberiati. Ideologia e rappresentazione. Percorsi attraverso la fantascienza italiana. (Milano:
Mimesis, 2020).
Simone Brioni and Daniele Comberiati. Italian Science Fiction: The Other in Literature and Film. (New York:
Palgrave McMillan, 2019).
The Somali Within: Language, Race and Belonging in 'Minor' Italian Literature (Cambridge: Legenda, 2015).
Il futuro quotidiano: Saggi su James Graham Ballard (Siena: Prospettiva, 2011). Book review.
2. Curated and Edited Volumes, Texts and Special Issues
[with Rachel Johnson and Shelleen Greene]. The Italianist, Special issue "Circulation of Italian Film and Media" 2025.
Crazy Fish Sing. Rome: Yogurt Editions, 2024.
Shirin Ramzanali Fazel, Islam and Me. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2023
[with Franca Sinopoli and Loredana Polezzi], Creatività diaspora. Conversazioni transnazionali tra teoria e arti, Milan: Mimesis, 2023.
Geneviéve Makaping. Reversing the Gaze. What if you were the Other. Trans. by Giovanna Bellesia Contuzzi and Victoria Offredi Poletto. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2023.
[with Graziella Parati, Marie Orton and Gaohen Zhang] Diversity, Decolonization and Italian Studies, special issue of Italian Studies in Southern Africa. 2022.
“Maka: Diversity, Inclusion and Filmmaking” The Italianist 11.2 (2022). Journal Special Section. 2022.
Geneviéve Makaping. Traiettorie di sguardi. E se gli altri foste voi (Soveria Mannelli: Rubbettino, 2022).
[with Jessica Lott] Shirin Ramzanali Fazel, “Islam and Me”, Wasafiri. Magazine of International Contemporary Writing. 2022.
Simone Brioni and Shimelis Bonsa Gulema, The Horn of Africa and Italy: Colonial, Postcolonial and Transnational Cultural Encounters (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2018).
Shirin Ramzanali Fazel, Lontano da Mogadiscio/ Far from Mogadishu (Milano: Laurana, 2013).
Somalitalia: Quattro vie per Mogadiscio/ Somalitalia: Four Roads to Mogadishu, trans. by Alberto Carpi, with the documentary La quarta via: Mogadiscio, Italia (ITA, English Subtitles, 2012, 38'), dir. by Simone Brioni, Ermanno Guida, and Graziano Chiscuzzu, written by Simone Brioni and Kaha Mohamed Aden, and the documentary Per un discorso post-coloniale italiano. Parole chiave (ITA, 2012, 50'), dir. by Simone Brioni, (Roma: Kimerafilm, 2012).
Ribka Sibhatu. Aulò! Aulò! Aulò! Poesie di nostalgia, d’esilio e d’amore / Aulò! Aulò! Aulò! Poems of Nostalgia, Exile and Love, introduction by Graziella Parati, trans. by André Naffis-Sahely, with the documentary Aulò: Roma postcoloniale (ITA, English Subtitles, 2012, 48'), dir. by Simone Brioni, Ermanno Guida, and Graziano Chiscuzzu, written by Simone Brioni and Ribka Sibhatu (Roma: Kimerafilm, 2012).
3. Movies
1. Oltre i bordi/Beyond the Frame (ITA, English Subtitles, 2023, 40’), directed by Simone Brioni and Matteo Sandrini, written by Simone Brioni.
2. Maka (ITA, English Subtitles, 2022, 52’), directed by Elia Moutamid, written by Simone Brioni.
3. 6 Objects. Notes Towards a Film on Pietro di Donato, written by Loredana Polezzi and Simone Brioni, directed by Simone Brioni and Lindsey Pelucacci
4. Aulò: Roma postcoloniale (ITA, English Subtitles, 2012, 48’), directed by Simone Brioni, Ermanno Guida, and Graziano Chiscuzzu, written by Simone Brioni and Ribka Sibhatu.
5. La quarta via: Mogadiscio, Italia (ITA, English Subtitles, 2012, 38’), directed by Simone Brioni, Ermanno Guida, and Graziano Chiscuzzu, written by Simone Brioni and Kaha Mohamed Aden.
6. Per un discorso post-coloniale italiano. Parole chiave (ITA, 2012, 50’), directed by Simone Brioni.
4. Journal Articles
"Stirring the Pot: The Politics of Ethnicity in Ratatouille (2007),"Journal of Popular Film and Television (2025)
“Maka: distribuzione e circolazione di un film indipendente.” Altre modernità (2024).
“Maka: un processo collaborativo raccontato a tre voci.” Gender/Sexuality/Italy (2024).
Simone Brioni and Lorraine Hallett “La quarta via, Aulò, Oltre i bordi e Maka: A Study Guide” Scritture Migranti 18 (2024)
Simone Brioni “La quarta via, Aulò, Oltre i bordi e Maka: attività didattiche” Scritture Migranti 18 (2024)
[with Gianmarco Mancosu] “Remediating Family Memories of Italian Colonialism: The Documentary Beyond the Frame” Forum Italicum 11.2 (2023).
Shirin Ramzanali Fazel, “Islam and Me”, edited by Jessica Lott and Simone Brioni, Wasafiri. Magazine of International Contemporary Writing 2022. Online.
“Rethinking Italy’s Margins Through Walking: Environmental Activism in Wu Ming 2’s Il sentiero luminoso (2016) and Giuliano Santoro’s Su due piedi (2012).” California Italian Studies 11.2 (2022).
“La Fantascienza Italiana dalla prospettiva degli studi sulla traduzione e postcoloniali”, trans. By Daniele Comberiati, Narrativa 43 (2021), pp. 19-29.
"Transnational 'Italian' Stardom: Lara Saint Paul and the Performativity of Race", Italian Studies 73.3 (2018)
"A Station in Motion: Termini as Heterotopia", Italian Studies 72.3 (2017)
“Storie vere ed eroine dei romanzi: La ragazza che voleva raccontare l’inferno e Non dirmi che hai paura”. Incontri. Rivista europea di studi italiani 31.1 (2016), pp. 47-60.
“Transnationalism and Nostalgia: Gianfranco Pannone’s ‘Trilogy of America’”. Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies 4.3 (2016), pp. 403-419.
‘Fantahistorical vs. Fantafascist Epic: “Contemporary” Alternative Italian Colonial Histories’. Science Fiction Studies, 42.1 (2015), pp. 305-321.
‘Autotraduction, traduction interculturelle et intersémiotique dans La quarta via de Kaha Mohamed Aden’, in Écritures 7 (2014), pp. 203-221.
‘Costruire la razza come mostruosità in Italia’, in Studi Culturali 1 (2013), pp. 293-303.
4. Chapters in Books
[with Shirin Ramzanali Fazel] “Lontano da Mogadiscio and Nuvole sull’equatore: Memory, Point of Views, Language and the Market”, in Minor/Minority Literatures in Europe, ed. by Godela Weiss-Sussex, Margaret Littler and Sarah Arens (Cambridge: Legenda, 2023).
“Uno sguardo Oltre i bordi della fotografia coloniale”, in Repositoires: Per un contro-archivio della colonialità tra storia, arti e visualità, ed. by Beatrice Falcucci, Lucas Iannuzzi and Gianmarco Mancosu. Pisa: Pisa UP, 2022.
“Questions of Authoriality and Literary Meticciato in Scrivere di Islam: Raccontare la diaspora”, trans. by Cecilia Brioni, in Contemporary Italian Diversity in Critical and Fictional Narratives, ed. by Ron Kubati, Marie Orton and Graziella Parati (Teaneck, MA: Fairleight Dickinson UP, 2021), pp. 179-189.
[with Lorenzo Mari] “Postcolonial Dante: Reading the Commedia in Mogadishu”, in Dante Worlds, ed. by Peter Carravetta (Roma: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2019).
“L’epopea fantastorica italiana di Enrico Brizzi e la ‘contemporaneità’ del passato coloniale”, in Attraversamenti culturali: Cinema, letteratura, musica e arti visuali nell’Italia contemporanea, trans.by Silvia Camilotti, ed. by Fulvio Santo Orsitto e Simona Wright (Firenze: Cesati 2017), pp. 131-144.
“Doppia temporalità e doppia spazialità: il cronotopo dei Fra-intendimenti di Kaha Mohamed Aden”, in Maschere sulla lingua:Negoziazioni e performance identitarie di migranti nell'Europa contemporanea, ed. by Manuel Boschiero and Marika Piva (Bologna: Emil, 2016), pp. 27-38.
‘“Un pas que ma jambe se refuse à faire’: expériences collaboratives et croisement de regards sur le colonialisme italien”, in Le littératures de la Corne de l’Afrique. Regards croisés, ed. by Paola Cabot-Ranzini (Paris: Karthala, 2016), pp. 173-202.
'Across Languages, Cultures and Nations: Ribka Sibhatu’s Aulò’ in Italian Women Writers, 1800-2000: Boundaries, Borders and Transgression, ed. by Patrizia Sambuco (Madison; Teaneck: Fairleight Dickinson University Press, 2014), pp. 123-142.
'Memory, Belonging and the Right for Representation: Questions of "Home" in Kaha Mohamed Aden’s Fra-intendimenti', in Shifting and Shaping a National Identity: A Study of Literature Written in Italian by and about Migrants in Italy, ed. by Grace Russo Bullaro and Elena Benelli (Leicester: Troubadour, 2014), pp. 23-42.
'Pratiche "meticce": Narrare il colonialismo italiano "a più mani'" in Postcoloniale italiano:Tra letteratura e storia, ed. by Franca Sinopoli (Latina: Novalogos, 2013), pp. 89-119.
5. Other Publications
"Introduction," in Alba Zari, Fear of Mirrors (Rome: Yogurt Editions, 2025).
“The Forgotten Italians: Meticciato and the Legacy of Colonialism in Clouds over the Equator”, in Shirin Ramzanali Fazel, Clouds over the Equator (United Kingdom: Createspace, 2017). 193-204.
‘Lo squadrone bianco’; ‘Besieged’, in World Film Locations: Rome, ed. by Gabriel Solomons (London: Intellect, Spring 2014), pp. 12-13; 98-99. Scene Reviews.
'"Un dialogo che non conosce confine né di nazionalità, né di razza, né di cultura”: temi, impatto e ricezione critica di Lontano da Mogadiscio' / '“A Dialogue That Knows No Border Between Nationality, Race or Culture”: Themes, Impact and the Critical Reception of Far from Mogadishu', in Shirin Ramzanali Fazel, Lontano da Mogadiscio/ Far from Mogadishu (Milano: Laurana, 2013), pp. 171-199; 361-389. Foreword.
ʻKaha Mohamed Adenʼ, in Encyclopaedia of Afro-European Studies (2013). Online encyclopaedia entry.
‘Presentazione’ in Babel Hotel: Vite migranti nel condominio più controverso d’Italia, ed. by Ramona Parenzan (Roma: Infinito, 2011), pp. 17-26. Introduction. Book review.
6. Interviews
‘Postcolonialismo, subalternità e New Italian Epic: Intervista con Wu Ming 1’, in Subalternità italiane. Percorsi di ricerca tra letteratura e storia, ed. by Valeria Dalplano, Lorenzo Mari, and Gabriele Proglio (Roma: Aracne, 2014), pp. 275-290. Republished in Giap! (Jan. 3, 2015).
'Igiaba Scego', in Centre for the Study of Contemporary Women's Writing website (2014). Bio-bibliographic note and interview.
‘Orientalism and Former Italian Colonies: An Interview with Shirin Ramzanali Fazel’ in Orientalismi italiani, ed. by Gabriele Proglio (Torino: Antares, 2012), pp. 215-225.
7. Translations
Kaha Mohamed Aden, ʻOpen Sesameʼ, in Encyclopaedia of Afro-European Studies (2013).
Kaha Mohamed Aden, ʻAn Afro-Arabian Shawlʼ, in Encyclopaedia of Afro-European Studies (2013).
Melania Gazzotti, ‘Books and Graphics in the Time of Futurism’ in History and Theory 19 (2011).
Lamberto Pignotti. La poesia ve lo dice prima, la poesia ve lo dice meglio / Lamberto Pignotti. Visual Poetry Tells It First, Visual Poetry tells It Better. Eds. Melania Gazzotti e Nicole Zanoletti (Brescia: Fondazione Berardelli, 2010).
Giovanni Fontana. Testi e Pretesti / Giovanni Fontana. Texts and Pre-texts. Eds. Melania Gazzotti and Nicole Zanoletti (Brescia: Fondazione Berardelli, 2009).
8. Reviews
“Fabrizio de Donno, ‘Italian Orientalism: Nationhood, Cosmopolitanism and the Cultural Politics and Identity’”, in Italian Studies (2021).
“Emma Bond, Writing Migration Through the Body”, in Between, IX.17 (2019). Online
“Graziella Parati, Migrant Writers and Urban Space in Italy. Proximities and Affect in Literature and Film”, in Maschere del tragico, Eds. Claudia Cao, Alessandro Cinquegrani, Elena Sbrojavacca, Veronica Tabaglio, Between, VII.14 (2017). Online.
“Charles Burdett, Italy, Islam and the Islamic World”, in Italian Culture 35 (2017), pp. 155-57.
'Morte a Venezia. Thomas Mann / Luchino Visconti: Un confronto', in Forum Italicum 49.1 (2015), pp. 259-26
'L’Africa in Italia. Per una controstoria postcoloniale del cinema italiano. A cura di Leonardo de Franceschi', in Studi Culturali 2 (2014), pp. 343-356.
'Postcolonial Cinema Studies. Edited by Sandra Ponzanesi and Marguerite Weller', in Postcolonial Texts 8.3 (2014).
‘Imperial Designs. Italians in China, 1900-1947. By Shirley Ann Smith’, in Quaderni d’italianistica 34.1 (2013), pp. 33-35.
'Migrant Stories and Italian Colonialism: A Report on Two Documentaries', in The Italianist 33.2 (2013), pp. 321-324.
‘Screening Strangers: Migration and Diaspora in Contemporary European Cinema. By Yosefa Loshitzky’, in Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture 3.1 (2012), pp. 163-165.
9. Fiction
‘Borgoseattle’ in Schitarrate, ed. by Luigi Filippelli (Brescia: MaLEdizioni, 2012), pp. 38-43. Short story.
Figure D’istanze (New York: Lulu, 2007). Travel book.
Chaperon Rouge. Artist: Nina Luec. Comic. Awarded the Second Prize at CRUS- Rennes (2005). Comic.
10. Non-academic publications
'Vanno ascoltati, gli immigrati', in Nazione Indiana (Jul. 9, 2014)
'Simone Brioni (University of London) on His Writing Process' School of Translation and Interpretation at uOttawa Blog (2014).
‘Zombi 2, Revisited (ITA, 2012, 15’ circa)’, in Giap! (Aug. 16, 2013).
‘Kony 2012: La libertà non è partecipazione’ Affrica (12 Apr. 2011).
‘Parole per i 150 anni dell’unità d’Italia: Colonialismo’ in Ad alta voce (2011).
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