Research

The Department of Italian is renowned for its innovative and wide-ranging research, ranging from the medieval period to contemporary Italy. We foster an approach that integrates textual studies into broader cultural and material histories. Our key strengths are medieval and Renaissance studies, book history, 20th- and 21st-century Italian history and memory, film studies (with a focus on stars and audiences) and cultural representations of Naples.

Key research areas

  • Dante studies: especially Dante and medieval vernacular cultures; Dante reception since the 19th century; Dante and early modern print culture. 
  • Medieval and Renaissance Italian literature and culture: lyric poetry, from the Sicilian School to Petrarch; Giovanni Boccaccio and the reception of his works; manuscript and early modern print culture; creative and practice-based research with letterpress and artists' books.
  • 20th-century history and memory: history of radical psychiatry; memory studies and oral history; the history and culture of sport; Milan since the war; political deportation; fascism; the history and politics of justice in Italy; the history and politics of political violence.
  • Italian popular cinema: stars and performance; the reception of Italian film in post-war culture; audience studies; masculinity studies.
  • Modern and contemporary culture: Naples in the cultural imaginary; postcolonial approaches to the Italian South; cultural representations of the anni di piombo; women and violence; postmodernism and the Italian novel; cultural memory.

Current and recent projects

  • Professor Catherine O’Rawe is an investigator on the European Research Council-funded project Studiotec: Film Studios: Infrastructure, Culture, Innovation in Britain, France, Germany and Italy, 1930-60 (2019-24). The project involves researchers from the universities of Bristol, Southampton and Queen Mary, London.
  • Dr Rhiannon Daniels received funding from Research England for Four Sheets to the Wind (2022), a collaborative project with Bristol Common Press, Thin Ice Press (University of York), Prelo Prints (Denmark) and Press Genepy (St Albans). The project explored the early modern practice of shared printing.
  • Professor John Foot held a Leverhulme Trust-funded project (Major Research Fellowship, 2018-2021) on fascism and everyday life in Italy, with a focus on micro-history and the impact of violence at a local and family level.
  • Dr Tristan Kay held a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship on ‘The Poet and the Nation: Dante and the Idea of Italy’ (2020-21). The project explores the ways in which the figure of Dante has been used to articulate different forms of Italian national identity since Unification.
  • Dr Rhiannon Daniels received funding from Research England for Designing the 'Decameron' for 2021 (2021), to deliver historically informed printmaking workshops with the printmaker Barbara Disney (creativeShift).
  • Dr Rhiannon Daniels received Brigstow Institute Ideas Exchange Funding for How to Open a Print Shop (2021), exploring how to create a multidisciplinary and collaborative working print shop for the University and the city.
  • Professor Ruth Glynn held an AHRC Leadership Fellowship on Naples and the Nation (2018-2020). The project addresses cultural constructions of Naples and its relationship with the Italian nation-state in the Second Republic.
  • Professor Catherine O’Rawe held a British Academy Fellowship during 2017-18 for the project Stardom and Performance in Italian Neorealist Cinema, 1945-53 (2017-18). This focuses on the casting, performance and labour of non-professionals, particularly children.
  • The Department played a leading role in the Transnationalizing Modern Languages project, funded by the AHRC between 2014-17. Professor Charles Burdett (now Director of the ILCS) was the PI, and TML examined the forms of mobility that have defined the development of modern Italian culture and its interactions with other cultures across the globe. It produced innovative impact case studies and an important policy document ‘Reframing Language Education for a Global Future’ (2018).
  • Dr Rhiannon Daniels held an AHRC Leadership Fellowship (2014-16) for her project on The Renaissance ‘Decameron’. This explored the cultural context of making and consuming a ‘modern classic’ in the first century of print and forms the basis of her monograph in progress.
  • Professor Ruth Glynn was interim Co-Investigator on the AHRC-funded research network exploring Women, Work and Value in Europe, 1945-2015(2014-16). The project brought together academics, interest groups and policy makers to discuss the relevance of past experiences for the challenges relating to women’s work and its value today.
  • Professor Catherine O’Rawe was Co-Investigator on the AHRC-funded project Italian Cinema Audiences 1945-60 (2013-16). This project mixed quantitative and qualitative research into Italian cinema-going in the post-war period, and has given rise to numerous events and publications, including an edited book (Bloomsbury, 2020).
  • Professor John Foot was funded by the Wellcome Trust (2011-14) to carry out a large-scale research project on Franco Basaglia and the Mental Health Reform in Italy, 1960-2009. A short video account is available here.

Collaborations and activities 

Staff in the Department are associated with a number of the University's centres, including:

  • Centre for Medieval Studies: one of the largest such centres in the country that draws together the research interests of all staff and postgraduate students who work on the Middle Ages.
  • Screen Research Cluster: an interdisciplinary group working in screen studies, a broad field that incorporates film, television and digital media technologies.
  • Centre for Creative Technologies: the centre provides a focus for colleagues across the Faculty of Arts working with or on creative technologies – whether analogue or digital – from film and print to gaming and VR.
  • Bristol Common Press: a working historical print shop located at the University of Bristol, founded in 2021.

All staff in Italian at Bristol are involved in national and international collaborations on research projects relating to Italian history and culture. They are active contributors to scholarly associations and disciplinary initiatives, and have recently served as Editors of the most significant disciplinary journals in the UK, including Italian Studies (Professor Ruth Glynn), Modern Italy (Professor John Foot) and The Italianist (Professor Catherine O’Rawe).

Our staff present regularly at academic conferences and give invited talks and workshops, in the UK and internationally.

Beyond academia, we work with partners in schools, in the cultural sector, and the media. We have recently collaborated with The Italian Teachers Network; the Italian University of the Third Age; and book artists and printmakers in Bristol and beyond. We have partnered with cultural organisations in Bristol and the southwest to organise public-facing events focused on Italy and its culture. Examples of our activities include:

  • Dr Rhiannon Daniels is co-founder and co-director of the Bristol Common Press, and is on the editorial board for the Legenda book series, Italian Perspectives.
  • Professor John Foot is a recipient of the Serena Medal, awarded by the British Academy for eminent services in the study of Italian history, and is a regular contributor to media publications such as the TLS; History Today; London Review of Books; The Guardian; L’Internazionale. He is currently Chair of the Association for the Study of Modern Italy (2025-27) and is on the editorial committee of a number of journals in Italy, the UK, and the US.
  • Professor Ruth Glynn sits on the advisory committee of the Bogliasco Foundation and of the gender/sexuality/Italy online journal.
  • Dr Tristan Kay is co-director of Bristol's Centre for Medieval Studies. He spent six years as Treasurer and executive committee member for the Society for Italian Studies in the UK and Ireland.
  • Professor Catherine O’Rawe sits on the advisory boards of Quaderni d'italianistica, gender/sexuality/Italy, L'avventura: International Journal of Italian Film and Media Landscapes, and the Cinema, media and cultural studies series of the Italian publisher Meltemi.

Research postgraduates

Current PhD students within the University's Department of Italian include:

  • Lindsey Bauer: 'Escaping the Cage: Female Mental Health Difficulties, Survival Strategies and Resilience in the Italian Renaissance (c. 1350-1650)'
  • Elizabeth Bratton: 'Senses and Scientific Inquiry in Dante's Paradiso: A Medieval Literary History'
  • Cristina De Luca: 'Literary Agenting Between England and Italy from the 1950s to the 1970s' 
  • Tim Mansueto: 'Everyday Life in Fascist Italy'
  • Alena Minko: 'Re-Mediating Richard Coeur de Lion from a Handwritten to a Printed Book'
  • Francesca Sartori: 'Gender, Genre and Geography: Dante's Italy through the Eyes of Victorian Women Writers'

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