“Reading like a State? Italian Fascism and the Racial Politics of the Modern Bestseller”.

Serena Bassi (Hamilton College)

Serena Bassi received her Ph.D. in Italian studies from the University of Warwick (United Kingdom) and a B.A. in translation and interpreting from the University of Bologna (Italy). A scholar of gender, sexuality, language and translation, Bassi was a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Cardiff University (UK) and a Translation Initiative Research Associate at Yale University. Her current book project, Mistranslating minority: Minor Literature and Queer Worldmaking, focuses on how 1970s Italian queer movements translated and transformed ideas of sexual identity politics and queer liberation in an era of radical mass social and political unrest. Bassi will offer a range of interdisciplinary courses at Hamilton on Italian language and culture, translation theory and practice and on the intersectional politics of social change in modern and contemporary Italy.