Jo Ann Cavallo is Professor of Italian in the Columbia University Department of Italian, where she has taught since 1988 and served as Chair from 2014 to 2025. She has published widely on Italian literature and culture, especially Renaissance chivalric epics and their adaptation in popular performance traditions. Her latest book, The Sicilian Puppet Theater of Agrippino Manteo (1884-1947): The Paladins of France in America, received a UNIMA-USA Nancy Staub Award, an AATI Book Award, and a Literary Encyclopedia Book Prize. Her previous book, The World beyond Europe in the Romance Epics of Boiardo and Ariosto, received an MLA Publication Award. Both books were also published in Italian translation. She has edited and co-edited several volumes, including Libertarian Literary and Media Criticism, Teaching World Epics, World Epics and Puppet Theater, Teaching the Italian Renaissance Romance Epic, and Speaking Truth to Power from Medieval to Modern Italy. She created the eBOIARDO and World Epics websites, founded the Anthem World Epic and Romance book series, and edits the Literary Encyclopedia’s Italian literature volume.
