Elisa Vivaldi

Biography

Background

I am a current PhD candidate and tutor in Italian at the University of Edinburgh, working in co-supervision (Joint Degree/cotutelle) with KU Leuven, Cultural Studies Research Unit, under the supervision of prof. Federica Pedriali (UoE) and prof. Sascha Bru (KUL), within the context of the Una-Her-Doc programme in Cultural Heritage promoted by Una Europa.

My project explores how early 20th-century avant-garde groups critiqued traditional notions of European cultural heritage, how they reshaped it, and how this process informed modern sociopolitical challenges and processes of identity construction. The project is grounded in the interplay between three conceptual categories: crisis, considered as a key philosophical category of modernity; cultural heritage, as a set of practices that are constructed in the present, constantly chosen, recreated, negotiated and often instrumentally linked to visions of the future; and Italian Futurismo, as a productive case study. Exploring the ways in which Futurismo transformed the notion of cultural heritage at a moment of deeply felt crisis in the early 20th century, the project also turns to neo-avant-garde movements active in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s, including Gruppo ’63 and post- 1968 countercultural movements, exploring how these later movements engaged with and reinterpreted Futurismo as a form of dissonant heritage. Looking at Futurismo not as an anti- but alter-heritage project, and tracing the evolution and reinterpretation of futurist heritage, my project offers a nuanced understanding of cultural heritage as a dynamic process, further reflecting on the specific role of literary heritage. The analysis of the peculiar interplay between heritage and politics that is proper of avant-garde practice, and particularly relevant in the case of Futurismo, further offers a wider reflection on the role of aesthetic production in shaping and determining notions of national and political identity during moments of crisis.

I graduated from both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Pisa, where I specialised in Contemporary Italian Literature and still serve as assistant examiner (culture della materia) for the same subject. My PhD research proposal was awarded the prestigious College Research Award by the University of Edinburgh, which will fund my work for the duration of the programme. I am a member of the executive committee of the Society for Italian Studies (SIS) serving as postgraduate representative for the UK and Northern Ireland.

While my main research interests are concerned with Contemporary Italian Literature and Thought, I always favoured a comparative approach. My work thus intersects the fields of Literary Theory, Aesthetics, Continental Philosophy, Biopolitics and Mimetic Theory, thriving in interdisciplinarity and a marked theoretical drive. 

Qualifications

  • 09/2022 – current    University of Edinburgh, School of Languages Literatures and Cultures (UK) [Joint Agreement/cotutelle] Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Faculty of Arts (Belgium) Ph.D. Candidate, Italian/Literary Studies (Letterkunde)  First Supervisor: prof. Federica G. Pedriali (UoE) Second Supervisor: prof. Sascha Bru (KU Leuven)    
  • 10/2019 – 12/2021  University of Pisa  Master’s degree in Italian studies, LM-14 (Modern Philology) Final grade: 110/110 cum laude. Relevant Courses: Philosophy, Contemporary Italian Literature, Hermeneutic and Rhetoric, History and Techniques of Literary Criticism, Italian Philology, History of the Italian Language. Thesis title: «Una straordinaria confessione attuale». Soggettivazione e realismo nel discorso letterario, il caso di Menzogna e sortilegio. (eng: «An extraordinary actual confession». Subjectification and realism in the literary discourse, the case of Menzogna e sortilegio)    
  • 09/2016 – 10/2019      University of Pisa   Bachelor’s degree in Humanities, L-10 (Humanities) Final Grade: 110/110 cum laude Relevant Courses: Comparative Literature, Theory of Literature, Romance Philology, Medieval and Humanistic Philology, Italian Philology.  Thesis title: Storie di donna. L’autobiografia finzionale da Jane Eyre a Una donna. (eng: Women’s tales. The fictional autobiography from Jane Eyre to Una donna    
  • 06/2022  University of Trento Summer School – Summer School LETRA Summer School organized by the "LETRA" laboratory, section of the Literary Laboratory (LaborLeT) of the Center of Advanced Studies in the Humanities (CeASUm), Dipartimento di Lettere e Filosofia, University of Trento.    

  • 09/2020 – 12/2020  University of Edinburgh Erasmus Programme Visiting Student – College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.    

  • 07/2018 – 08/2018      King’s College London  Summer School – Credit Hours Undergraduate  Fully funded award to attend KCL’s Summer School Literature in the city granted after a comparative procedure between applicants based on merit and performance.

Responsibilities & affiliations

I am the current PGR representative for the Society for Italian Studies (SIS).

Una-Her-Doc Programme in Cultural Heritage, Transnational Research Team 'Cultural Heritage in the context of Migrations and Global Mobilities'; 

MDRN Research Lab at KU Leuven 

Conference details

  • 'Erinyes, Amazons, Cleopatras: Rhetoric of Femininity and Conflict in Italian Futurism.' Talk for panel Futurism and War (9th Conference of the European Network for Avant-Garde and Modernism Studies. September 17-19th, 2024, Jagiellonian University)  

  • 'Concrete, Visual, Electro-Phonic: Ekphrastic Experimentations and the Legacies of Futurismo.' Presented at panel Ekphrasis as Transmedia Creating Mimesis from Antiquity to the Digital Age (The Society for Italian Studies Biennial Conference. June 21st, 2024, Royal Holloway, University of London)  

  • ‘La caffeina d’Europa’: The Scandal of Futurismo in the European Context. Delivered talk for Art Without Borders: The Avant-Garde Networks of the Twentieth Century (Graduate Conference, University of Leeds - University of York. June 20th, 2024)   

  • ‘Uccidiamo il chiaro di luna!’ Crisis, Critique and Aesthetic Practices from Futurismo to the Neoavanguardia. Paper for Mutamenti. Overcoming Crises (Graduate Symposium Johns Hopkins University - Yale University 30th October 2023)  

  • ‘For Europe. Cult and Liturgy of European Identity from Eliot to Esposito.’ Presented as part of the PhD Work in Progress Panel of the DELC Research Seminar Series. March 24th, 2022, University of Edinburgh  

Invited speaker

  • Avant-Garde Aesthetics as Dissonant Heritage: Futurismo, Identity and Mobility in 20th-Century Italy, presented as part of Una Eropa’s Cultural Heritage Transnational Research Team 1 get together Cultural Heritage in the context of Migrations and Global Mobilities (May 19th 2025, online) 

  • ‘I will burn my book (or will I?). Crisis, Critique, and Heritage from Futurismo to Neoavanguardia’, presented as part of the MDRN get together (November 20th, 2024, KU Leuven) 

  • ‘Una propria immagine dell’universo reale’. Elsa Morante e le forme della prosa da Katherine Mansfield a Virginia Woolf. Invited guest speaker for the course Contemporary Italian Literature. April 14th, 2022, Scuola Superiore per Mediatori Linguistici Pisa. 

  • Crisis as an Art of Government: ‘Decolonising Minds and Methods | Research Seminars Series Launcher (2021-2022 Online Series).’ Invited to present at the DELC Research Seminar Series 2021-2022. November 18, 2021, University of Edinburgh  

Organiser

I co-organized three editions of SIS (The Society for Italian Studies) Post-Graduate Colloquium:

  • “Ekphrastic Experimentations: Futurismo, Neoavanguardia and the treatment of Cultural Heritage” in Ekphrasis in Italian Culture from 15th-Century Humanism to the Digital Age, Franco Cesati Editore, 2025.  

  • “‘Specchiati nella mia faccia, non siamo forse uguali?’ Desiderio mimetico e forme della mediazione in Menzogna e sortilegio di Elsa Morante.” Annali d’Italianistica vol. 42 (2024).  

  • Book Review – Dario Gentili, The Age of Precarity. Endless Crisis as an Art of Government. London – New York: Verso, 2021. Pp. 136. Annali d'Italianistica vol. 40 (2022).  

  • Book Review – Tiziano Toracca, Il Romanzo neomodernista italiano. Dalla fine del neorealismo alla seconda metà degli anni Settanta. Palermo: Palumbo, 2022. Pp. 446. Italianistica. Rivista di letteratura italiana, 1, 2024.  

  • Book Review – Tommaso Ghezzani, Il platonico innamorato: Poesia, Amore, Magia in Francesco Patrizi da Cherso. Firenze: Leo S. Olschki, 2023. Pp. xxxviii + 262. Annali d’Italianistica vol. 42 (2024).  

2022-2024: School of Languages Literatures Cultures (LLC) Student Experience Grant  Awarded a total of £1,475 to organise the Work in Progress Seminar Series, an interdepartmental doctoral seminar facilitating the presentation of PhD research to peers to promote interdisciplinary outreach.  

2022/2023 – 2024/2025: College Research Award  Full tuition coverage and an annual stipend.  

09/2020 – 12/2020: Erasmus+ Grant  1st in merit within the Department of Philology, Literature, and Linguistics, Pisa. 

23/07/2018 – 10/08/2018: King’s College London Summer School  Fully funded award covering fees and maintenance to attend KCL Summer School, granted based on merit after a competitive selection process. 

2016/17 – 2020/21: University of Pisa Merit-Based Tuition Waiver  In Italy, public university tuition is based on income and merit. Throughout my bachelor’s and master’s degree I consistently ranked in the top 10% of my course for each year of my enrolment, earning a merit-based tuition waiver each year. 

This article was published on