Marco Ruggieri

ECDS Postdoctoral Fellow

  • Italian Section
  • Department of European Languages and Cultures
  • School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures

Contact details

Address

Street

Room 2.08
50 George Square

City
Edinburgh
Post code
EH8 9LH

Availability

  • Office Hour: Tuesdays, 14.30-15.30

Biography

Background

Marco Ruggieri holds a PhD in Italian Studies from The University of Edinburgh (2023). His doctoral thesis, entitled 'The Young Eco's Library: Mass Culture and Interpretive Freedom in the Fascist Period', obtained the John Orr Award in 2018. Prior to moving to The University of Edinburgh, Marco got his MA at the University of Naples Federico II with a dissertation in History of Literary Criticism. After completing a MHRA-funded Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (2023/2024), Marco held the position of Teaching Fellow in Italian in 2024/2025.

Qualifications

PhD in Italian Studies - The University of Edinburgh, 2023

MA in Modern Philology - Università di Napoli 'Federico II', 2017

BA in Modern Literatures - Università di Napoli 'Federico II', 2015

Responsibilities & affiliations

Marco is affiliated to the Insitute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) and Website and Social Media Coordinator of the Society for Italian Studies.

Undergraduate teaching

2025/2026:

  • Module 'Gramsci and the South' in Italian 1, 'Cultural Studies'
  • Module 'Umberto Eco and Fascist Culture' in Italian 2, 'Texts in Context'

Postgraduate teaching

2025/2026:

  • Module 'Andrea Camilleri. Italian Crime and Detective Fiction' in Crime and Detection in Literature

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

No

Research summary

Marco works in the field of Italian Literature and Culture, with a focus on the work of Umberto Eco and Antonio Gramsci. His further research interests include Semiotics, Media Studies, Gender Studies, and Fascism.

Current research interests

In his current research project, Marco continues to explore questions of identity and essentialism in Italian literature and culture. His work currently focuses on two main areas. The first concerns the intersections between issues of gender identity and Southern/Neapolitan identity. The first outcome of his research in this area will be the article “Naples, Sexual Diversity and Self-Orientalism: Femminielli as a Case Study”, forthcoming in gender/sexuality/italy. The second area, building on his doctoral research, examines discourses on masculinity in Fascist Italy. In particular, Marco is developing a larger project on the deviations from and reassertions of the gender norms of the time in the works of Carlo Emilio Gadda and Antonio Gramsci.

Past research interests

Marco’s PhD, The Young Eco’s Library: Mass Culture and Interpretive Freedom, examined Umberto Eco’s semiotic theory, its relationship with Cultural Studies in Italy and abroad, and its interplay with his fiction and twentieth-century Italian history. The thesis includes the first comprehensive analysis of The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (2004), focusing on its depiction of Fascist Italy through mass cultural products of the time. Marco has also worked on Antonio Gramsci and Carlo Emilio Gadda (as part of an MHRA-funded project led by Federica Pedriali), as well as on pioneering figures of British Cultural Studies such as Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall.

Conference details

  • Summer School ILIO/Una Europa, 2025, Bologna: ‘Nearly the Same: della traduzione nella teoria semiotica di Umberto Eco’.
  • [Organised Conference] Notes on Water, Fluid Potentialities of an Intermedial Metaphor, 2025, IASH (Edinburgh), co-organised with Alice Parrinello, funded by IASH and SIS.
  • World Literature and Intermediality, 2025, Edinburgh: ‘Double Intermediality in Umberto Eco’s The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana’.
  • Society for Italian Studies (SIS) Conference, 2024, Royal Holloway London. (1) Organiser and Speaker in the Roundtable ‘Fascism at 100+: An Interdisciplinary Re-Interpretation’ (Speakers: Guido Bartolini, Francesca Billiani, Giuliana Pieri); (2) Co-Organiser with Cecilia Brioni and Chair of the Panel ‘Italian Social Media’.
  • New Queer South, 2023, Oxford: ‘Femminiell*/Napoletan*: Benevolent Mythologies and Mediatic Hyper(in)visibility’.
  • International Society for Intermedial Studies Conference, 2022, Trinity College Dublin: ‘Twitch as a Rhizome: Political Discourse across the Media’.
  • SIS Biennial Conference, 2022, Warwick. Organiser and Chair of the Panel ‘Remembering and Forgetting Inter Media: Re-presentations of Italian Collective Memories’.
  • ‘Twice-Told Stories’ Conference, 2021, Cambridge: ‘Amnesia as a Narrative Device in Umberto Eco’s La misteriosa fiamma della regina Loana’.
  • AAIS Conference, 2021, online: ‘Fascist Mass Culture in Eco’s The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana’.

  • NeMLA Convention, 2020, Boston (MA): ‘Personal Memories and Collective Identities: Umberto Eco's The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana’.

  • SIS PG Colloquium 2019, Durham: ‘Antonio Gramsci and Umberto Eco: Subalternity, Mass Communication, and Cultural Hegemonies’.

  • SIS Biennial Conference 2019, Edinburgh. Organiser of the Panel ‘Hegemony and Literature in Contemporary Italian Culture’. Paper: ‘Eco and Gramsci: Unexplored Connections’.

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