Research and Teaching Interests

Prof. Allen’s work in Italian literature, film, and culture includes Andrea Zanzotto: The Language of Beauty’s Apprentice, Pier Paolo Pasolini: The Poetics of Heresy (ed.), The Defiant Muse: Italian Feminist Poetry from the Middle Ages to the Present (co-ed.), Revisioning Italy: National Identity and Global Culture (co-ed.), and numerous articles and prize-winning translations of Italian poetry. In the 1990s, her move to investigative journalism produced Rape Warfare: The Hidden Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. She served as consultant to the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for The former Yugoslavia. More recently, she has been writing screenplays, one of which won the Prize for Best Feature-length Screenplay at the Roma Independent Film Festival in 2010. Other honors include grants and prizes from sources such as Soros Open Society, National Endowment for the Arts, Pro Suecia, Delmas Foundation for Research in Venice, and the Folger Shakespeare Institute. She held the William P. Tolley Distinguished Teaching Professorship in The Humanities at Syracuse University from 2005-2007. She holds a Masters degree from Columbia University and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.

Courses

Literature in Italian

A Panorama of Literature in Italian

Dante's Divine Comedy (in English and in Italian)

Petrarch

The Italian Novel

Leopardi

Twentieth-Century Italian Poetry

Medieval Italian Literature

Reading Boccaccio

Italian Literature of The Renaissance, Enlightenment And Early Nineteenth Century

Contemporary Italian Literature

Manzoni: The Fiction of History

Pasolini: The Poetics of Heresy

Italy’s Women Poets

The Literature of Unified Italy

Italian Lyric Poetry

Contemporary Italian Poetry and Poetics

Contemporary Italian Narrative

Contemporary Italian Prose

A Panorama of Italian Poetry: the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

New Italian Voices: 21st-century Prose

Italian Cultural Studies/Comparative Literature/Feminist Studies

Art and Politics of the Italian Renaissance

Seminar on Modern Italy

Contemporary Italy and The Value of the Past

The Novel and The State

Italian Feminisms

Postnational Identity: Adriatic Culture

Italian Opera: History and Aesthetics

The Cultures of Italy from the Middle Ages to the Present

Literature and Science: The Inscription of Desire in Scientific Theory and World Literature

Critical Theory: Theory and Subjugation

Cultural Studies: The Postnational Novel

Violence And Representation: The Case of Bosnia-Herzegovina

Hospitality: History and Theory

Narratives of Displacement

European Identities

The Da Vinci Code and Dante

Genocide and The Humanities

Comparative Feminisms: France And Italy

Genocidal Rape: The Global Scourge and How to Stop It

Film Studies

Italian Cinema: History and Theory

Italian Cinema: Film and Terrorism

Italian Cinema in a European World

International Relations/Cultural Geography/ Literature

Postmodern Terrorism in An International World: Culture And Perspective

How Many Italies?

Translation

Translation Theory And Practice

Education

1962: San Francisco Conservatory of Music

1967: B.A., Music, University of California at Berkeley

1968: Piano study, Guido Agosti, Rome, Italy

1969: Performance, Orchestra Sinfonica di Bari; Musica Elettronica Viva, Rome; Autunno Musicale di Como, Italy

1970: Università degli Studi, Siena, Italy

1972: M.A., Italian Language and Literature, Columbia University

1983: Ph.D., Italian Language and Literature, with French minor, University of California at Berkeley

Career

1981 - 1990: Assistant Professor, Italian, Stanford University 1990 - present: Associate Professor, French, Italian, and Comparative Literature, Syracuse University

1992 (Fall); 2006 (Spring):

Visiting Professor, Italian Studies, Cornell University 1992 - 1993; 1994 - 1996: Director, Humanities Doctoral Program, Syracuse University 1996 (Fall) - present: Professor, French, Italian and Comparative Literature, Syracuse University 1997 (Spring): Guest Professor, Program in The Sociology of Culture, Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia 2001 - 2002: Affiliated Professor, Humanities Institute, Gothenburg University, Gothenburg, Sweden 2004 - 2007: Board of Directors, Center for European Studies, Moynihan Institute of International Relations, The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Policy, Syracuse University 2005 - 2007: William P. Tolley Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Humanities, Syracuse University 2007 - 2009: Core Faculty for Cinema, Goldring Arts Journalism Program, The Newhouse School for Public Communications, Syracuse University 2009 - present: Member, Chancellor’s Initiative on Atrocities, Holocaust and Genocide, Syracuse University

Books

Pier Paolo Pasolini: The Poetics of Heresy (ed.). Saratoga: ANMA Libri, 1982

The Defiant Muse: Italian Feminist Poems From the Middle Ages to the Present (ed.). New York: The Feminist Press, 1986

Verso la beltà: gli esordi poetici di Andrea Zanzotto. [Italian translation of Andrea Zanzotto: The Language of Beauty’s Apprentice.] Venice: Corbo e Fiore, 1987

Andrea Zanzotto: The Language of Beauty’s Apprentice [with amplified critical introduction not present in the Italian edition]. Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of California Press, 1988

Rape Warfare: The Hidden Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. University of Minnesota Press, 1996

Revisioning Italy: National Identity And Global Culture. Co-editor and contributor, University of Minnesota Press, 1997

Rape Warfare: The Hidden Genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia [Japanese translation; new, amplified text]. Tokyo: Tsugeshobo Shinsha, 2001

Daring to Trust: Life Lessons from Women after War, with Susan Schwartz Senstad and photojournalist Jerome Delay. 2000-2002. Unpublished.

My Days with Richard. Berkeley: Serendipity Press, MMII

Journal Articles

Over two dozen scholarly articles published in such journals as Substance, Stanford Italian Review, The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce, Signs, Odjek (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Symposium, Surface, Italica, Annali d’italianistica, Ai Ai: Tidskrift / Aikakauslehti (Finland), Art and Text (Australia), Journal: A Contemporary Arts Magazine, Hellas.

Cinema and Theater

Cinema

“Off-side Life” (film treatment; biography of Pier Paolo Pasolini), with Lanfranco Caminiti. Registered, Società Italiana di Autori e Editori, Rome, August, 1986

Pier Paolo Pasolini, Porno-Theo-Kolossal (translation)

Alejandro Jodorowski, Holy Blood (translation)

Consultant, Renzo Rossellini Cinematic Productions, Rome

Consultant, “Calling The Ghosts,” (re: wartime rapes in Bosnia & Herzegovina), Mandy Jakobson Productions

“His Name Is Daniel.” 1 1/2-hour screenplay for television. Hallmark Entertainment. Produced 2001.

“Lady Lush.” Feature-length film script. Exclusive rights to Brown and Brown, Mrs. Marty Mann: First Lady of Alcoholics Anonymous (Hazelden, 2001).

“The Botanist.” With Benjamin Levine. Film story; registered Writers’ Guild East 2007.

“Albania Station.” Film story; registered Writers’ Guild East 2007.

“The Taj.” Film story; registered Writers’ Guild East 2008.

“A Moon for Tonja.” Co-author with Massimo Guglielmi, Alessandro Leone, and Cinzia Tani. Registered, Writers’ Guild East 2008; produced 2009.

“The Bitter Chalice.” With Jacques Lipkau-Goyard. Registered, Writers’ Guild East, 2008. (Awarded Prize for Best Feature-length Screenplay, Roma Independent Film Festival, 2010)

Stage Play

“An Evening With Marty Mann: First Lady of Alcoholics Anonymous.” Commissioned by National Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence; premiered Washington D.C., September 9, 2004