Art

Mariani, Annachiara

Faculty

photo of Annachiara Mariani

Annachiara Mariani

Associate Professor

Annachiara Mariani is an Associate Professor of Italian. She received her Laurea (BA-MA) in Foreign Languages and Literatures from the Università di Bologna and her PhD in Italian from Rutgers University. Her research interests are in Italian Cinema, National and Trans-National Media Studies, and Italian Theatre. She has authored a book on the Grotesque Theatre and Pirandello (2013). She has also published numerous articles, essays, film reviews, book reviews on Italian Theatre, Cinema, and the interrelation between cinema and literature. She has just published a special edition of the journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies on Sorrentino’s films and TV series. She is currently working on a book-length project on today’s portrayal of the Italian Renaissance through popular culture and television series. Her book focuses on recent television series about the events and personages of the Italian Renaissance, in particular, Leonardo Da Vinci and the Medici and Borgia families. She finds that these series’ affective mode, in conjunction with more explicitly cognitive modes, including music, plays a pivotal role in the acquisition of historical knowledge. The material that she examines suggests that this visual mode of engagement with written history differs from and complements the knowledge acquired through textbooks, traditional monographs, and scholarly research. Analysis leads her to conclude that viewers can better contextualize Renaissance history and some of its protagonists through psychological insight or, as it is otherwise known, historical psychology.

Publications

Book

Editor

Scholarly Edition, Guest Editor

  • Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, Special Number on Paolo Sorrentino’s Cinema. Vol. 7:3. Bristol UK, Intellect Publishers, June 2019.

Peer-Reviewed Articles

  • “Male Rape, Feminicide and Torture: How Borgia: Faith and Fear Demystifies the Italian Renaissance” (accepted to be published in SERIES – International Journal of TV Serial Narratives, University of Bologna Press, Fall 2023. [8655 words]
  • “The Italian Renaissance Re-imagined on the Screen: The Case of Cosimo de’Medici” Italian Quarterly (Rutgers University Press) vol. 59 (Nos.231-234), Fall 2022: 45-69. [9594 words]
  • “Traumatized and Traumatizing (Sub)Version of Power in Sorrentino’s The Young Pope,” in South Atlantic Review, Vol 86.1, Spring 2021: 148-171. Link to article
  • “An Analytical Approach to the Italian Renaissance through Popular TV: The Case of Medici,” Revista Linhas, the Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina, Brazil, Vol. 21. 47, December 2020: 194-222. https://revistas.udesc.br/index.php/linhas/issue/view/809
  • “Viral (Per)Versions of Power in Paolo Sorrentino’s Diptych Loro,” in Modern Italy, Vol 25. 3, Cambridge University Press, Summer 2020: 299 – 315. Link to article
  • “Experiencing Panismo in Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty, Youth, and Loro,” in Italica, Vol. 96. 3, The University of Toronto Press, Fall 2019: 486-510.
  • “Paolo Sorrentino: A Trans-Cultural and Post-National Auteur,” in Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, Vol. 7.3, Bristol UK, Intellect Publishers, June 2019: 331-338.
  • “The Antithetical Coherence in Sorrentino’s Youth: Visual (Ab)Use and Male Dominance,” in South Central Review, Vol. 32.5, The Johns Hopkins University Press, August 2018: 117-132.
  • “New Existentialism: The Literary Inept as a Reemerging Prototype in Twenty-First Century Cinema,” in Journal and Literature Art Studies, Vol. 6. 5, May 2016: 512-522.
  • “The Catastrophic Modernity and the Uncivilized Civilization in Luigi Pirandello and Luigi Antonelli,” in Romance Notes, Vol. 53.3, Fall 2013: 251-262.
  • “Dimensione mitica della morte romantica,” in La fusta: Journal of Italian Literature and Culture, Rutgers University Press, Vol. 14, Fall 2006: 19-28.

Book Chapters

  • “The Creative and Artistic Trajectory of Paolo Sorrentino,” in Paolo Sorrentino’s Transnational Cinema and Television, edited by A. Mariani. Bristol UK: Intellect books/ The University of Chicago Press, June 2021: 17-30.
  • “The Empty Heterotopic (Non-)Space of Sorrentino’s Female Characters in The Great Beauty and The Consequences of Love,” in Female Identity and Its Representations in the Arts and Humanities, edited by S. Byer and F. Cecchini. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017: 168-184.
  • “Solitude and the Fragmentation of Self: The Disillusioned Representation of Man in the Plays of Luigi Antonelli and Luigi Pirandello,” in About Face: Depicting the Self in the Written and Visual Arts, edited by Lindsay Eufusia, Elena Bellina and Paola Ugolini. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009: 165-177.

Book Introductions    

  • Vena, Michael. Modern Italian Theater: Text and Context. Bloomington IN: Xlibris LLC, 2014: 12-16.

Book Reviews

  • Baracco, Alberto and Pollicino, Rosario (eds), Italian Experiences of Trauma through Film and Media, Cambridge     Scholars Publishing, 2022 in Italica 100.1, Summer 2023: 123-125.
  • Moscati, Italo. The Young Sorrentino. in Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, Vol. 7:3. Bristol UK, Intellect Publishers, June 2019: 453-455.
  • Mori, Guido. Del desiderio e del godimento: viaggio al termine dell’ideologia ne La grande bellezza di Paolo Sorrentino, in Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, Vol. 7:3. Bristol UK, Intellect Publishers, June 2019: 448-450.
  • Vigni, Franco. La maschera, il potere, la solitudine: il cinema di Paolo Sorrentino, in Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, Vol. 7:3. Bristol UK, Intellect Publishers, June 2019: 451-453.
  • Mariani, Umberto. La donna in Pirandello. L’estrema vittima. In Pirandello Society of America. Volume XXVI. New York, 2013: 147-150.

Film Reviews

  • Loro 1 and Loro 2, Paolo Sorrentino, Indigo Films, 2018, in Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, Vol. 7:3. Bristol UK, Intellect Publishers, June 2019: 443-445.
  • Piccole avventure romane (Fleeting Roman adventures), Paolo Sorrentino, Indigo Films, 2018, in Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, Vol. 7:3. Bristol UK, Intellect Publishers, June 2019: 446-447.

Interviews

  • Interview to Paolo Poggioli (Paolo Sorrentino’s costume designer), in Paolo Sorrentino’s Transnational Cinema and Television, edited by A. Mariani. Intellect books/ The University of Chicago Press, June 2021: 258-263.

Translations

  • The Legend of the Village Mons Pagus – A.D. 1566. Tabula Fati Editions: Chieti, May 2019: 33 pp.