Overview
A native of Bologna, Valentina has been at Cornell university since 2014. She is a graduate of the University of Bologna (BA, MA) and earned a PhD in Italian Studies at the University of Toronto.
For the past 11 years she has primarily taught and coordinated either the elementary- or the intermediate-level course sequence in Italian. She has occasionally offered courses in Italian American literature, Modern Italian Novel, and a First-Year Writing Seminar on Italian science fiction. She also served as Associate Chair from 2021 to 2023.
Her most recent pedagogy projects have involved project-based learning modules through comics in Italian II (Spring ‘22), a writing workshop on “The Best of Youth” and its socio-historical themes in Italian III (Fall ‘24) and developing a new geography-based curriculum centered on sustainable food and tourism in Italian IV (Spring ‘25). She regularly presents her pedagogical innovations at the annual conventions of NeMLA, AAIS, and AATI.
Aside from her work in the classroom, she has continued to develop a research agenda in her two focal areas, translation studies and Italian dystopian/speculative fiction. Finally, she is a bilingual writer who has published creative work in both Italian and English. Her debut novel won the first edition of the Premio Bianciardi Inediti in 2024 and is forthcoming in Italy. Her English-language poetry has been featured, among others, in The Sacramento Literary Review, Sky Island Journal, and Ovunque Siamo: New Italian American Writing.
Publications
Fulginiti, V. (2023). “Bonsai Children, Enchanted Gardens: Nature as Artifice in Paolo Zanotti’s Dystopian Fairy Tale.” In Italian Science Fiction and the Environmental Humanities, edited by Daniel A. Finch-Race, Emiliano Guaraldo, and Marco Malvestio, 129–48. Liverpool University Press, 2023. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.30051419.13.
Fulginiti, V. (2021). “Dei bambini non si sa niente? L’infanzia come altrove distopico in Anna (Ammaniti), Bambini Bonsai (Zanotti), La terra dei figli (Gipi) e L’uomo verticale (Davide Longo)”, Narrativa, 43 | 2021, 111-126.
Fulginiti, V. (2017). “Degenerate Utopias: Dystopian Revisions of Disneyland in Early Twenty-first-century Italian Fiction. Science Fiction Studies (2017) 44 (Part 3 (133)): 455–485.
https://doi.org/10.5621/sciefictstud.44.3.0455
Fulginiti, V. (2016). “Resisting Leviathan: Depictions of Silvio Berlusconi in Italian fiction 2003–2011.” The Italianist, 36(1), 106–127. https://doi.org/10.1080/02614340.2015.1120064
Fulginiti, V. (2014). “The Postapocalyptic Cookbook.” In: Amberson, D., Past, E. (eds) Thinking Italian Animals. Italian and Italian American Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137454775_10
Fulginiti, V. (2014). “Inventare l’altro. Forme di pseudo-traduzione nella scrittura di Salvatore Di Giacomo e Luigi Capuana.” Ticontre. Teoria Testo Traduzione, (1), 141-159.