Italian Language and Literature Commons^™

Elena Ferrante: A Borderless Identity, Alexander James Hankins

Honors Theses and Capstones

This thesis examines the concept of identity in the works of Elena Ferrante, arguing that her fiction presents identity not as an isolated, self-contained construct, but as something relational, fluid, and deeply shaped by environment. Focusing primarily on The Neapolitan Quartet, the project introduces “boundaries” as a central framework, drawing on relational-cultural theory to explore how identities are formed through connection as much as separation. In Ferrante’s Naples, the setting functions as a microcosm of broader social forces — class disparity, gender inequality, generational tension, and political ideologies — that collectively shape individual experience.

At the core of this analysis …

Enrico Pea And The Awareness Of Never-Ending Detachment (Alexandria, Egypt 1896–1914), Stefano Giannini

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

This chapter analyzes the postcolonial discourse in Italy, through the voice of the novelist and playwright Enrico Pea (1881–1958). Living outside of Italy, Pea gained a unique awareness of the notion of multi-ethnic societies, of the concepts of nationality, borders, and boundaries. Alexandria, Egypt, is Pea’s referential space. It is a center, and at the same time, a marginal place. Alexandrea ad Egyptum, that is, the door to Egypt, as it was known in antiquity, this city brought together Arab and European artistic experiences that converged on, and were triggered by, its multicultural profile. The history of political exile …

An Existentialist Interpretation Of Four Novels By Alberto Moravia, Megan Chiusaroli

Honors College Theses

This analysis seeks to explore the existential qualities in four novels by Alberto Moravia: The Time of Indifference, The Woman of Rome, The Conformist, and Boredom

Primo Levi, Ilona Klein

Faculty Publications

Born in Turin, 31 July 1919, to Cesare Levi, engineer, and wife Ester (née Luzzati). Studied at Liceo-Ginnasio D'Azeglio from 1934; University of Turn, degree in chemistry, 1941. Joined partisans in Valle D'Aosta to fight German invaders, 1943; arrested and sent to Carpi-Fossoli internment camp near Modena. Deported to Auschwitz, February 1944; worked as slave laborer at rubber factory of Buns-Monowitz (I.G. Farben, Auschwitz III). Liberated by Soviet army, 1945; after long journey through central and easter Europe, reunited with family in Turin, October 1945. Married Lucia Morpurgo, teacher, 1947; two children. Worked as industrial chemist for SIVA (paints, enamels, …

Primo Levi And Bruno Piazza: Auschwitz In Italian Literature, Ilona Klein

Faculty Publications

To focus on the literature of the Shoah more than 50 years later and 7,000 miles away inevitably creates some sense of dissociation due to both historical and geographic distance. While on the one hand, an analysis of the literature of the genocide might grant further insights through a retrospective look, on the other, however, this distance of time and space risks leading to an oversimplification of the Shoah, in the sense that the plight of the Jews, their individual stories and the overwhelming sense of emptiness caused by the depletion of the intellectual Jewish cultural communities in Europe might …

Primo Levi: The Drowned, The Saved, And The "Grey Zone", Ilona Klein

Faculty Publications

Primo Levi has been well known in Italy for many years. Even though his first book Se questo è un uomo–published in English as Survival in Auschwitz–did not sell well when first published by De Silva in 1947 (2,500 copies published, of which 600 remained unsold and were eventually destroyed by the 1966 flood in Florence), it was accepted unanimously in Italy as a literary masterpiece and a great witness to history when Einaudi republished the volume in 1956. From that moment on, Italian readers and critics have acknowledged the literary beauty and importance of Levi's writings. He …