Giovanna Faleschini Lerner

Giovanna Faleschini Lerner is a Professor of Italian and Film and Media at Franklin & Marshall College. She holds a laurea from the Catholic University of Milan, an MA and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on twentieth-century and contemporary Italian cinema, literature, and culture, with particular emphasis on gender studies, migration, Mediterranean studies, and visual arts. She has authored books such as Women and Migration in Contemporary Italian Cinema: Screening Hospitality (2022) and co-edited volumes like Italian Motherhood on Screen (2017). She has led academic initiatives including the F&M in Italy Summer Program and served as Chair of the Department of Italian Studies and Hebrew. She contributes to interdisciplinary programs in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Comparative Literary Studies. Her teaching spans Italian language and innovative courses like “Italy and the Mediterranean” and “Forced Migration.”

• Education:
  • Laurea, Catholic University of Milan
  • MA and PhD in Italian, University of Pennsylvania

Her research interests include cinematic interpretations of history, visual studies, and Mediterranean migration. She has served on the MLA Executive Board and directed F&M’s Humanities Research Colloquium on “Environments.”

Publications highlight intersections of gender, migration, and media, with recent works analyzing hospitality in cinema and maternal narratives. She actively participates in academic conferences and editorial roles, including co-editing Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies.

Her teaching and scholarship emphasize transnational frameworks and digital humanities, such as co-designing “Bodies, Technologies, and Social Media.” She has collaborated on projects like the Gynocine initiative profiling women filmmakers.