Renata Giuseppa GAMBINO

Renata Giuseppa GAMBINO is an Associate Professor of German Literature at the Department of Humanities of the University of Catania. She serves as the Director of the Interdepartmental Research Center NEWHUMS (Neurocognitive and Humanistic Studies) and leads the NeuroHumanities Studies research group. Additionally, she is the coordinator for the Catania unit of the Erasmus+ ENID-TEACH project on digital education and was the past president of the LCEEO degree program until 2021.

Her research interests are highly interdisciplinary, focusing on German literature of the Goethezeit and Romanticism, neurocognitive sciences and literature, gender in Romantic literature (e.g., Elise Sommer, Sophie Bernhardi), visual and cultural studies, intermediality, literary anthropology, and foreign literature pedagogy. Her work bridges the humanities with cognitive sciences, particularly through neurohermeneutic approaches.

Her recent publications reflect a strong engagement with cognitive literary studies, Kleist, Wieland, and fairy tales, indicating a scholarly trend toward interdisciplinary and neurocognitive analyses of German literary texts. These works collectively emphasize narrative cognition, empathy, and the intersection of science and literature.

She is actively involved in several national and international associations, including the Goethe Society of North America (GSNA), the Northeast Modern Language Association (NEMLA), and the Cognitive Futures in the Arts and Humanities network. She also co-directs the Wunderkammer book series and the NeuroHumanities Studies portal.

Renata Gambino supervises numerous graduate students, as evidenced by an extensive thesis archive, and has collaborated with institutions such as the Freie Universität Berlin’s DINE LAB and the Medical Humanities program at Suor Orsola Benicasa University. She was the Italian coordinator for the COST-funded E-READ project on reading processes across digital and paper media.

She leads the NEWHUMS research center and the NeuroHumanities Studies group, both dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary research between the humanities and cognitive sciences. Her leadership in the Erasmus+ ENID-TEACH project further underscores her commitment to innovation in digital education and teaching methodologies.