Simona Wright

Simona Wright is a Professor of Italian at The College of New Jersey, where she directs the Italian program and teaches courses ranging from beginner language instruction to advanced seminars on topics like Contemporary Italy, Italian Cinema, and Transnational Spaces. She earned her Laurea in Germanistik from Ca’ Foscari University (Venice, Italy) and a PhD in Italian Literature from Rutgers University (1995).

• Education: Laurea in Germanistik (Ca’ Foscari University), PhD in Italian Literature (Rutgers University)

Her research focuses on transnational spaces in literature and cinema, particularly examining how gender, postcolonialism, and Mediterranean identity intersect in Italian cultural production. She has co-edited several volumes including Mapping Leopardi (2019) and Crocevia (2022), and is currently working on a monograph titled Imagined Spaces: New Ecologies of Place in Global Literature and Cinema. Her article analyses and conference presentations frequently explore female agency, spatial theory, and postcolonial Italian cinema.

Recent publications and presentations include work on Elena Ferrante’s spatial representations, Leopardi’s poetics of space, and the intersections of migration, borders, and embodiment. She has been active in organizing the Intersections-Intersezioni Conference (Italy) since 2013 and serves on editorial boards for NeMLA Italian Studies and Italica Online. Since 2023, she serves again as Vice President of the Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA).