Elizabeth joined the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures in 2014.
In her dissertation she focuses on 20th century Italian texts where spaces of animal confinement such as slaughterhouses, zoos, and laboratories are represented, to investigate how the construction of the boundary between humans and other animals has led to the oppression and discrimination of both human and nonhuman beings. Alternate views to oppression and violence are also examined by exploring how to reorder our political and cultural systems to encompass nonhuman concerns as envisioned in the selected literary texts.
She holds a master's degree in Romance Philology and a B.A. in Literature and Modern Cultures from the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. She currently serves on the editorial board of Sloth—A Journal of Emerging Voices in Human-Animal Studies and the Journal for Critical Animal Studies.
Research interests: Modern Italian Literature, Critical Animal Studies, Ecofeminism, Comparative Literature, Applied Ethics, Biopolitics, Gender and Race Studies, Urban Ecologies
Dissertation: A Shift in Perception: Rethinking Multispecies Coexistence