Research Thursdays - Ilaria Serra (LLCL) Receives A Faculty Curriculum Development Grant For “European Movement: Films of Immigration”

Images (l/r): European Union Flag; La Pietra di Ca’Vendramin book cover; Ilaria Serra with Italian American writer  Adriana Trigiani, whose novels are the topic of a forthcoming book chapter by Serra 

Image: Ilaria Serra with Professor Mario Isnenghi, University of Venice, whose historiography is the topic of one of Serra’s book chapters. (Serra, Ilaria. “La gioventù di Mario Isnenghi tra libri e campielli.” La gioventu’ degli storici e delle storiche, edited by Marco Severini and Lidia Pupilli. Venice: Marsilio.)

Ilaria Serra, the 2020 FAU Associate Professor Scholar of the Year, recently received a faculty curriculum development grant from the EU-Jean Monnet Center of Excellence at Florida International University (FIU) for the teaching unit “European Movement: Films of Immigration.” The focus of this inter-faculty collaboration will be a didactic package of recent immigration movies produced in Italy, France, Lebanon, Spain and Germany.

“We believe film is an effective and direct way to open windows on the world and internationalize student perspectives,” Serra says. “The collaboration among five faculty members with roots and expertise in the five countries will make the project even more valuable.”

The FAU and FIU Italian programs also collaborate through student-based activities, Italian language book club meetings and K-12 Italian teaching enhancement. 

Serra’s Italian and Italian-American research focuses on an eclectic range of topics in a comparative perspective, from the Italian roots of Argentinian tango to the 19th century migration of Italian bear-trainers; from the Venetian poems of a living Moldavian poet to the Poetic Geography of Italy; from a philosophical reading of Andrea Segre’s documentaries to somaesthetic relationships of Italian feminism and urban spaces. Her contribution “Italian American Femininities” appeared in The Routledge History of Italian Americans, and its Italian translation for Mondadori-Le Monnier. She also organizes the annual international symposium Italy in Transit 

fau.edu/artsandletters/llcl/italian/symposium 

In the last five years, Serra published 13 peer-reviewed articles, seven book chapters, two edited books and four edited proceedings. For these recent scholarly achievements, Dr. Serra was named FAU’s 2019-20 Associate Professor Scholar of the Year.