Dr. Myriam Ruthenberg teaches Italian literature, culture and language at all levels in an Italian Studies program that she created and became official in 1993 with what was then the second of only two BA programs in the State of Florida.  She served as  Chair of the Department of Languages, Linguistics, and Comparative Literature from 2003 to 2008.  She holds two teaching awards, a university Leadership Enhancement Award, and has served on the editorial board of professional journals in her field. She was Treasurer of the American Association of Italian Studies for three years. In 2007 she was honored by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the title of “Cavaliere nell’Ordine della Stella della Solidarietà italiana.”

In the last few years she has concentrated her research on the writer, translator, and cultural critic, Erri De Luca, who became the topic of several articles, an edited volume entitled Scrivere nella polvere: Saggi su Erri De Luca (Pisa : ETS, 2005), and the first English translation of one of this author’s works ( The Senses of Memory).  Re-writing lies at the core of her published research on the early Renaissance novellatore and chronicler Giovanni Sercambi, and her articles on Elsa Morante and Tomasi Di Lampedusa focus on the recasting of respectively Medieval and Renaissance texts in a twentieth century mold.   She is currently working on an authored book, entitled Erri De Luca e la scrittura alla vigilia della creazione.

Recent and forthcoming publications:

“Lectura Boccaccii: III,6.”  Lectura Boccaccii III. Eds. Pier Massimo Forni and

            Massimo Scalabrini. Vol.3. The U of Toronto P (forthcoming 2011)

“Sacrifice, Sacrament, and the Body in Ricky Tognazzi’s ‘La Scorta’.” Mafia Movies, ed. Dana Renga. The U of Toronto P (2010)

“Giovanni Sercambi” Encyclopedia of Italian Literary Studies. Ed. Gaetana Marrone-Puglia. Routledge/ Taylor&Francis  (2006)

Scrivere nella polvere:  Saggi su Erri De Luca (Pisa : ETS, 2005) http://www.edizioniets.com/Scheda.asp?N=88-467-0980-2

”Telling Lies Telling Lives: Giovanni Sercambi between ‘Cronaca’ and ‘Novella’”
        The Italian Novella. Ed. Gloria Allaire. Routledge Medieval Casebook Series.
        New York:  Routledge (2002): 69-80

“‘Eccomi’ sulla spiaggia-confine di Tu, mio: Erri De Luca, il mare e l’asciutto”    Narrativa. Université de Paris X, Nanterre. 20.21 (2001): 169-80.