Biography

I am a permanent researcher at the Centre for Social Studies. I obtained my PhD in History of political ideas (University Turin 2005) and in 2018 I was awarded the honorary title of Associate professor in Political philosophy (issued by the Italian Ministry of Education). Since 2001, my research capacities and teaching methodologies have continuously developed across diverse areas, including cultural, postcolonial and gender studies, in addition to political philosophy and critical race studies. For my expertise in transdisciplinary research I was invited to join the international board of the PhD programme in Social Sciences at the University of Padua (2022). In 2007, I was awarded a 3-months Marco Polo Fellowship issued by the University of Bologna, hosted by the University of Technology Sydney [UTS] and a full-time postdoc fellowship hosted by the University of Bologna (2007-9) to continue my research activities at UTS. I subsequently received the prestigious Endeavour Research Fellowship (2009-10), a full-time postdoc funded by the Australian Ministry of Education and hosted by UTS. Between 2010-15, I was a visiting scholar at several Departments of sociology (Leeds, Goldsmiths College, and Cambridge) giving seminars/lectures, and undergraduate supervisor in a sociology course on racism at Cambridge. In 2015, I was granted a FCT 6 year postdoctoral fellowship followed by a full-time contract as researcher (2019), both at CES. My visiting activities have continued since (University of Padua, 2017; Fordham University and University of London, Birkbeck College, in 2018; and University of Venice Ca' Foscari 2022-2023) and opened solid and long-lasting scientific collaborations. Since 2001, I have also lead, coordinated, participated in, an evaluated (as an international expert), several inter/national, EC projects/networks (FP; Horizon; AG; COST Actions), articulating synergies with other projects, consulting, participating in collaborative research and organising academic events. Last but not least, I have a 22 years long track of teaching and coordinate BA/MA/PhD courses at an international level (Italy, the UK and Portugal, besides dozens of PhD and MA seminars wordwide - i.e. India, Brazil, Australia, the US, Canada, Italy, Northern, Cantral, Souther, and Western Europe). My innovative work in postcolonial, gender and critical race studies has informed a generation of social science and humanities scholars working on the Italian nation-building process, colonialism and racial identity. Besides publications with/in prestigious international publishing houses and international academic journals, my scholarship, and especially my monographic books "Bianco e nero" (2013), "Race, Nation and Gender in Modern Italy" (2019), which won respectively the 2013 'Best book' award for the category of 20-21st centuries issued by the American Association for Italian Studies; and the 5th place Ex Aequo, 2019 Edinburgh Gadda Prize, together with the edited book "Il colore della nazione" (2015) have since placed me as one of the main references in Italian studies. For the first time cultural studies and postcolonial theory frameworks were joined to shed light on the Italian case, and particularly on the cultural politics of social phenomena. These books and essays have been compulsory readings in social sciences/humanities courses and key reference for MA/PhD - in several countries in EU, CA, AUS, & the US. More recently, my research also focused on the under-siege mentality that in Europe developed in the context of global crises. Connecting global migrations, terrorism and human/environmental catastrophes, my research focused on an understanding of increasing fears and moral panic connected to an alleged loss of identity and well-being. It has culminated in several publications, among which my last monographe, "Monsters, catastrophes and the Anthropocene" (2021), received great international attention and, since its publication and through its wide international dissemination, also allowed me to become a reference within environmental humanities.