Professor Luciano Parisi

Twitter: @ltLit_Parisi

I studied at the universities of Genoa (laurea in Italian literature) and Bologna (laurea in music studies) and at Boston College (PhD in Romance Languages and Literatures). Before moving to Exeter I taught at Boston University, Oxford Brookes, Royal Holloway University of London, and Trinity College Dublin.

My research has four main strands: literary expressions of spirituality (Muratori, Manzoni, Borgese), the development of liberal ideas in Italy (Manzoni, Nievo), the epic aspects of contemporary Italian novels (Cutrufelli, Ferrante, Pennacchi), and narratives of child sexual abuse (Deledda, Drigo, Ferrante, Moravia, Maraini). My latest book (Giovani e abuso sessuale nella letteratura italiana, 1902-2018) was published in 2021.

I favour a hermeneutic approach (Paul Ricœur, Hans-Georg Gadamer) for literary courses and a communicative approach (Sandra Savignon) for language classes. Dialogue with students is essential in both cases and it is based on the assumption that no one thinks very much where all think alike.

Walking in the mountains is my preferred hobby. I reached the major peaks in the Presidential Range of New Hampshire in the 1990s, completed the Tour du Mont Blanc in 2008, and crossed the Ligurian Apennines (Ottone-Barbagelata, Rapallo-Rivergaro, Arenzano-Rossiglione) several times in the past fifteen years.