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Andrea Dini

Associate Professor, World Languages and Cultures, College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Office:: Conrad J. Schmitt Hall 222
Email:: dinia@montclair.edu
Phone:: 973-655-7056
Degrees:: Laurea, Universita degli Studi di Firenze (Italy); PhD, University of Wisconsin, Madison
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Dr. Dini is Associate Professor of Italian and Italian Language Program Coordinator in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. He presently coordinates the GLBTQ Studies Minor (housed in the Gender, Sexuality and Women Studies program). Dr. Dini also served as Academic Director of the Study Abroad Program "Montclair in Florence" in 2014-2016. He teaches all levels of Italian language and literature, in face-to-face and online courses. He collaborates with the Honors Program teaching "Great Books and Ideas I-II" (with a course on fantastic literature: "Metamorphoses of Fantasy or The Monster Within," and with the Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies Program teaching GLBTQ courses. He has taught the online/hybrid version(s) of GLQS 100: Introduction to GLBTQ Studies, and has taught GLQS/GSWS 302: Selected Topics ("Queering the Broadway Musical" and " 'An Era Exploding/A Century Spinning:' Jewish and Gay National Themes in American (Musical) Theater," crosslisted with Jewish American Studies 390). In Spring 2019 he taught a seminar (in English) on Dante's Inferno, and in Fall 2019 a course in Italian Cultural Studies. He was on sabbatical in Fall 2020. He is presently teaching language at 102 level and working on an Open Educational Resource textbook for Introductory Italian. He is currently working on course proposals on Queer Broadway and LGBTQ+ Comics (with an emphasis on Alison Bechdel's work).

Dr. Dini's main research areas are in Medieval and 20th-century literature and in Second Language Acquisition.

Corresponding to his interests in the field of language pedagogy and methodology, Dr. Dini is the co-author of three editions of the college-level, introductory textbook "Prego!" and of its Workbook and Lab Manual (McGraw-Hill, 2000, 2004, 2007; in 2011, for "Prego!"' s 8th edition he only co-authored the textbook's Workbook and Lab Manual, and he is acknowledged as a contributor for the main text). He also co-authored "In giro per l'Italia" (McGraw-Hill, 2002, 2006). He has been a beta tester of McGraw-Hill's adaptive program "LearnSmart."

Dr. Dini's literary interests focus on Italo Calvino's early years (1941-1949), Resistance literature, modern re-writings of Dante (in Pasolini, Luzi, Sanguineti, etc.).

His book " Il Premio Nazionale Riccione 1947 and Italo Calvino" (Cesena: Il Ponte Vecchio, 2007), commissioned by the Riccione Prize Foundation, investigates the history and politics of the first edition of the literary prize, and includes a philological interpretation of the typescripts of Calvino's first novel, "Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno," sent to the Riccione Prize (Calvino won ex aequo). He is presently working on a series of studies on Calvino's writings and fiction between 1943 and 1949 - in a re-evaluation of the role that the writers Cesare Pavese, Elio Vittorini, the journal "il Politecnico" and Calvino's engagement in the Italian Communist Party had in shaping his narrative between 1945 and 1949. One essay is on the role that American writers -and notably, Ernest Hemingway- had in his early fiction. His essays on Calvino appear in journals such as "Paragone-Letteratura," "Quaderni del Novecento" and in collections and conference proceedings. An article on Italo Calvino in cyberspace appeared in the volume "Approaches to the Teaching of Italo Calvino's Works," edited by Franco Ricci and published in 2013 by the Modern Language Association. His latest published essays are "Calvino, Hemingway e "Per chi suona la campana," "Studi Italiani," a. XXVII, n.2, luglio-dicembre 2015, 81-121 and "«Hemingway è stato uno dei miei primi modelli». Calvino e i «moduli stilistici» dell’esordio," in Magherini, Simone (Ed.), Studi di letteratura italiana in onore di Gino Tellini, vol. 2, Firenze: Societa' Editrice Fiorentina, 2018: 861-883. He has also completed a collection of essays on Calvino's 1940s production, to be published in a volume.

One essay on Boccaccio's Decameron was published in June 2019 ("Accoppiamenti poco giudiziosi: gli amanti infelici di Lauretta (Dec. IV.3)" by the Italian peer-review journal "Studi Italiani," n. 61, a. XXXI, gennaio-giugno 2019); another on Lauretta's story cycle in Decameron is being currently developed.

Dr. Dini is co-editor with Chris Kleinhenz of the 28-essay, 300 page volume "Approaches to the Teaching of Petrarch's Canzoniere and the Petrarchan Tradition," published by the Modern Language Association of America in May 2014. He contributed to the volume with an essay on Petrarch in the context of Post-Risorgimento poetry.

In 2012 he was also co-editor with Fabian Alfie of the 25 essay, 506 page collection "Accessus Ad Auctores," published by Arizona State University for the series "Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies."

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Research Projects

Work in progress

Dr. Dini's other work in progress includes:

1) an essay on Matteo B. Bianchi's coming out novel "Generations of Love" (1999) in the light of its musical and literary influences (80's pop, David Leavitt, Douglas Copland);
2) the edition of an unpublished novel on World War I by the painter Eva Quajotto;
3) corresponding to his interests in the politics of Italian literary prizes in the second post war period and Resistance literature, an investigation of the first edition of Premio Prato (1948-1991), devoted to the Resistance short stories and novels;
4) a film guide for all levels of Italian proficiency (co-authored with Susanna Pastorino) on "Mine vaganti" (2010) by Italian-Turkish film director Ferzan Ozpetek.