Dr. Santini is Assistant Professor of Italian and coordinates the Italian Program. She teaches courses in Italian language, culture, and literature at all levels and directs the Study Abroad Program in Siena, Italy. She graduated cum laude from the University of Siena in 1996, and, after continuing her studies with a specialization in comparative literature through a two-year Monte dei Paschi di Siena graduate Fellowship, moved to the United States in 1999. She holds a Ph.D. from UCLA, where she was accepted with a Chancellor’s Fellowship, and where she specialized in 20th-century Italian literature and culture, with a minor in Baroque studies.
Before coming to KSU, she has taught at various US institutions, including UCLA, USC, and Bard College. Among her main interests are contemporary Italian literature and culture, second language acquisition, translation studies, and gender and women studies. Her articles and translations have appeared in numerous publications in the United States and Italy. Among her works on 19th and 20th Century literature are published articles on Giacomo Leopardi, Antonio Delfini and the Surrealist movement, and Elio Pagliarani. Current projects include the edition of Sanora Babb’s novel Whose Names are Unknown, which she has translated into Italian in collaboration with Diego Brasioli (to be published by Mursia, Italy, 2007) and a study on experimental Italian poet Amelia Rosselli.
