Irene Zanini-Cordi is from the Veneto region of Italy. She holds a Laurea in Lingue e Letterature straniere (English and Czech) from the Università di Venezia Ca’ Foscari. After studying for one year in the Comparative Literature Department at the University of California at Berkeley on a fellowship, she entered the Ph.D. program in Italian Studies at the same institution where she completed her dissertation in 2004. At Berkeley she received the Giampiccolo Fellowship & Prize, and the Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award. She has held Lecturer positions at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz. Since August 2005 she has been an Assistant Professor of Italian in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics at the Florida State University, where she was also the coordinator of the Basic Italian Language Program until Fall 2008. She is the recipient of the First Year Assistant Professor Grant (2006), the Risley Award (2007), the COFRS Award (2008), and of the Faculty Research Library Materials Grant (2008, 2010), the CRC Small Grant (2010), the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (NEH) for the 2011-2012 academic year, and the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar at the American Academy in Rome (2011).
Professor Zanini-Cordi’s areas of specialization are Renaissance and contemporary Italian literature, with emphasis on Narrative and Critical Theory, Feminist Theory and women’s writing. She has published several articles on Italian Women writers. Her first book is entitled Donne sciolte. Abbandono ed identità femminile nella letteratura italiana (Ravenna, Longo Editore, 2008).
Her current research interest is on women’s writing in 18th and 19th century Italy, especially letters, diaries, and early novels. She is completing a book manuscript entitled Fashioning Italian Women, Fashioning a Nation. Sociability and Italian Women’s Identity (1780-1860s) which focuses on the women who animated Italian salotti di cultura from just before the French Revolution to the unification of Italy, and their influence on the conception and birth of the Italian Nation.
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