Dr. Sherry Roush, Associate Professor of Italian, specializing in Medieval and Renaissance Italian literature and culture, will present Conversing with the Dead and the Unborn in the Italian Renaissance on Nov. 7 at noon in the K. Bruce Sherbine Lounge in the campus' Study Learning Center.
This event is free and open to the public.
Dr. Roush will talk about ghosts, with an added twist from one Italian author who tries to talk to generations not yet born in his day. Her talk will be complemented with slides that will add significantly to the visual interest and accessibility of her presentation.
This lecture is part of the campus' Italian Heritage Series, which is made possible thanks to a permanent endowment established by the Scranton Chapter of UNICO National. The endowment specifically funds a three-tiered program in Italian Studies, Heritage and Culture at Worthington Scranton that focuses on academics, co-curricular and out-of-classroom experiences, as well as community outreach.
It is designed to complement the campus' existing cultural offerings in Spanish, French, German and Chinese, while expanding learning opportunities for students and community members interested in furthering their knowledge of Italian culture and heritage.
Dr. Roush, (Ph.D Yale University, 1999; MA Yale University, 1996; BA University of CA, Santa Cruz, 1992) is also the author of Hermes' Lyre: Italian Poetic Self-Commentary from Dante to Tommaso Campanella (University of Toronto Press, 2002) and co-editor of The Medieval Marriage Scene: Prudence, Passion, Policy (Arizona State University Press, 2005).
Her current research projects include a book titled Habeas Spiritum: Motivations for Italian Ghost Storytelling, 1300-1650, as well as an English translation of Campanella's Philosophical Poetry and his Syntagma. Her scholarly articles have appeared in the journals Renaissance Quarterly, Italica, MLN: Modern Language Notes, Quaderni d'Italianistica, Viator, and Italian Culture. Particular areas of scholarly interest include Italian poetry, autobiography, confessional literature, hermeneutics, translation theory and practice, and interdisciplinary intersections of Italian literature/music/art/film.
She has received various grants and awards for her research, including prizes from the Folger Institute, the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, and the Bogliasco Foundation. In addition to being named an Alumni Teaching Fellow for 2009, she received the Outstanding Teaching Award from the College of the Liberal Arts in 2004 and was named a Commencement Marshal for the College. At Penn State, she serves on the Faculty Senate and on the Penn State Press Editorial Board for the Romance Language book series.
Outside the University, she has served on the Modern Language Association's Executive Committee for the Division of Medieval and Renaissance Italian Literature (2001-05), and as a member of the juries to select recipients of NEH Summer Institute grants and Zerilli-Marimò prizewinners in contemporary Italian fiction (both in 2003).
Over the course of her career Dr. Roush has consulted on a variety of projects ranging from a Dante project in the virtual realm of Second Life to a documentary film on Italian-American lynchings, and from Ernest Hemingway's Italian correspondences to an initiative to convert Italian texts into Braille.
