She received her Italian Laurea from the University La Sapienza in Rome and her Ph.D. from Stanford University. Her research focus in Italian literature involves the sacred, from literature to cinema and theatre. Other topics of interests include Dante, Italian women’s writing and cinema, literary translation, and Italophone literature. She has published essays on Dante, Tommaso Landolfi, Amelia Rosselli, Benedetta Marinetti, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Pietro Germi, Ornela Vorpsi, Roberta Torre, Alina Marazzi, and Igiaba Scego. She is currently working on a volume on Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Sacred Flesh. She has edited an anthology on cyberpunk writers and translated in Italian works by Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Jack Kerouac.