Department of French and Italian

Valerio Ferme

Associate Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature and Department Chair for French and Italian

Bio | Publications | Research Interests | Curriculum Vitae

Bio

Valerio Ferme received his B.A.s in Biology and Religious Studies from Brown University, his M.A.s in Italian and Comparative Literature from Indiana University (Bloomington), and his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California at Berkeley.  He has been at the University of Colorado eleven years, during which he has helped the Italian side of the department to grow into the second largest in the country for number of majors and minors.  He specializes in 19th and 20th-century Italian literature, translation, aesthetics under Fascism, Modernism and the Avant-Garde, and Cultural Studies, but he also teaches courses in Boccaccio and Dante, as well as Italian Cinema.  His first monographic study, Tradurre è tradire: La traduzione come sovversione culturale sotto il Fascismo (Ravenna: Longo, 2002) followed a cultural studies approach in discussing the role that translators played in the subversion of the ideology of the fascist regime. Hailed as highly innovative in its approach, it has now been adopted as required reading for courses in Italian universities.  Since its publication, Professor Ferme has been working on a number of projects, which have spawned many articles, as well as the backbone of two book projects, one detailing his experience as a single adoptive father (Dad Alone: A Single Father’s Journey through Adoption), and another on the experience of the Other in contemporary Italian literature. More recently, he has completed, with Norma Bouchard, an edited translation of Franco Cassano’s Pensiero Mediterraneo (to be published as Southern Thought and Other Essays, New York: Fordham University Press, 2010), and is working on a new book project, also in collaboration with Bouchard, on the influence of Cassano’s ideas on Southern aesthetics. Professor Ferme is active in many committees on campus (among them, the Kayden Prize, the 2030 Flagship task forces, BFA, ASC), and nationally (he is secretary of the American Association of Italian Studies, president of the Modern Language Association 20th-Century Italian Literature group, juror on the MLA Scaglione Book Prize). Among his other accomplishments, he was coach of the U.S. Junior National Rowing Team in 1988 and 1989. In his free time he travels extensively, plays ice hockey and runs. He also is the proud adoptive parent of two boys: Michael, 17; and Devin, 14.

Books:

• Tradurre è tradire: la traduzione come sovversione culturale sotto il Fascismo, Ravenna: Longo, 2002.
• Diario italo-americano: Poesie 1989-1996, Pescara: Ed. Tracce, 1997 (Poetry).

Recent Articles:

• “Torello and the Saladin (X,9): Notes on Panfilo, Day X and the Ending Tale of the Decameron,” Mediaevalia et Humanistica, 2009.


• “Una lunga fedeltà: Sherwood Anderson nel linguaggio e nelle tematiche pavesiane.” Forum Italicum: Special Issue in Commemoration of Cesare Pavese, Fall 2009.


• “From Seta to City: Baricco’s Travels from Postmodernism to Kitsch,” accepted for publication, Forum Italicum, 2009?
  “Illness and Sexuality as Writing Metaphors in Pier Vittorio Tondelli’s Camere separate,” Italica, v. 84 (2007), n. 4: 88-109.


• “Note critiche sulle traduzioni inglesi di Una donna di Sibilla Aleramo,” Testo a fronte [Milano], 37 (2007): 88-112.


• “Against Marriage and Child-Rearing: Alba De Cèspedes’ Nessuno torna indietro vis-à-vis the Social Framework of Mussolini’s Pro-Natal, Pro-Marriage Campaigns of the Ventennio,” Italian Quarterly, v. 43 (Fall), 2006: 48-61.


• “Gay, Feminist, and Arbëresh: Marginal Italian Identities in the Fiction of Aldo Busi, Rossana Campo, and Carmine Abate,” Annali d’Italianistica, 24 (2006): 133-158.


• “From Modern Historical Revisionism to Postmodern Skepticism: Risorgimento in Magni's Cinema” in Rethinking the Risorgimento in Literature and Film, Norma Bouchard ed., Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2004: 259-279.


• “The City and Memory in Vittorio Sereni’s Gli strumenti umani,” Italian Quarterly, v. 40 (Fall), 2003: 45-54.


• “The Americanization of Italian Culture under Fascism,” Quaderni del ‘900 [Roma], 2002 (2): 51-69 (published 2003).

Translations:

• Southern Thought and Other Essays. Translated and edited with an introduction by Norma Bouchard and Valerio Ferme. New York: Fordham University Press (to be published in 2010).
  
  
• “Conversation between Vincenzo Consolo and Mario Nicolao” in Reading and Writing The Mediterranean: Essays by Vincenzo Consolo, Norma Bouchard and Massimo Lollini eds., Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006; 51-75 (lead translation).

Research Interests:

• Italian 20th-Century Literature
• Aesthetics during Facism
• Modernism and the Avant-Garde
• Italian Cinema
• Translation Theory and Practice
• Mediterranean Studies