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Melissa Coburn

Melissa Coburn, Associate Professor of Italian

Melissa Coburn, Associate Professor of Italian
Melissa Coburn, Associate Professor of Italian

Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures
328 Major Williams Hall 
220 Stanger Street 
Blacksburg, VA 24061
540-231-5361 | mcoburn8@vt.edu

Melissa Coburn is an associate professor of Italian in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures.

  • Italy 1865-1920
  • Narrative
  • Women’s Writings
  • Tropes
  • Race and Colonialism
  • PhD, Purdue University
  • MA, Purdue University
  • BA, Indiana University

Program Director, Italian 

  • Fulbright Award, 2006
  • Tenure and promotion to associate professor, 2015
  • Teaching awards at Purdue University and at Scripps College, 2002 and 2006

Books

Race and Narrative in Italian Women’s Writings Since Unification. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013. 162 pp.

Journal Articles

“The Uncanny from Freud to Flaiano: A Reprise.” Italica: Journal of the American Association of Teachers ofItalian 92.4 (2015): 881-899.

“‘The Argument is Reversible’: Tropological Revision in the Colonial Debate after the Battle at Dogali.” Italian Studies (annual issue on Cultural Studies) 69.3 (Autumn 2014): 340-56. 

“Resistance-at-risk: The Critique of Fascism and the Ethics of Writing in Natalia Ginzburg’s Lessico famigliare.” Italica: Journal of the American Association of Teachers of Italian 84.4 (2007): 755-70.

“Oltre ‘la razza non esiste.’ Nuove vesti della disuguaglianza e l’esigenza di un anti-razzismo più robusto.” Mai praticamente uguali.  Studi e ricerche sulla disuguaglianza e sull’inferiorità nelle tradizioni religiose. Ed. Federico Squarcini. Florence: Società Editrice Firenze, 2007. 205-20. 

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