Chiara Giuliani

I was awarded with a doctoral degree from the University of St Andrews in 2015, with a thesis entitled Negotiating Home Spaces: Spatial Practices in Italian Postcolonial Literature. I received my BA in English and Spanish Literature from the University of Bologna in 2008 and completed my Master’s Degree in Comparative Literature and Postcolonial Cultures at the University of Bologna in 2010 with a final dissertation on Somali-Italian women writers and the controversial relationship between these two countries.

In my PhD thesis, I analysed selected Italian postcolonial novels from a spatial perspective, investigating the ways in which specific spaces come to play crucial roles in the narration. I examined the strategies through which characters (first generation migrants or with migrant origins) try to appropriate certain spaces, in the attempt to recreate feelings of home. The corpus comprised the work of Cristina Ubax Ali-Farah, Igiaba Scego, Shirin Ramzanali Fazel, Amara Lakhous and Gabriella Kuruvilla. In my current research project, I investigate the ambiguities that shape the socio-economic relations between Italy and China and the role played by the Chinese community in Italy. The analysis is based on the close study of a wide corpus of novels, periodicals and TV shows in which the representation of China and of the Chinese community can be read as a mirror in which to delineate the discursive tensions underpinning this yet unfulfilled economic encounter. More recently I started analysing the growing phenomenon of Italian (and Chinese-Italian) expats to China and the way this affects not only the relationship between the two countries but the representation of China and Italy’s resident Chinese community. My research interest comprises postcolonial theories, geocriticism, cultural geography, material culture and memory studies and Italian contemporary literature.

Modules taught:    

• IT1001 - Made in Italy: Tourism, Food, Design and Fashion in Italy
• IT2102 - The Language of the Italian Media 
• IT2310 - Issues in Contemporary Italian Society through Film and Documentaries
• IT2311- New Italians: Race, Identity and Memory in Contemporary Literature
• IT3101 - Advanced Italian Language
• IT3317 - Cinematic Representations of the anni di piombo 
• LL3102 - European Cultural Capitals
• LL5005 - Negotiating Knowledges in the Networked Society
• LL6008 - Mobility, Plurilingualism and Intercultural Communication in a Globalized World
• LL6031 - Extended Translation Project
• LL6037 - Migration and Culture
• LL6038 - Metropolis, Mobilities and Minorities
• LL2108 - Crossing Borders: Cultures and Societies 
• IT1201 - Post-Unification Italian Culture and Society
• IT1101 - Introduction to Written and Spoken Italian 

Modules coordinated:

• IT1001 - Made in Italy: Tourism, Food, Design and Fashion in Italy
• IT2310 - Issues in Contemporary Italian Society through Film and Documentaries
• IT2311- New Italians: Race, Identity and Memory in Contemporary Literature
• IT3317 - Cinematic Representations of the anni di piombo 
• LL6037 - Migration and Material Culture
• LL6038 - Metropolis, Mobilities and Minorities

Noreen Kane (2021-) Transgenerational Trauma and the Gendered Body: Postcolonial Women's Writing in Italy 

Matilde Piu (2025-) Multilingual Selves. Autobiographical narratives in-between Italy and Poland

Jacopo Turini (2019-2025) Contested Nationhood: Literary Geographies of Contemporary Italian Alpine Borders

'ComiCork - Picturing Oneself in Irish Multicultural Society'

IRC - New Foundations (NF/2023/1360)