Fellows » Current Fellows » IHUM Fellow: Inga Pierson, PhD
Inga Pierson received her Ph.D. in Italian Studies from New York University in 2009. Her manuscript, Towards a Poetics of Neorealism: Tragedy in the Italian Cinema 1942-1948, explores the unique manifestation of a tragic discourse in films by Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica, Luchino Visconti and Giuseppe De Santis. In contrast to other studies on the topic, she relies on a transnational and interdisciplinary approach, homing in on a triangle of influence in Italian verism, French poetic realism and American noir. The goal of her work is to show how tragedy reflects the emotional atmosphere of interregnum Italy as well as the search for an innovative stylistic register - one that might prove adequate to crisis of WWII. She is planning a second project that deals similarly with late modernism in Italian and French cinema.
Before coming to Stanford, Inga was Visiting Assistant Professor at Colgate University in Romance Languages and Film and Media Studies. She has taught courses in Italian literature, language and culture as well as film history and media theory. She has worked as a journalist and she curates a website, www.collegefilmandmediastudies.com.