Phd Graduate Students
Spanedda, Maria Laura
Third-Year PhD Student
Email:
Widlake, Sean
Third-Year PhD Student
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RESEARCH INTERESTS
Italian Early Modern Literature, Mysticism, Sound Studies, Lyricism, Material Culture
Sean Widlake is a third-year PhD student in the Italian Department at Rutgers University focusing on Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque literatures, with a particular emphasis on the poetry of Dante and Marino, amongst others. He previously obtained a BA (cum laude) from the University of Massachusetts Boston in History, and an MA from the University of Washington in Near Eastern Languages and Civilization. His prior academic work has focused on the histories, languages, and literatures of the Middle East, with an emphasis on Iran. Expanding on his prior research, Sean is currently investigating themes of mysticism, material culture, music, and lyricism in the Italian early modern period. He is also more broadly interested in translation, sound studies, and acousmatic readings of texts.
CONFERENCES
Recent Conference Presentations and Invited Talks
- "Learning Italian Through Music," Guest Lecture for Diction for Performance Majors, Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers University, April 22, 2026.
- "Hearing the Angel’s Song: The Paradiso and Dante’s Yearning to Remember," Princeton Medieval Graduate Conference, Princeton University, March 28, 2026.
- "Echo and the Sonic Body in Giambattista Marino’s Galeria," Renaissance Society of America, San Francisco, CA, February 19, 2026.
- Panel Chair: Second Panel on ‘Dante and Money.’ Dante Society of America Annual Symposium, New York University, NY – April 11, 2025
- "Waltzing Matelda: Penance, Redemption, and Dance in Dante’s Purgatorio," Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA), Philadelphia, PA, March 8, 2025.
- "Waltzing Matelda: Penance, Redemption, and Dance in Dante’s Purgatorio," Inter-University Doctoral Consortium Medieval Studies Conference, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, April 19, 2024.
Guzman, Ariana
Fourth-Year PhD Student
Email:
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Women’s writing, im/migrant writers, sociolinguistics, gender and sexuality studies
Ariana Guzmán is a fourth-year PhD student in the Italian department at Rutgers University. Her main research interests are women’s writing, im/migrant writers, sociolinguistics, postcolonial studies, gender and sexuality studies. During her studies at Rutgers, Ariana has pursued graduate certificates in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Public Humanities.
She previously graduated summa cum laude and as salutatorian with a Bachelor of Arts (BA), from CUNY Hunter College with a double major in Italian Literature and Women & Gender Studies. During her undergraduate experience, Ariana gained research experience as an Undergraduate Researcher with the RISE @Rutgers program and the Moore Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (MURAP) at the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill before joining the Italian department at Rutgers. Her undergraduate thesis, Recognizing Borders within Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, explored the issue of internal migration and regionalism in Italy.
Beyond her studies, she is committed to service and is currently serving as the Diversity Peer Educator (DPE) Graduate Intern at the Center for Social Justice Education & LGBT Communities and as a Panel Chair and Organizer for multiple upcoming conferences, leading sessions on themes including graphic narratives, migration, mother(s) and home(s).
CONFERENCES
Recent Conference Presentations
- “Resisting Narratives: Autobiography and Testimony,” 29th Annual Carolina Conference for Romance Studies: “Existence as Resistance: (Em)bodying Counter Narratives in the Humanities,” The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 28-29 March 2025.
- (Missing) Mother(s),” NeMLA's 56th Annual Convention: “(R)EVOLUTION,” Northeastern Modern Language (NeMLA), Philadelphia, PA, 6-9 March 2025.
- Other[ed] Discourses and Memory,” NeMLA's 56th Annual Convention: “(R)EVOLUTION,” Northeastern Modern Language (NeMLA), Philadelphia, PA, 6-9 March 2025.
- “Contextualizing Voices: An Analysis of ‘Barriers to Integration: Latin American Voices in Italy’” Activism in Diaspora: Resistance Movements through Literature, Film and Digital Media (Part 2), NeMLA, University of Boston, 7-10 March 2024, Boston, USA.
- “Multilingualism in Scego’s La Mia Casa è Dove Sono [My Home is Where I Am]” UNC Linguistic Colloquium, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, 25 March 2023, Virtual.
TRANSLATION EXPERIENCE
- Volunteer Translator at The Language Bank at Rutgers University, 02/2023-ongoing. Provided translations from English to Spanish and English to Italian for New Jersey non-profits and university outreach
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
- ITAL 346/Cinema Studies 377: Contemporary Italian Cinema
- ITAL 102: Asynchronous Elementary Italian
- ITAL 101: Asynchronous and Hybrid Elementary Italian
- ITAL 110: In-Person Exploration in Languages and Cultures: Italian for Travel
Pasetti, Diletta
Fourth-Year PhD Student
Email:
Taibi, Salvatore
Fifth-Year PhD Candidate
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