Rate My Professor Giovanni Spani

Giovanni Spani is an Associate Professor and Pedagogical Coordinator in the Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the College of the Holy Cross, with affiliations in Italian Studies, Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Studies in World Literatures, and Health Studies. His areas of expertise include Medieval and Renaissance Italian Literature. He earned a Laurea in political science from the University of Padua, Italy, an M.A. in Italian literature from Indiana University, Bloomington, and a Ph.D. in Italian literature from Indiana University, Bloomington. Prior to joining the College of the Holy Cross in 2009, Spani taught at Indiana University, Trinity College, Middlebury College, and Bowdoin College.

Spani's scholarly contributions encompass authored and co-edited books such as La cronachistica toscana del Trecento: trascrivere, compilare e compendiare la storia (Edizioni Dell’Orso, Alessandria, 2014), Donne del Mediterraneo. Saggi Interdisciplinari (Women of the Mediterranean. Interdisciplinary Essays) (Società Editrice Fiorentina, Firenze, 2017, co-edited with Marco Marino), Visioni Mediterranee: Itinerari e migrazioni culturali (Mediterranean Visions: Itineraries and Cultural Migrations) (Carabba, Lanciano, 2016, co-edited with Marco Marino), New Perspectives on Veneto. Literary and Cultural Itineraries (NEMLA Italian Studies, vol. 35, 2013, co-edited with Simona Wright), L’Italia letteraria e cinematografica dal secondo Novecento ai giorni nostri (Literary and Cinematographic Italy from the Late 1900s to Our Time) (Nerosubianco, Cuneo, 2012, co-edited with Philip Balma), and Echi Oltremare. Italy, the Mediterranean and Beyond (Narcissus.me, 2012, co-edited with Fulvio Orsitto and Sonia Massari). Selected articles include “A Case of Sudden-Death in Decameron IV.6: Aortic Dissection or Atrial Myxoma?” (Circulation Research, 119, July 2016), “Il vino di Boccaccio: usi e abusi in alcune novelle del Decameron” (Heliotropia 8-9, 2011-2012), and “Un ritorno alle immagini dantesche nella seconda metà del Cinquecento: alcune osservazioni sulla inedita stampa del ‘Lucifer’ di Galle” (Studi Italiani 44, 2010). He served as Italian Area Director on the Northeast Modern Language Association board from 2011 to 2014 and co-organizes the annual international seminar series “Literature and Sin” at Es Baluard Museum in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, since 2012. At Holy Cross, he created Radio Libera Italiana, a weekly Italian radio program broadcasting on FM 88.1 since 2009, and the Pasta Olympics, an annual student competition since 2010.