I am Visiting Assistant Professor of Italian in Romance Studies and affiliated faculty with the Center for Jewish Studies at Duke University. I primarily work on the cultural and literary connections between Italy and German-language countries, Jewish studies, the novel, animal studies, world literature, modernism, and issues of identity. Currently I am completely my book, Kafka’s Italian Progeny (see below for a description). Last year I co-directed a Duke University PAL/FHI Faculty Seminar, supported by a Mellon grant. This year I am teaching a first-year seminar “Adaptation: Cinema & Literature” and “Introduction to Italian Culture: Language, Literature, and FIlm.” Please see “Courses” to see descriptions of courses taught at Duke, the University of California at Berkeley (where I was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities for two years), and Columbia University.