Associate Professor

Italian

Chair, Paul F. Sheffer Fund for Roman Catholic Studies Committee

Founding Director, EGLHE (Equine-Guided Learning and Healing Experience)

US Coordinator of the International Society of Zooanthropology 

Affiliated Faculty, SIUA, Scuola Interazioni Umano-Animale. School of Zooanthropology, Bologna, Italy

Website: http://amandaminervini.weebly.com/

Research Interests

Fascism, religion and politics, diversity in Italian cultures, race theory, film and documentary, Holocaust representations, political theory, animal studies

Publications

Horses and Humans. A Long Journey of Mutual Discovery. With Roberto Marchesini, under contract with White Horse Press, UK

Saint Francis and Mussolini, Fascist Appropriations of a Beloved Italian Saint. Oxford, UK: Peter Lang (forthcoming 2026)

“Frate Sole, Sorella Guerra. Il ruolo della guerra dimenticata nel pacifismo di San Francesco d’Assisi.” Incroci. Bari: Adda Editori, forthcoming, invited contribution

“‘Il Presidente’ Giorgia Meloni. Right-Wing ‘Feminism’ and Gender Neutrality in Italian Contemporary Politics.” In g/s/i (gender, sexuality, italy), 10 I-II (2023-2024)

“Il cavallo ritrovato. Imparare con gli equini: l’esperienza di un college americano.” Animal Studies, Bologna, Apeiron, 2023, invited contribution

ReFiguring Global Challenges: Literary and Cinematic Explorations of War, Inequality and Migration Chief Editor, with Amelie Björck (Södertörn University), Amrita Ghosh (Linnaeus University), Omri Grinberg (University of Jerusalem). Leiden, Netherlands: Brill Publishers (2023)

"It is Time to go Outisde. A Dialogue with Dominick LaCapra" in ReFiguring Global Challenges, 2023.

“Mussolini Speaks. History Reviewed” in The Massachusetts Review. A Quarterly of Literature, Art, and Public Affairs, (March 2019)

“Face to Face: Iconic Representations and Juxtapositions of St. Francis of Assisi and Mussolini during Italian Fascism” in M. Epstein, F. Orsitto, A. Righi, TOTalitarian Arts: the Visual Arts, Fascism(s) and Mass Society. Cambridge Scholars Publishing (Cambridge, UK, 2017), invited contribution

“My America” in Our America, Blog of The Massachusetts Review. A Quarterly of Literature, Art, and Public Affairs, November 2016 (with the pseudonym A. Minerva)

“Uccidete la Democrazia! (2009) e Girlfriend in a Coma (2012): Il Nuovo Documentario Politico sull’ Italia” in William Hope, Luciana D'Arcangeli, and Silvana Serra, Un Nuovo Cinema Politico Italiano? Vol.2, Kibworth Beauchamp, Leics, UK : Troubador Publishing (2014), invited contribution

“Saint Francis of Assisi: An Artist Saint, A Saint for Artists” in: Hans Haacke, Once Upon a Time, London, UK: Black Dog, 2013, invited contribution

“A Note on the Thought of Roberto Esposito,” Diacritics, Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 39:2 (Summer 2009), 95-97

“Fate Finta che sia una Finzione: TV e Scrittori Americani Contemporanei,” Incroci, Bari: Adda Editori, 11 (JulyDecember 2004), 73-92

  

Translations

Rupert Isaacson, "Horse Boy e Movement Method. Apprendimento condotto da bambini e neuroplasticità attraverso l'allegria" in Animal Studies. Rivista italiana di  zooantropologia (44, 2024)

Elettra Stimilli “Debt Economy and Faith. Philosophy in the Age of Terror,” Diacritics, 47(2):4-21, (2019)

Adriana Cavarero, Inclinations, (English translation of Inclinazioni, Milano: Raffaello Cortina, 2013), Stanford University Press (2016)

Carlo Galli, Janus's Gaze: Essays on Carl Schmitt (with Adam Sitze, English translation of Lo sguardo di Giano. Saggi su Carl Schmitt, Il Mulino, 2008), Duke University Press and Verso Bookk, 2015

Giorgio Agamben Nymphs, (English translation of Ninfe, Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 2007), Univ. of Chicago Press, 2013; and "Nymphs" in: Releasing the Image: From Literature to New Media, Jacques Khalip and Robert Mitchell, eds., Stanford University Press, 2011, 60-81

Wendy Brown, Politica fuori dalla storia, (Italian translation of Politics Out of History, Princeton University Press, 2001), Laterza, 2012

Carlo Galli, "Hamlet: Representation and the Concrete" (with Adam Sitze, English translation of the introduction to Carl Schmitt's Amleto o Ecuba. L'irrompere del tempo nel gioco del dramma) in Political Theology and Early Modernity, Julia Reinhard Lupton and Graham Hammill, eds., University of Chicago Press, 2012

Carlo Galli, "On War and on the Enemy," (with Adam Sitze, translation of "Sulla guerra e sul nemico," in:Paranoia e politica), The New Centennial Review, 9:2, 2009, 195-219

Courses Taught

 

Culture Classes taught in English:

The Rise of Fascisms: History, Theory, Representations (First Year Seminar)

Gusto: Italian Food as Art, Culture, and Tradition (taught in Italy, and on campus as dynamic half-block)

Love & Anarchy: Romance, Sex, and Politics in Italian Cinema

Voice and the Nonhuman. Animals in the Visual Arts, Literature and Theory

Come to Hell. Dante and Our World

Black Italian Cinema and Digital Activism (with Fred Kuwornu)

Italian Mafia Movies (taught in Italy and on campus)

New Italian Cinema

Italian Neorealism

Storytelling During the Time of the Plague: Boccaccio and The Decameron

Word, Sound, and Drama in Italian and German Culture (First Year Seminar)         

Post-WW2 Italian and German Cinema (with Christiane Steckenbiller)

German Cultural History: “Wild Berlin” (First Year Seminar)    

 

Language and Culture Classes:

Advanced Italian: Gli italiani e gli altri. Fra romanzo, saggio, musica e poesia

Advanced Italian: Lingue, Arti, Culture e Tradizioni in Italia

Advanced Italian: Afroitalians and Pop Cultures

Language Pedagogy Practicum

Intermediate Italian1&2

Elementary Italian 1&2

Elementary German 1     

Independent Studies in Italian Literature

 

Awards and Grants

Excellence in Teaching Award 2023-24, extraordinary merit 2023-24

Just World Awards, Val Veirs Environmental Justice Award (Nomination), Spring 2023

Faculty-Student Collaborative Research Grants, Dean's Office Colorado College: "Gender Inclusion in the Language Classroom," Summer 2021; "Afroitalian Cultures," Summer 2022; "Reception and Representations of Mussolini in US media," Summer 2023

Creativity &  Innovation Grant in support of the creation of the non-profit foundation EGLHE (Equine-Guided Learning and Healing Experience), Spring 2022 https://amandaminervini.weebly.com/eglhe.html

Creativity & Innovation Grant, Colorado College, for the realization of animation videos for Italian language learning, Summer 2021, renewed in Fall 2021

Sheffer Grant to conduct research in Vatican Archives, 2020 (Research conducted in 2021)