CURRICULUM VITAE

CRISTINA IANNARINO

cristina_iannarino@brown.edu

238 Gano Street, Unit B Brown University

Providence, RI 02906 Italian Studies, Box 1942
Providence, RI 02912

EDUCATION

2018 – Present Brown University, Ph.D. Student in Italian Studies

• Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in the Humanities at the Cogut Center

May 2017 Fordham University, B.A. in History and Italian Studies

• Fordham College at Rose Hill Honors Program

• Cumulative GPA: 3.838, summa cum laude in cursu honorum
• Graduation Rank: 59 / 820

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Brown University

Fall 2018 – Present Isabella d’Este’s Cameo Collection

• Ongoing research based on a course paper on the cultural significance of
Isabella d’Este’s collection of antiquities, specifically cameos, and the wider
cameo trade in early modern Italy. Article in progress and project proposal to
the IDEA: Isabella d’Este Archive (online).

Fordham University

May 2017 Honors Program Thesis

“Laura Cereta’s Respublica Mulierum: Imagining a New Learned Lady in
Quattrocento Italy”

• Mentor: Dr. William David Myers, Professor and Chair of the History
Department
• Readers: Dr. Alessandro Polcri, Associate Professor of Modern Languages and
Literatures (Italian) and Comparative Literature and Dr. Susanna Barsella,
Associate Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures (Italian) and
Medieval Studies
• Successfully defended before a committee of mentor and readers—Grade: A
Spring 2017 – present Digital Humanities Project
The Respublica Mulierum: Mapping Italian Humanist Women

• This project, based on my undergraduate honors thesis, aims to visualize via

mapping the extensive transnational networks of correspondence of Italian
female humanists in the realized “republic of women,” to borrow from Laura
Cereta’s unique play on the “republic of letters.” I selected Italian female
humanists, historiographically visible, who identified as such from 1350 to
1500, including Battista da Montefeltro, Isotta Nogarola, and Cassandra
Fedele. My intent is to build a repository for these writers, arguably less-studied
than their sixteenth-century counterparts who wrote in the vernacular, as well
as facilitate a greater understanding of humanist epistolary culture wherein
one’s authority depended on the breadth of one’s correspondence
• Status: Currently building a comprehensive excel-based database and
spreadsheet to index biographical information, letters, and correspondents.
Preliminary mapping has been tested with available data thus far on software
such as Palladio and CARTO

Fall 2016 Research Assistant

Dr. Jacqueline Reich, “The Digital Afterlife of La dolce vita: Fashion, Film and
Celebrity Culture of 1960s Italy in Web 2.0”
• Gathered data on the retrospective cultural perception of La dolce vita across
social media platforms for Dr. Reich’s keynote presentation on the cultural
history of the film on December 6, 2016, as part of the Celebrities and Cultural
Industries: Film Fashion, Music, Publicity conference series held at the
University of Bologna

Summer 2016 Research Assistant and Translator

Dr. Jacqueline Reich, Chair of Communications & Media Studies

• Translated, from English to Italian, the discursive footnotes in Dr. Reich’s

Maciste Films of Italian Silent Cinema (Indiana University Press, 2015) for the
forthcoming Italian edition. I developed an independent research project
according to the closely-studied semiotic theories and methodology of
Umberto Eco on the art of translation based on professional translation work
(see Presentations)
• Coordinated with Italian film scholars, Dr. Fabio Pezzetti Tonion, Dr. Claudia
Gianetto, and Dr. Stella Dagna at the Museo Nazionale del Cinema in Turin
on the translation of the main text and the reinterpretation of original 20th
century extra-cinematic archival material, including correspondence and
production notes, related to the Maciste films included in Dr. Reich’s
sociocultural study of the character’s transformations

Spring 2016 Mannion Society Thesis

“The Golden Apple: Pietro Andrea Mattioli’s Influence on the Usage of the Tomato
in Renaissance Italy”
 • Invited to participate in year-long research seminar sponsored by the Fordham
History Department for top students of the discipline dedicated to an intensive
study of research methods and producing original research ready for
publication

Abstract: In 1544, Sienese herbalist and physician Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1501-77) published his seminal
work, I discorsi, a translation and commentary on the Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides’ De materia
medica. Mattioli’s 1544 commentary, updated with new entries on flora and botanical woodcuts, is noted for
including the first entry on the tomato in European herbal literature, as well as the method of preparation for
consumption, “fried in olive oil with salt and pepper.” The 1554 updated edition includes the first name for
the tomato, pomi d’oro and a detailed illustration of the fruit, thereby reflecting its increased cultivation in the
Italian peninsula in the decade between the initial publication and the updated edition. Mistakenly believed
to be a relation of the controversial mandrake, the tomato was generally condemned or ignored by early
modern Europeans. Yet European herbalists, botanists, and physicians from John Gerard to Rembert
Dodoens consistently echoed Mattioli's observations, including the key “Italian” method of the tomato’s
preparation, that would dominate herbal literature in almost every major European language for centuries.
Consequently, the tomato's association with Italians overshadowed the tomato's true colonial origins,
cementing the tomato's exalted position in the Mediterranean diet and Italian cuisine.

PUBLICATIONS

Publication accepted; forthcoming review in 2017 volume of Italian Poetry Review (Journal of the Italian
Department at Columbia University, the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America, and the
Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Fordham University) of Brundin, Abigail, Crivelli,
Tatiana, and Maria Serena Sapegno, eds. A Companion to Vittoria Colonna. The Renaissance Society of
America Texts and Studies Series 5. Leiden: Brill, 2016.

Translator for forthcoming Italian edition of Reich, Jacqueline. The Maciste Films of Italian Silent Cinema.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015.

Copy Editor and Peer Reviewer for the 2014-7 volumes of the Fordham Undergraduate Research Journal.

PRESENTATIONS

April 2017 Fordham Undergraduate Research Symposium – Oral Presentation

The Maciste Films of Italian Silent Cinema (see Research Experience)

Abstract: In 1998, the late Umberto Eco (1932-2016) gave a series of lectures on the art of translation at the
University of Toronto. Perhaps best known for his international bestseller, The Name of the Rose, the Italian
medievalist, novelist, and semiotician later expanded his lectures into a volume of essays titled Experiences in
Translation. Eco argues that an effective translation is rooted in connotation rather than denotation; it can
and must express the true sense of a text even when it violates both lexical and referential faithfulness. Eco’s
interpretive exercises were applied to translate Dr. Jacqueline Reich’s publication with Indiana University
Press, The Maciste Films of Italian Silent Cinema (2015) from English to Italian alongside Dr. Fabio Pezzetti
Tonion from the Museo Nazionale del Cinema in Turin. This research addresses how to preserve the integrity
of Dr. Reich’s originality and expression as a scholar, as well as that of the original Italian archival material to
present Maciste to an audience and culture well-acquainted with him.

April 2016 Fordham Undergraduate Research Symposium – Oral Presentation

“The Golden Apple: Pietro Andrea Mattioli’s Influence on the Usage of the Tomato in
Renaissance Italy” (see Research Experience)

HONORS AND AWARDS

Brown University
Andrew W. Mellon Fellow, Cogut Institute for the Humanities

Fordham University
The Francis R. Favorini Italian Achievement Award (2017)
Fordham Undergraduate Research Grant (2016)
Loyola Scholarship
Dean’s List (2013-17)
Generoso Pope Foundation Scholarship (2013-17)
F.I.AM.E. (Forum of Italian-American Educators) Scholarship (2013)

National Latin Exam (2010-11)

Rank: Consecutive gold medals and summa cum laude certificates as top-scorer on the official Latin I and II
exams held in 2010 and 2011 respectively.

AFFILIATIONS

Renaissance Society of America

Phi Alpha Theta
Phi Beta Kappa
Fordham Club Honor Society

WORK AND VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE

May 2014 - Jul 2017 AI Strategic, Web Design & Social Media Marketing Consultants, Intern

• Catalogued, converted, and uploaded major client’s (Mitch Albom) large

inventory of flash videos from Drupal-run website to web-formatted H.264
.mp4 videos for re-designed Wordpress-run website: www.mitchalbom.com

Summer 2017 Dr. Richard Gyug and Dr. William David Myers, Webmaster
 • Participated in a two-week Fordham historical study tour from May 25th to
June 14th in which 23 students walked 200 miles of the medieval pilgrimage
known as the Camino de Santiago from León to Santiago de Compostela
• Organized inventory of student-authored blog posts and photos centered on
student activities and historical site reports on towns and cities along the way
• Created Wordpress-run website with custom HTML coding to host blog posts
and photo galleries as a record of the course submitted to the university:
www.fordhamcamino2017.wordpress.com

Spring 2017 Fordham Liberty Partnerships Program, Tutor

• Completed 40 hours of service as a tutor in Fordham’s participation in the
New York State Education Department’s pre-collegiate/dropout prevention
program.
• Provided academic and supportive services weekly in LPP’s after-school
tutoring program to “at-risk” students in grades 6 to 12 enrolled in local Bronx
schools including but not limited to: M.S. 254, M.S. 228, and Belmont
Preparatory High School.

Sept. 2014 – May 2017 Dept. of African & African-American Studies, Associate Asst. to the Senior Secretary

• Clerical duties: answering phones, responding to parent/student inquiries and

concerns, organizing department mail, filing and copying paperwork

• Organized materials and created powerpoint presentations, and facilitated

Q&A discussion for all-day AFAM Symposium, Slavery on the Cross,
dedicated to examining the Catholic Church’s role and participation in the
American institution of slavery. The Symposium consisted of two panels
sessions in which invited academics discussed the historical and theological
significance of Catholic race policy and practice (slavery and post-slavery) and
present attempts by the Church to address past failures

• Responsible for creating and cataloging annual spreadsheets via Microsoft

Excel for department data and yearly course assessment forms for New York
State curriculum review issued every spring

Sept. 2015 – May 2017 Food Recovery Rams, Vice President

• Founded Fordham University’s chapter of Food Recovery Network, a non-

profit service organization dedicated to fighting food waste and hunger by
recovering perishable food that would otherwise go to waste and donating it
to the Fordham community

• Organized and supervised “food runs,” during which food is packaged and
delivered; coordinated with Sodexo and Fordham Dining and local branch of
Part of the Solution (POTS) twice weekly
Sept. 2016 – May 2017 Fordham Club, Co-President of Mental Health Awareness Subcomittee (MHAS)

• Inducted into highly-selective honor society for academic achievement and

community service
• Served within a twenty-member advisory group, the “Deans Cabinet,” to
provide input regarding the direction of Fordham College and student
experience
• Communicated the mental health needs and concerns of students to Fordham’s
administration and Fordham’s Counseling and Psychological Services as the
Co-President of MHAS
• Organized Fordham Club’s presence at Fresh Check Day, Fordham
and United Student Government’s branch of the signature program
of the Jordan Porco Foundation. The program aims to bring
awareness of mental health resources and coping strategies to college
campuses and aid students who may be unfamiliar with Fordham’s
resources.