I feel like I'm living in the past, that, on some occasions, may have its advantages, somehow as having a time-travelling TARDIS. And I feel stateless, even if this is not factually correct, since I possess more than one passport. I was born in Rome, I grew up in Zurich and I've lived and worked in many places (in Switzerland, Italy, France, UK, Canada...). I think I've always been writing novels (at least since the age of 6).
I have a sensitivity to the importance of historical and literary contexts, and a "talent" for unearthing pieces of archival material that I often build into a picture of cultural activity in centres that have received little sustained scholarly attention to date. That's why I'm always adopting a sociologic and 'neo-positive' approach to texts. I'm fond of machine languages and codes and, bien entendu, of medieval manuscripts. My profile is that of a full Romanist : I cover Italian and French Literature from the 12th to the 16th century, and I've also worked on Latin texts of the early modern period. After earning my degree in 1998, at the University of Zurich, and following the best of Romanist traditions, I branched out into medieval French and produced a study and an edition of the anglo-norman Voyage de Charlemagne to Jérusalem, for my PhD in Fribourg. Finally, for my Habilitation, I came back to Zurich, where I was granted a double venia legendi in 2010 for both Medieval and Renaissance Italian and French Literatures. This degree is traditionally awarded by German-speaking universities after the defense of a habilitation dissertation which bears witness to several years of postdoctoral research, contains new scientific evidence and proves the candidate's command of the habilitation subject. Since I had several high-ranking scientific monographs and research papers, forming the summit of a larger body of research that corresponded to 5 years of scientific work after my PhD, regarded as influential both in the field of Medieval and Renaissance Italian Literature and of French Medieval Literature, I was granted the permission to teach (venia legendi) both subjects. I have been employed as Privatdozentin at the Department of Romance Languages and Literature for six years. In 2017 I got the title of Titularprofessorin (Prof. Dr.). At the moment (2017) I am Editor-in-Chief of the academic Journal TCLA (www.tcla-journal.eu).
