French & Italian Languages and Literatures

Faculty

Dennis Looney

Chair, Department of French and Italian
Associate Professor of Italian, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Classics

Education
PhD, Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina (1987)
MA, Sacred Poetics, Boston University (1980)
BA, Classical Greek, Boston University (1978)

Office
1328 Cathedral of Learning
412-624-6264
looney@pitt.edu

Curriculum vitae

Research Interests & Fields of study

Renaissance Studies; reception of the classical tradition in European literature and culture; vernacular classicism; Dante; Ariosto

Selected Teaching

 

Selected Publications

Books

Compromising the Classics: Romance Epic Narrative in the Italian Renaissance. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 1996.

 

 

 

Phaethon's Children: The Este Court and Its Culture in Early Modern Ferrara. Co-edited with Deanna Shemek. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies. Tempe: Arizona State UP, 2005.

 

 

Zatti, Sergio. The Quest for Epic: From Ariosto to Tasso. Ed. Dennis Looney. Trans. Sally Hill and Dennis Looney. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2006.

 

 

 

Ariosto's Minor Works. Ed. and trans. with intro. and comm. Dennis Looney. (Scheduled for publication with U Toronto P for Lorenzo da Ponte Italian Library Series, 2008)

Freedom Readers: The African American Reception of Dante Alighieri and the Divine Commedy. (Manuscript under revision)

Articles

"The Beginnings of Humanistic Oratory: Petrarch's Coronation Oration." The Panoptical Petrarch. Eds. Victoria Kirkham and Armando Maggi. University of Chicago Press. (Forthcoming)

"Il mito di Fetonte ed altri miti luttuosi nel rinascimento ferrarese." In Lucrezia Borgia. Storia e mito. Eds. Michele Bordin and Paolo Trovato. Firenze: Olschki, 2006. 151-61.

"Collodi and Ariosto: Episodic Misadventures in Pinocchio." In Approaches to Teaching Collodi's Pinocchio and Its Adaptations. Ed. Michael Sherberg. NY: MLA, 2006. 34-40.

"Leopardi's Il Copernico and Paradigm Shifts in Art." Annali d'italianistica 23 (2005): 133-46.

"Fragil arte: tradurre e governare nei volgarizzamenti boiardeschi ad Ercole I d'Este." Il Principe e la storia. Eds. S. Matarrese and C. Montagnini. Novara: Interlinea Edizioni, 2005. 117-30.

"Spencer Williams: An African American Filmmaker at the Gates of Hell." In Dante and Cinema. Ed. Amilcare Iannucci. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. 129-44

"Ariosto and the Classics." In Ariosto Today. Eds. D. Beecher, M. Ciavolella, and R. Fedi. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. 18-31.

Awards and Honors

CWES/EUC Grant, 2005

Central Research Development Fund, U Pittsburgh, 1991, 1994, 2000

FAS Research Grant, U Pittsburgh, 1987, 1988, 2003–04

Research Abroad Program Grant, U Pittsburgh, Summer 2002

Compromising the Classics, Honorable Mention, Marraro-Scaglione Prize in Italian, 1996-97

President's Distinguished Teaching Award, U Pittsburgh, 1992

NEH Summer Institutes, 1988, 1989, 1990

Professional Service

MLA, Division of Medieval and Renaissance Italian Literature, Executive Committee, 2006-10

Assistant Dean, Humanities, 2004-06

ADFL, Executive Committee, 2002–04; President, 2004

Profession, Editorial Advisory Committee, 2002–03

Chair, Department of French and Italian, 1996-2003; 2006-07

 

Top