rabissi

rabissi@arizona.edu
Phone
(520) 621-7349
Office
574 Modern Languages
Office Hours
By appointment
In person & Online
Rabissi, Francesco
Associate Professor

Ph.D., Yale University; Laurea in Contemporary History, Università degli Studi di Milano. His research and teaching interests include Film & Literature; Politics & Society. He spends his free time listening to Alice In Chains (1990 - 2002) and Bill Evans.

Scholarly books and monographs

2020. L’occhio politico e visionario del cinema italiano contemporaneo [The Political and Visionary Eye of Contemporary Italian Cinema]. Milano: Mimesis. 176 pages

Chapters in scholarly books and monographs

2022                 “Immagine e dissenso in Saló di Pier Paolo Pasolini” [Image and dissensus in Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Saló], in Crocevia. Percorsi dell’intermedialità, edited by Francesco Ciabattoni, Fulvio Orsitto and Simona Wright. Milano: LED Edizioni Universitarie. 121-128.

2014                 “The Visionary Realism of Marco Bellocchio’s Buongiorno, notte,” in Dreamscapes Projected: The Oneiric in Italian Film Culture, edited by Francesco Pascuzzi. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. 47-58

2005                 “Il ruolo di Bianco e Nero” [The Importance of Bianco e Nero’s Film Journal], in Estetica e cinema a Milano, edited by Simona Chiodo. Milano: CUEM. 68-72

2005                 “L’utopia negativa di Lucas: L’uomo che fuggì dal futuro” [George Lucas’ Dystopia: THX 1138], in La New Hollywood tra autori e generi. Analisi di film, edited by Raffaele de Berti. Milano: CUEM, 2005. 81-94

Refereed Journal Articles

2021                 “Fellini Today? Some observations on Fellini’s Films and Commercials: From Postwar to Postmodern and A Companion to Federico Fellini,” in Italica 4, vol. 97 (Winter 2020): 903-919. [Published]

2020                 “The Body of Milan in Gabriele Basilico and Michelangelo Antonioni,” in The Journal of Architecture 8, vol. 24 (Spring 2020): 1084-1095. [Published]. Also available at this link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13602365.2019.1708777

2018                 “Rielaborazioni del comico dantesco in Totò al giro d’Italia e Totò all’inferno” [Revisiting Dante’s Comedic Style in Totò al giro d’Italia and Totò all’inferno], in Italica 4, vol. 95 (Winter 2018): 551-563. [Published]

2017                 “La fabbrica dei sogni ne Il caimano di Nanni Moretti” [The Italian Dream Factory in Nanni Moretti’s Il Caimano], in Italian Quarterly Special Issue Nos. 195-198, vol. 50, (Fall 2017): 32-44. [Published]

2009                 “La sineddoche illegittima: la Rivoluzione Francese secondo Manzoni” [The Illegitimate Synecdoche: the French Revolution According to Alessandro Manzoni], in La Fusta vol. XVII (Fall 2009): 1-16. [Published]

Shorter Publications
Entries for Il Morandini. Dizionario dei film, ed. Morando Morandini (Bologna: Zanichelli 2005).
 
Entries for Enciclopedia del Cinema, ed. Gianni Canova (Garzanti: Milano 2002).
 
Entries for Annuario del cinema 2001-2002 (Bergamo: Edizioni di Cineforum 2002).
 
 

Currently Teaching

ITAL 160D1 – Food for Thought in Italian Culture

Food has always been an important thread woven through the fabric of Italian culture. Italian cuisine, as diverse and heterogeneous as it is inside the country from North to South, largely contributed to the building of a strong Italian identity, as testified in recent times by the worldwide success of large-scale marketplaces such as Eataly. This course will investigate food's role in shaping Italian society and its cultural practices by looking at images of food in visual art, literature and film. Our historical review will focus on the many symbolic meanings circulating around the representation of food in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and the 20th and 21st centuries. Food will be a lens through which we will read the political, social, and economic changes that have affected Italy in its millennial history.

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Food has always been an important thread woven through the fabric of Italian culture. Italian cuisine, as diverse and heterogeneous as it is inside the country from North to South, largely contributed to the building of a strong Italian identity, as testified in recent times by the worldwide success of large-scale marketplaces such as Eataly. This course will investigate food's role in shaping Italian society and its cultural practices by looking at images of food in visual art, literature and film. Our historical review will focus on the many symbolic meanings circulating around the representation of food in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and the 20th and 21st centuries. Food will be a lens through which we will read the political, social, and economic changes that have affected Italy in its millennial history.

View Section Details

Food has always been an important thread woven through the fabric of Italian culture. Italian cuisine, as diverse and heterogeneous as it is inside the country from North to South, largely contributed to the building of a strong Italian identity, as testified in recent times by the worldwide success of large-scale marketplaces such as Eataly. This course will investigate food's role in shaping Italian society and its cultural practices by looking at images of food in visual art, literature and film. Our historical review will focus on the many symbolic meanings circulating around the representation of food in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and the 20th and 21st centuries. Food will be a lens through which we will read the political, social, and economic changes that have affected Italy in its millennial history.

View Section Details

Food has always been an important thread woven through the fabric of Italian culture. Italian cuisine, as diverse and heterogeneous as it is inside the country from North to South, largely contributed to the building of a strong Italian identity, as testified in recent times by the worldwide success of large-scale marketplaces such as Eataly. This course will investigate food's role in shaping Italian society and its cultural practices by looking at images of food in visual art, literature and film. Our historical review will focus on the many symbolic meanings circulating around the representation of food in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and the 20th and 21st centuries. Food will be a lens through which we will read the political, social, and economic changes that have affected Italy in its millennial history.

View Section Details

Food has always been an important thread woven through the fabric of Italian culture. Italian cuisine, as diverse and heterogeneous as it is inside the country from North to South, largely contributed to the building of a strong Italian identity, as testified in recent times by the worldwide success of large-scale marketplaces such as Eataly. This course will investigate food's role in shaping Italian society and its cultural practices by looking at images of food in visual art, literature and film. Our historical review will focus on the many symbolic meanings circulating around the representation of food in the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and the 20th and 21st centuries. Food will be a lens through which we will read the political, social, and economic changes that have affected Italy in its millennial history.

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ITAL 320 – Italian Encounters: Written Italian in Context

Course emphasizes advanced written language as found in Italian culture through a variety of genres, which can include fiction, nonfiction, poetry, opera, cinema, music and history.

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ITAL 330B – Once Upon a Time In Italian American Cinema

What role did cinema play in the encounter between Italian and American culture? How are aesthetic goals such as economy, coherence, and implied perception, and methods such as montage, ellipsis, and points of view being pursued in films that represent the Italian American Experience? To answer these questions, every week we will watch a film made by and/or dealing with the Italian American community. Students will engage with issues of migration, gender, family relations, cultural conflict, and ethnic identity formation by exploring works by directors such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Spike Lee, and Stanley Tucci. This course may be applied toward the major or minor in Italian (please speak with an advisor for more information). Taught in English.

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What role did cinema play in the encounter between Italian and American culture? How are aesthetic goals such as economy, coherence, and implied perception, and methods such as montage, ellipsis, and points of view being pursued in films that represent the Italian American Experience? To answer these questions, every week we will watch a film made by and/or dealing with the Italian American community. Students will engage with issues of migration, gender, family relations, cultural conflict, and ethnic identity formation by exploring works by directors such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Spike Lee, and Stanley Tucci. This course may be applied toward the major or minor in Italian (please speak with an advisor for more information). Taught in English.

View Section Details

What role did cinema play in the encounter between Italian and American culture? How are aesthetic goals such as economy, coherence, and implied perception, and methods such as montage, ellipsis, and points of view being pursued in films that represent the Italian American Experience? To answer these questions, every week we will watch a film made by and/or dealing with the Italian American community. Students will engage with issues of migration, gender, family relations, cultural conflict, and ethnic identity formation by exploring works by directors such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Spike Lee, and Stanley Tucci. This course may be applied toward the major or minor in Italian (please speak with an advisor for more information). Taught in English.

View Section Details

What role did cinema play in the encounter between Italian and American culture? How are aesthetic goals such as economy, coherence, and implied perception, and methods such as montage, ellipsis, and points of view being pursued in films that represent the Italian American Experience? To answer these questions, every week we will watch a film made by and/or dealing with the Italian American community. Students will engage with issues of migration, gender, family relations, cultural conflict, and ethnic identity formation by exploring works by directors such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Spike Lee, and Stanley Tucci. This course may be applied toward the major or minor in Italian (please speak with an advisor for more information). Taught in English.

View Section Details

What role did cinema play in the encounter between Italian and American culture? How are aesthetic goals such as economy, coherence, and implied perception, and methods such as montage, ellipsis, and points of view being pursued in films that represent the Italian American Experience? To answer these questions, every week we will watch a film made by and/or dealing with the Italian American community. Students will engage with issues of migration, gender, family relations, cultural conflict, and ethnic identity formation by exploring works by directors such as Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Spike Lee, and Stanley Tucci. This course may be applied toward the major or minor in Italian (please speak with an advisor for more information). Taught in English.

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To view full listing of courses offered, please visit our Course Schedule.

Course Schedule