Alice Parrinello

Alice Parrinello received her DPhil from the University of Oxford in Medieval and Modern Languages (Italian). Her doctoral thesis analysed the films and plays by Sicilian director Emma Dante and argued for a queer Southern epistemology by focusing on specific elements of her works: temporality/haunting, oddkin and queer families, and the Southern cultural archive. It has now been turned into a monograph, forthcoming with Peter Lang.

Prior to joining the University of Toronto, Alice has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, and a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Oxford, working on a project in collaboration with the British Film Institute (BFI).

Her project at Toronto investigates contemporary queer Italian graphic novels and comics to understand the ways these works can provide a non-hegemonic and non-heteronormative education in the face of institutional limitations. Furthermore, it explores how these works embody both the social opening towards the LGBTQIA+ community that took place in the mid-2010s and the current conservative trend.

Her published work includes articles that have appeared in gender/sexuality/italy, Memory, Mind & Media, Studies in Comics, and Ecozon@ - European Journal of Literature, Culture, and Environment.

Monographs

• Queering the South: Case Studies with Emma Dante (‘Italian Modernities’ Series, Oxford: Peter Lang), 2026  

Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals

• “New Queer South, Journal Editorial,” with Nicoletta Marini-Maio and Ellen Nerenberg, gender/sexuality/italy (11), 2025. 
• “Within and Beyond the Queer Italian South: A Conversation with Francesca Romana Ammaturo,” with Paola Bonifazio, gender/sexuality/italy (11), 2025. 
• “Reading and Writing Italian Queerness: Visual Genealogies in Nicoz Balboa and Alec Trenta,” Memory, Mind & Media(vol. 4, n.11, pp. 1-17), 2025. 
• “Laments from the South: Mario Banushi, Emma Dante, and Ernesto De Martino,” CoSMo – Comparative Studies in Modernism, “De Martino and the Arts” Special Issue (n. 26, pp. 291-307), 2025. 
• “Diffracting The Present: Cyborgs, ESOSuits, and Holograms in Saetta Rossa (2021),” Notes in Italian Studies (vol 3, pp. 28-38), 2025. 
• “Queer Unmaking: Dance and Liberation in Percy Bertolini’s Da sola (2021),” Studies in Comics (vol. 15, no. 1-2, pp. 73-94), 2025. 
• “Mediterranean Thought: Queerness and Migration in Contemporary Italian Literature,” IS Med - Interdisciplinary Studies on the Mediterranean (vol. 4, pp. 137-157), 2025.
• “The Future is Collapsing: Feminist Narratives of Unmaking in Laura Pugno and Veronica Raimo,” Ecozon@ - European Journal of Literature, Culture, and Environment (vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 36-51), 2023. 
• “I fantasmi di Nadia Terranova: hauntologie, sicilitudine e scrittura,” Quaderni del PENS (vol. 5, pp. 199-210), 2022.
• “‘Ciao Italia’: Homonationalist and Homonormative Tendencies in Drag Race Italia,” Simultanea: A Journal of Italian Media and Pop Culture (vol. 3, n.1), 2022. 
• “Piazza dei Cinquecento: An Intersectional Lieu de Mémoire in Igiaba Scego and Porpora Marcasciano,” gender/sexuality/italy (vol. 8), 2021. 
• “No country(side) for young queers,” Whatever. A Transdisciplinary Journal of Queer Theories and Studies (vol. 4, pp. 411-430), 2021. 

Book Chapters

• “The Day After Yesterday: Scenari Apocalittici e Resistenze in Alice Rohrwacher,” RadicAzioni: Corpi, Nature, Tecnologie. Orthotes Editrice, edited by Rachele Cinerari and Claudia Cerulo. Forthcoming, 2026. 
• “A Queer Trend in Italian Graphic Novels? Analyzing Forms in the Years of the Cirinnà Law and Ddl Zan,” Italian Comics in the New Millennium. Vol. II, New Scenarios, New Forms, New Themes, edited by Alessio Aletta, Vernon Press, pp. 129-148, 2025. 
• “‘Until the Mainstream Began to Absorb What was Once Radical:’ Assimilation and Disruption in Call Me By Your Name and Girl, Woman, Other,” “Pop-” and “Post-” Contemporary Routes in English Culture, edited by Alessia Polatti and Roberta Zanoni, Aras Edizioni, Verona, pp. 197-214, 2022.

Edited Special Issues

• Edited special issue of gender/sexuality/italy, titled “New Queer South,” 2025.

Reviews in Peer-Reviewed Journals

• “Il teatro di Alba de Céspedes by Daniela Cavallaro, Review,” Modern Language Review, vol. 120, pp. 296-297, 2025. 
• “Oltre i bordi by Simone Brioni and Matteo Sandrini, Review,” gender/sexuality/italy, vol. 10, pp. 216-217, 2024. 
• “L’altro Saba by Luca Baldoni, Review,” Italian Studies. Online, 2024. 
• “In Italia sono tutti maschi by Luca de Santis and Sara Colaone, Review,” Queer Studies in Media & Popular Culture, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 375-378, 2023.

Translations

• Shrapnel - Non perché c’eravamo by Simone Brioni, Rome: Yogurt Editions, 2025.