Dr Olivia Santovetti

Profile

After a degree in Philosophy from the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’ (1990), I worked as a translator from English into Italian (I edited and translated a selection of Laurence Sterne’s: Dieci sermoni di Mr Yorick, Rome, Angelo Signorelli Editore, 1993). In 1995 I was awarded a grant from the Accademia dei Lincei to work at the Cambridge University Library on the first Italian translations of Laurence Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey. At the University of Cambridge I later completed an MPhil in European Literature (1997) and a PhD in Italian Literature (2000).

In 2005 I was awarded an Early Career Leverhulme Fellowship, Department of Italian, University of Cambridge. In 2006, I was appointed Lecturer in Italian at the University of Leeds. In 2017, I became Associate Professor of Italian.

Research interests

My main interest is in the novel: its structure, history and culture. My first monograph: Digression: A Narrative Strategy in the Italian Novel (Bern: Lang, 2007) examined the workings of digression in Italian literature from the birth of the modern novel in the early nineteenth century to the era of post-modernist experimentation. My aim was to explore the tensions digression engenders in the novel, by creating extra time within narration, disrupting the readers' expectations, and generating an act of reflection upon the narrative process itself.

My current research investigates the representation of reading and readers from the nineteenth-century to the digital age. My last project, 'The woman reader in Italian literature and visual arts in the fin de siècle period', explored the woman reader theme, popular in the literature and iconography of the nineteenth century, in an interdisciplinary way which contemplated together literature and visual arts. It was a collaborative project (the co-investigator was Professor Giovanna Capitelli, History of Art, Università degli Studi Roma Tre) and was funded by a BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant. The main outcome was the volume Lettrici italiane tra arte e letteratura. Dall’Ottocento al modernismo (Rome: Campisano, 2021). The promotion for the volume included a live interview on the programme ‘Radio 3 Suite’ on Rai Radio 3 (27 December 2021) and a book presentation at the Fondazione Ernesta Besso in Rome (5 April 2022).

 The outreach events on Elena Ferrante in collaboration with the Ilkley Literature Festival include the 'Ferrante Fever in Leeds' (13 October 2016). See also my contribution to the podcast 'Language versus dialect, or why we're obsessed with Elena Ferrante', The World in Words, Public Radio International, USA, 11 April 2017) and the blog entry submitted with Sarah Hudspith for the Bloggers Karamazov: The Official Blog of the North American Dostoevsky Society, 23 August 2022: ‘Dostoevsky, Ferrante, and the Challenge of Writing Authentically’, More recent collaborations with the Ilkley LIterature Festival include the Settee Seminars podcasts: ‘Dr Sarah Hudspith & Dr Olivia Santovetti – ‘Illuminating the chaos and obscurity’: Ferrante and Dostoevsky in Dialogue’, Season Three, 3.5, 24 November 2021 and ‘Olivia Santovetti, Richard Hibbitt & Domenico Scarpa – Italo Calvino in a Nut/Shell’, Season Six, 6.6, 12 March 2024. . 

Research Supervision

I am happy to consider candidatures for postgraduate studies (MAR and PhD) on Italian literature and culture from 19th Century to today. Among the topics: theory of the novel; metanarration, metafiction; history of reading; literary representation of reading and readers; the theme of writing; women's writing (in particular the works of Elena Ferrante).

In the past, I have supervised the following postgraduate students in their PhD theses in Leeds:

• Alice Franzon, Retorica dell’antiretorica nel romanzo della Resistenza: Pavese, Calvino, Fenoglio, Meneghello (PhD, 2019)
• Laura Lucia Rossi, Poetics of indeterminacy in the Italian Novel. Landolfi, Gadda, Vittorini, Tozzi, Ortese (PhD, 2018)
• Nuru Ikhlas Abdul Hadi, Mothers, Lovers Others: An Evolutionary Analysis of Womanhood in Western Malayo-Polynesian Oral Traditions (PhD 2017)
• Natale Filice, La doppia identità di Ascanio Celestini: il profilo cangiante dell’impegno, tra ibridismo macrotestuale e transmedialità (PhD, 2016)

• Ferrante Fever in Leeds
• The Woman Reader Project

Qualifications

• PhD in Italian Literature (Universitry of Cambridge)
• MPhil in European Literature (Universitry of Cambridge)
• MA in Philosophy (University of Rome "La Sapienza")

Professional memberships

• Society for Italian Studies
• Advisory board of The Italianist
• Advisory board of Italian Studies

Student education

I teach Italian literature and culture from 19th Century to today.

Research groups and institutes

• Italian
• Centre for World Literatures
• Literary studies