Maria Serena Sapegno
University of Rome "La Sapienza", I
e-mail: Sapegno@uniroma1.it 		4th European Feminist Research Conference
4a Conferenza Europea di Ricerca Femminista

Graduated in Italian Literature at the University of Rome (I, "La Sapienza"), in 1975 with a dissertation on Niccolò Machiavelli. From then on teaches and continues research on the subject at the Department of Italianistica.
Studies Machiavelli and florentine political thought and historiography at the Warburg Institute, in London, (August 1977-January 1979) and then at regular but shorter intervals between 1979 and 1984 continues her research in London at the Warburg and at the British Library. Her work deals in particular with the literary and rethoric aspects of the italian political and utopical tradition and the deep intersections between literary and political writing on one hand, and formal and political choices on the other.
Teaches Italian Literature of the origins (Boccaccio and Petrarca, mostly) and of the Renaissance (political thought, historiography, utopical treatises, linguistics) at the University "La Sapienza" of Rome.

Between 1994 and 1995 is in Oxford doing research on the crisis of italian humanism and is visiting professor in Reading.
A constant theme of research is also the contribution of literature to the process of constitution of a national identity, through images and topoi that have then been translated, with little differences, on to the political level. The italian identity, the political unification and its ideology have been built on rethoric and literary foundations and the ambivalent consequences of it are in both its persistency and extreme fragility up to this day.
The distant roots of this process are investigated mostly in the eighteenth century, when much of the basis of the modern ideas on history, literature and tradition were born and where also lies the core of the question of the missing modern "novel" in Italian Literature.
Her research on contemporary literature is mainly on women’s writing and theoretical problems such as thematic and feminist criticism.
Cooperates to the "Dottorato di ricerca in Storia delle scritture femminili" (Phd courses on history of women’s writing).
Has been regularly contributing from the early seventies to the women’s movement activity and debate in Italy also through various interventions on magazines and reviews (in the last five years DWF and Tuttestorie).
As participant to the Athena network from the start is involved in the controversial process of women’s studies istitutionalization in Italy.

Publications

- Machiavelli e Guicciardini, ( a cura di) in Storia e Antologia della letteratura italiana, vol. 7, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1979.
- L’ultimo Machiavelli: ha senso parlare di involuzione? in "FM" (Annali dell’Istituto di Filologia moderna dell’Università di Roma), Roma 1980.
- Un modello "temporis acti" in Sacchetti, in "FM" 1982-2.
- Di fronte alla pornografia in "Memoria", 3, 1982.
- Il trattato politico e utopico, in Letteratura Italiana, diretta da A. Asor Rosa, III / 2 , La prosa, Einaudi, Torino 1984.
- "Italia", "Italiani" in Letteratura Italiana, diretta da A. Asor Rosa, V, Le questioni, Einaudi, Torino 1986.
- Boccaccio e i novellieri del Trecento, (a cura di), in Storia e Antologia della letteratura italiana, vol. 3, Firenze, La Nuova Italia, 1990.
- Tra poesia e romanzo. Letteratura e Illuminismo in Italia, Il Bagatto, Roma 1990.
- "Storia d’Italia" di Francesco Guicciardini in Letteratura Italiana, Le Opere, II, Einaudi, Torino 1993.
- "Storia della Letteratura italiana" di Girolamo Tiraboschi, in Letteratura Italiana, Le Opere, II, Einaudi Torino 1993.
- Percorsi dell’utopia: da More a Campanella, in Letteratura italiana e utopia, "FM 1994", Annali del Dipartimento di Italianistica., Università di Roma "La Sapienza", Roma 1995, pp. 29-50.
- Oltre e dietro il pudore, in Conversazione con Dacia Maraini. Il piacere di scrivere, Roma 1995, pp. 41-60.
- Tradizione, memoria, identità in "Tuttestorie" 6/7, 1996-7.
- Responsabilità politica in "DWF", 1997,2-3 (34-35).
- Costanti, varianti, "arbitrarietà" dell’interprete: gli oggetti di Orlando e la critica tematica in "Critica del testo" I / 3, 1998.
- Doris Lessing – Jenny Diski: la catena matrilineare in "Tuttestorie" 1, 1999.
- L’antologia della poesia italiana tra Crescimbeni e Leopardi in "Critica del testo" II / 1, 1999.
- Petrarca e lo stile della Poesia, ("Testi, studi e manuali", 12) Il Bagatto, Roma 1999.
- Quale pratica dell’inconscio? in "DWF", 1999, 4 (44).