NCJSS Welcomes Saskia Ziolkowski

The North Carolina Jewish Studies Seminar welcomes Saskia Ziolkowski, Associate Professor of Romance Studies at Duke University. Ziolkowski works on Italian literature and culture from a comparative perspective, especially in terms of the connections between Italy and German-language countries. Her research topics include modernism, the novel, animal studies, world literature, Jewish studies, migration, literary history, and issues of identity. Her book Kafka's Italian Progeny (University of Toronto Press, awarded the American Association of Italian Studies 2020 Book Prize in Literary Studies) explores Franz Kafka's sometimes surprising connections with key writers - from Massimo Bontempelli, Lalla Romano, and Italo Calvino to Antonio Tabucchi, Paola Capriolo, and Elena Ferrante - who have shaped Italy's literary landscape.

Ziolkowski is currently working on a monograph on Jewishness in modern Italian literature and has published related articles "Jewish Images and Transnational Histories in Italian Writing, from Elsa Morante to Helena Janeczek" in Annali d'italianistica (2024), "Italian Ghetto Stories: A Transnational Literary History" in Forum Italicum (2023), and "For a Jewish Italian Literary History: From Italo Svevo to Igiaba Scego" in Italian Culture (2022), and a chapter "Neither Rich, Nor Poor, Neither Jewish, Neither Catholic: The Legacies of Natalia Ginzburg's Negations" in Natalia Ginzburg's Global Legacies (2024).

Ziolkowski holds a hold a Ph.D. in Italian and Comparative Literature and Society from Columbia and a BA from Princeton University.