2023-24 New Faculty

I am an interdisciplinary scholar specializing in the cultural intersections of music and lyric poetry from late medieval and Renaissance Italy. I hold a Ph.D. in musicology and an M.A. in Italian literature from Indiana University in addition to an A.B. in music and Italian from Vassar College. In both research and teaching, I address how music was historically performed, transformed, and defined as a cultural practice by centering questions of orality and literacy, creative agency, and cultural difference. I am currently working on a book project, Inscribing the Self in Occupied Southern Italy, that maps the musical cultures of the Kingdom of Naples as expressions of local identity in what was an occupied territory within a broader Mediterranean empire. I come to Williams this year after spending fifteen months living in Italy, first on a Fulbright U.S. Scholar grant to the Università degli Studi della Basilicata and then as a Paul Mellon Rome Prize winner in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies at the American Academy in Rome. Previously, I have held teaching positions in musicology, Italian, and comparative literature at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Iowa State University, and Indiana University. I enjoy cooking, baking, singing, and hiking, and I care deeply about both the intellectual pursuits and real-life concerns of my students and colleagues. It is my great honor to be joining the Williams community this year.