I am a PhD candidate in the Italian Department at UCC working on the representation of intergenerational trauma in postcolonial Italian women’s writing. My thesis, which is funded by the IRC and an NUI Travelling Doctoral Studentship, explores how contemporary women writers with origins in Italy’s former colonies of Ethiopia and Somalia depict the intergenerational legacy of colonial trauma, particularly on their female protagonists’ sense of embodiment. Using a range of theories from trauma studies, memory studies, and Afrofeminist scholarship on indigenous worldviews, I focus on how trauma is transmitted within the family; through societal institutions such as Catholic schools; and in a diasporic context. My corpus includes novels and memoirs by Igiaba Scego, Ubax Cristina Ali Farah, Shirin Ramzanali Fazel, and Maaza Mengiste.

I have a BA in Italian and English (2008), and an MA in Italian Studies (2011), both from UCD. I then spent ten years working as a full-time English language teacher and a part-time yoga instructor before commencing my doctoral research at UCC. Along with my role as co-convenor of the Violence, Conflict and Gender Research Cluster, I am General Editor and Book Reviews Editor of UCC’s postgraduate journal for the arts and humanities, Aigne.

My research interests are trauma theory, memory, the body, feminisms, decolonial scholarship, and Irish and Italian postcolonial women’s writing.