Elgin K. Eckert – Ph.D.

Credentials:
Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literature, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, May 2012
          Ph. D. dissertation: “Cultural Memory in Contemporary Narrative:  Andrea Camilleri’s Montalbano Series” 
Visiting Scholar, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, 2003-2005
M.A. in Classical Philology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 1998
B.A. in Classics,  Brooklyn College, City University of New York, summa cum laude, 1996

Teaching since 1998 (CUNY Brooklyn College and Harvard University), at Umbra since 2011

Background information
Elgin K. Eckert received her Ph.D. in Italian languages and literature from Harvard University in 2012 with a dissertation entitled Cultural Memory in Contemporary Narrative: Andrea Camilleri’s Montalbano Series. She is the Academic Director and Associate Professor for Italian Cultural Studies at the Umbra Institute in Perugia, where she teaches courses in Italian literature, history, film, and media studies. 

Her research has until recently focused on the Italian giallo (especially the works of Andrea Camilleri) and on cultural memory in Italian literature. More recently, her research has geared toward film and small screen TV series, investigating, for example, the use of landscapes/cityscapes in TV series dealing with the mafia (in an article to be published) and food representations in the “queer” films of Ferzan Ozpetek. She is co-editor of the volume Representing Italy through Food (London: Bloomsbury, 2017).

Teaching Philosophy
“The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.” Khalil Gibran

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