Elena Past

Elena Past

Elena Past is professor of Italian. Her research and teaching focus on contemporary Italian literature and cinema, ecomedia studies and the environmental humanities, posthumanism and animal studies, Italian crime fiction, and ecomafia. She is currently working on a project about Ferrania Film, Italy's historic manufacturer of analog film stock for cinema.

Education

• Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 2005
• M.A., University of Pennsylvania, 2000
• B.A., University of Texas at Austin, 1998

Awards and grants

Research Enhancement Program Grant, Wayne State University, 2022-2023
Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award, 2021-2022
American Academy in Rome, full-term Rome Prize in Modern Italian Studies, 2021-2022
Modern Language Association, Howard R. Marraro Prize in Italian Studies, 2020
Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award, Wayne State University, 2020

Selected publications

Italian Ecocinema Beyond the Human. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019, winner of the MLA's Howard Marraro Prize.

Italy and the Environmental Humanities: Landscapes, Natures, Ecologies. Eds. Serenella Iovino, Enrico Cesaretti, and Elena Past. University of Virginia Press, Under the Sign of Nature Series, 2018.

"Itinerant Ecocriticism, Southern Thought, and Italian Cinema on Foot." Ecozon@ 11.2 (2020): 26-33.

“Toxic Fruits: Tomatoes, Migration, and the New Italian Slavery.” Co-authored with Giovanna Faleschini Lerner. Journal of Modern Italian Studies. Published online October 2020.

“Volcanic Matters: Magmatic Cinema, Ecocriticism, and Italy.” L’analisi linguistica e letteraria XXIV.2 (2016): 135-46.

“Animal Humanities, or, On Reading and Writing the Nonhuman.” Introduction to special section of Ecozon@. Co-authored with Deborah Amberson. Ecozon@ 7.1 (2016): 1-9.

“Gadda’s Pasticciaccio and the Knotted Posthuman Household.” Co-authored with Deborah Amberson. Relations: Beyond Anthropocentrism 4.1 (2016): 63-78.

“Mediterranean Ecocriticism: The Sea in the Middle.” Handbook of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology. Ed. Hubert Zapf. De Gruyter, 2016. 368-84.

“Documenting Ecomafia.” Nuovo Cinema Politico. Eds. Giancarlo Lombardi and Christian Uva. New York: Peter Lang (Italian Modernities), 2016.

“Il cinema e il suono del silenzio: Le quattro volte.” Animal Studies: Rivista italiana di antispecismo 11 (2015): 56-71.

Thinking Italian Animals: Human and Posthuman in Modern Italian Literature and Film. Eds. Deborah Amberson and Elena Past. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Courses taught by Elena Past

Fall Term 2024 (current)

• ENG5080 - Topics in Global and Transnational Studies
• GLS5700 - Climate, Environment, and Media
• HON4280 - General Honors Seminar

Winter Term 2023

• HON4260 - Seminar in Foreign Culture
• ITA5150 - Italian Cinema