Francesco Bacci
Francesco Bacci is pursuing his PhD in American Studies at the Graduate School of North American Studies at the Freie Universität, Berlin. He has contributed articles to international online magazines focused on cinema, literature and related topics and has successfully participated and presented papers at international academic conferences across Europe. His research is grounded in Black studies, Literature and Cinema. He is especially interested in the experiences and in the representation of black students’ conditions on campuses, in colleges and in academia.
Research Interests
- Contemporary American Fiction
- African American Literature
- The Campus Novel
- Black and Queer Studies
- Literature and Film/Popular Culture
- Dystopian Fiction
- Ethnicity, migration, and liminality
Education
| 2014-2016 |
MA in in Languages, Cultures and Translation, University of Macerata MA Thesis: “The latest Fitzgerald’s short stories and essays between Modernism and Postmodernism”. |
| 2011-2014 |
BA in Languages and Cultures, University of Macerata BA Thesis: “Virginia Woolf and Time: “Moments of Being” in Mrs Dalloway and in To the Lighthouse”. |
Travel Grants
| 2018 | EAAS Conference Travel Grant. |
Conferences
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2021 |
Contribution selected by “Campus Nostalgia: An International Online Seminar on Campus Fiction” at Università of Sibiu. Online Conference, October 2021 Contribution selected by AISNA Conference at Università degli studi dell’ Aquila. 2021 Contribution selected by IAAS 2021 Conference at Maynooth University, April 2021 |
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2020 |
Contribution selected by BAAS Dialogues. Online conference, July 2020 |
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2019 |
Contribution selected by BAAS Postgraduate conference, British Library. December 2019 Contribution selected by Sheffield Gothic Bible Project “Buffy and the Bible”, University of Sheffield. July 2019 Contribution selected by IASA “XI International American Studies Association Congress”, Alcalá De Henares. July 2019 Contribution selected by SASA 2019 “20th Annual Conference”, University of Edinburgh. March 2019 |
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2018 |
Contribution selected by Sapienza Graduate Forum conference: “The Times, are they a-changing?”, Rome, 17-19 May 2018, University of Rome, La Sapienza. Contribution selected by EBAAS 2018 UK “The 32nd European Association for American Studies and 63rd British Association for American Studies” Conference King’s College London, University College London, British Library, April 2018 Contribution selected by the 5th Conference of the International Association of Inter-American Studies, “Reinventing the Social: Movements and Narratives of Resistance, Dissension and Reconciliation in the Americas”, University of Coimbra, March 2018 |
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2017 |
Contribution selected by the “The Future of the End - Narrations and Representations of the Apocalypse from the 20th Century Onward” International conference of the University of Warsaw, December 2017 Contribution selected by the International conference: “Invisible city: Avant Garde, Lettrism and Counterculture”, University of Lisbon, October 2017 |
Guest Lecturer “Law & Order: Probing Civil Rights through North American Literature held by Prof. Elena Lamberti (Department of American Studies, Università degli Studi di Bologna, November 2021)
Racial Conflicts and Academia: Campus Novels in African American Literature (Department of Literature, John F. Kennedy Institute, Freie Universität Berlin, Winter 2020)
Racial Conflicts and Academia: Campus Novels in African American Literature (dissertation project)
Dissertation in literature
Mentoring team:
First supervisor: Prof. Ulla Haselstein
Second supervisor: Prof. Florian Sedlmeier
Third supervisor: Prof. Yogita Goyal
The connection between Black Studies and the campus novel is striking and rich in content. Delving into black representation and the evolution of Black rights through a specific perspective, this PhD project analyzes how this genre conveys literary, sociological, and historical views on the progress of racialized experience in academic spaces. I will discuss aspects of the Black campus novel in the time frame between the 1960s and the contemporary years and I will create an overview of the portrayal of the black students’ conditions in American academia.
Delving into the history of black rights from a fresh and original angle, this research will discuss the changes of the subgenre of the Black campus novel, as well as create an innovative common ground between different cultural fields that could expose the wide range of overlooked themes and elements of interests. The approach to this investigation is not limited to the analysis of literature but embraces a diverse choice of texts. This includes sociological and historical studies of the Black revolution and the Civil Rights Movement. I contend that this analysis illuminates how the Black campus novel exposes aspects of gender, race, and class - reconfiguring aspects of complex social dynamics presented in the texts.
In the investigation of the history of the Black academic experience, this project connects larger discourses of civil rights and Black liberation with American campus novel narratives, revealing undertheorized and overlooked experiences of American higher education.
All in all, these stories could lead to exposing the complex cultural, social, and historical dynamics related to the struggles of African-American students and the affirmation of their rights in these fifty years.
Publications
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Forthcoming |
Publication on American Literature “Critical Dystopian Resilience in Swastika Night, If Beale Street Could Talk, and The Handmaid’s Tale”, [Inter]sections 2 (2021), ISSN 2068 – 3472. Entries in the volume African-American Activism and Political Engagement: An Encyclopedia of Empowerment (Submitted for publication - 2022) Publication of the conference “Invisible city: Avant-Garde, Lettrism and Counterculture”, University of Lisbon. (Book about to be published with Palgrave) |
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2020 |
Publication on American culture: “Black Lives Matter: Police Brutality, Media and Injustice in The Hate U Give, Dear White People, and On the Other Side of Freedom”, N. 2 REDEN, Instituto Franklin, Universidad de Alcalá. September 2020 Essay in Variazioni sull'apocalisse, “The Future of the End - Narrations and Representations of the Apocalypse from the 20th Century Onward”, University of Warsaw. 2021. ISBN:978-3-631-83841-9. 2020 |
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2017 |
“The Originality of The Handmaid’s Tale & The Children of Men: Religion, Justice, Feminism in a Dystopic Common Ground.” in Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory, Issue N. 3.2 ISSN 2457 – 8827 “Jack Frusciante è uscito dal gruppo e Altri libertini: la musica come elemento narrativo identitario”. N°2 ATeM, University of Innsbruck. ATeM Archiv für Textmusikforschung ISSN 1562-6490 |
