Veronica Vegna

Veronica Vegna specializes in teacher training, foreign language acquisition and contemporary Italian cinema. Her doctoral dissertation examined representations of gender dynamics in mafia contexts in contemporary Italian cinema. She teaches Italian language, culture, cinema, and foreign language acquisition theory and pedagogy. She also directs the Italian Language Program and coordinates the Languages Across the Curriculum Program. 

Veronica’s scholarship and research interests center on language and culture acquisition, Italian cinema (in particular cinematic representations of women in relation to the mafia), Italian-American literature and literature of migration. She has also translated essays by Dacia Maraini from Italian into English.
 

Book

• Donne, mafia e cinema. Una prospettiva interdisciplinare. Ravenna: Longo Editore, 2017 -- reviewed by Paolo Cherchi in Oblio, VII.25 (2017): 166-169
  - reviewed by Wanda Balzano in Quaderni d’Italianistica, 41.2 (2020): 217-219

Selected Articles and Book Chapters

• “Motherhood and the ’Ndrangheta in La terra dei santi", in I.S. Med, Interdisciplinary Studies on the Modern and Contemporary Mediterranean (MIM), 131-149
• “Teaching in the Time of COVID-19”, in Teaching Italian Language and Culture Annual (TILCA) (2020): 47-52
• “A satirical Gaze on Sicily: Ficarra and Picone’s L’ora legale (2017)”, in Sicily on Screen, edited by Giovanna Summerfield, Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2020, 81-99
• “La mafia senza gloria in Placido Rizzotto”, Rivista Luci e Ombre, IV.2 (Summer 2016): 62-77 
• Review of Italian textbook Piazza: luogo di incontri, by Donatella Melucci and Elissa Tognozzi, Stamford: Cengage, 2015, in Quaderni d’italianistica, 36.1 (2015): 281-84
• “Il ruolo della madre in relazione alla mafia ne I cento passi”, in Il cinema di Marco Tullio Giordana. Interventi critici, edited by Federica Colleoni, Elena Dalla Torre, and Inge Lanslots, Manziana: Vecchiarelli Editore, 2014, 69-80
• “La mafia al femminile: un’analisi di Angela di Roberta Torre”, in Incontri culturali tra due mondi, edited by Antonio Vitti, Pesaro: Metauro Edizioni, 2014, 249-58
• “Identità e percezione dell’immigrato italiano negli USA”, Voices in Italian Americana, 24.1 &2 (2013): 27-32
• “Madri e mafia ne I cento passi e ne La siciliana ribelle”, Rivista Luci e Ombre, I.3 (March-April 2013): 88-94

Awards, Honors and Professional Experience

• Faculty Grant, the University of Chicago International Institute of Research in Paris (UC-IIRP), "Women in Italian Organized Crime: A Study Through the Cinematic Lens", 2023-2024
• Visiting Research Fellowship, Collegio Carlo Alberto in Turin, 2023-2024
• Course Development Grant, Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, 2023-2024
• The Glenn and Claire Swogger Award for Exemplary Classroom Teaching, The University of Chicago, 2022
• The Janel M. Mueller Award for Excellence in Pedagogy, The University of Chicago, 2021
• The Chicago Course Connection Grants, Chicago Studies, The University of Chicago, 2012-2018
• The Director Prize for Academic Excellence, Middlebury College, VT, 2011 
• College Teaching Innovation Grants, The University of Chicago, 2008, 2009
• Consortium for Language Teaching & Learning Grants, The University of Chicago, 2006, 2009, 2011, 2014, 2015
• Fulbright Grant, Bard College, NY, 2003
• Italian Language Teaching Award, Italian Ministry of Education, Italy, 1999
• Leonardo Scholarship, European Union, 1999 
• Erasmus Scholarship, European Union, 1997

Recent Courses in RLL

• ITAL 20100 Language, History, and Culture I (Autumn 2017, Autumn 2018, Autumn 2019, Autumn 2020, Autumn 2021, Autumn 2022, Autumn 2023)
• ITAL 20200 Language, History, and Culture II (Winter 2017, Winter 2018, Winter 2019, Winter 2020, Winter 2021, Winter 2022, Winter 2023, Winter 2024)
• ITAL 20300 Language, History, and Culture III (Spring 2017, Spring 2018, Spring 2019)
• ITAL 20600 Cinema italiano: lingua e cultura (Spring 2020, Winter 2022, Winter 2024)
• ITAL 22440 Women in Italian Organized Crime Through Cinema (Winter 2025)
• ITAL 27500 Women and the Mafia in Contemporary Italian Cinema (Spring 2019, Spring 2021, Winter 2023)
• RLLT 38800 Foreign Language Acquisition, Research and Teaching (Autumn 2016)