Anna Marra
Assistant Professor of the Practice of French & Italian
Special Assistant to the Dean, College of Arts and Science
Anna Marra is an Assistant Professor of the Practice of French and Italian, and Special Assistant to the Dean in the College of Arts and Science at Vanderbilt University. She holds two Ph.D.s: the first in Humanist Studies from the University of Roma II, and the second in Italian Medieval Literature from Yale University. As a recipient of the MacMillan International Dissertation Research Fellowship, she traveled to European libraries to study illuminated manuscripts of the Divine Comedy and explore the material figurations of ascetic literary traditions.
Her research interests include Dante Studies, medieval and contemporary Italian literature, gender and identity, social justice, storytelling, foodways, and the intersections of prose, poetry, and meditation.
Marra has taught for over twenty years in both Italy and the United States, with positions at the University of New Hampshire, the University of Connecticut, and Yale University before joining Vanderbilt’s faculty in 2022. Her work and research have been supported by the UNH Programs & Projects Grant, the NH State Council on the Arts Folklife and Traditional Arts Grant, the Mellon Institute, the Saint Thomas More Ambassador Grant, and the Yale Language Institute Fellowship.
At Vanderbilt, Professor Marra serves as Faculty Senator for the College of Arts and Science, Faculty Advisor for the Italian Club, and Faculty VUceptor for Vanderbilt Visions.
In addition to her academic work, she is also a certified meditation and mindfulness teacher.
Representative Publications
EDITED BOOKS
Giorgio Caproni-Domenico De Robertis, Lettere 1952-1963. Edited by Anna Marra. Roma: Bulzoni, 2012.
ARTICLES & BOOK CHAPTERS
"Rooting and Uprooting: The Pear Tree as Female Intellect in Bigolina’s Urania." In Imagined Networks in Pre-Modern Italian Literature: Literary Mothers, Literary Sisters, Lexington Books, 2024, pp. 63–84.
“By Means of Meditation. Reading and Writing the Divine Comedy.” Studium. Rivista di vita e di cultura (2021): 14–35.
“Luzi la città e la stratificazione di senso.” Quaderni del Novecento, Mario Luzi poeta del Novecento. Modernismo, lirica, ermeneutica (2017): 25–39.
“Questioni e Cornice: Strutture e Analogie nel Filocolo.” In Boccaccio 1313–2013. Ravenna: Longo Editore, 2015, pp. 119–127.
“Il Taccuino dello svagato.” In Confini. Testo – Arti – Metodologia – Ricerca. Atti del Convegno Interdisciplinare, 4–6 giugno 2012. Edicampus, 2013, pp. 233–239.
“Passeggiate caproniane: Il peso delle parole, il labirinto dei pensieri.” Istmi (2013): 31–43.
“L’origine dell’ironia.” Nuova Corrente (2012): 122–133.
“Appunti per un Caproni in minuscolo: Senza falsa retorica.” In Un tremore di foglie: Scritti e studi in ricordo di Anna Panicali. Udine: Forum, 2011, pp. 245–253.
“Aleardo Aleardi, la parola come arma: Intelletto di patria presente passato e futuro.” Moderna. Semestrale di teoria e critica della letteratura II (2011): 99–108.
“Le arti e le scienze di fronte alla grande guerra.” Quale storia XXXVII (Giugno 2009): 140–145.
TRANSLATIONS
“Enzo della Mea, Selected Poems.” Journal of Italian Translation (Spring 2021): 97-106.