Professor Pireddu is a specialist in Comparative Literature. She holds an Italian laurea, and doctoral degrees from both Italy and the United States (a ”Dottorato di ricerca” in English and American Literatures from Università di Venezia ”Ca’ Foscari”, and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles).
She is the Inaugural Director of the Georgetown Humanities Initiative (new window)and the Director of the Global and Comparative Literature Program (new window). For the academic year 2018-19 she was Interim Chair of the Italian Department and the organizer of the 2019 American Comparative Literature Association annual conference (new window), which took take place at Georgetown University, March 7-10, 2019.
Currently a core member of the Medical Humanities Program (new window), she was also appointed as Director of the ”FLL Hager Scholars Program Colloquium” and Director of Graduate Studies in Italian. She was invited by the Dean of Georgetown College to teach the Ignatius Seminar ”Borders: Self, Nation, and Beyond” (2015-18) and the Liberal Arts Seminar ”Mediterranean Crossings” (2018-21). She received Georgetown University’s FLL Distinguished Service Award (2017) and the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching (2005).
Nicoletta Pireddu Talks with Jhumpa Lahiri about her Most Recent Work
May 26th, 2022
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Interpreter of Maladies Jhumpa Lahiri discussed with Nicoletta Pireddu her most recent work, Translating Myself and Others, at the Sixth & I cultural center.…
An Interdisciplinary Approach to Life’s Big Questions
February 22nd, 2022
In this event, held online on February 22, 2022 and hosted by the Georgetown Humanities Initiative, an interdisciplinary panel of world-renowned experts addressed the issue of uncertainty in human existence.…
Migrating Minds: Theories and Practices of Cultural Cosmopolitanism
November 30th, 2021
This book, edited by Nicoletta Pireddu, Didier Coste, and Christina Kkona, presents 20 innovative essays by humanities scholars from all over the world that re-examine theories and practices of cosmopolitanism from a variety of perspectives.…
Georgetown Now: A Conversation with Georgetown President John J. DeGioia featuring Nicoletta Pireddu
May 10th, 2021
Georgetown President John J. DeGioia engaged in conversation with Nicoletta Pireddu. They discussed the value of the humanities, the interdisciplinary, cross-campus collaborations of the Georgetown Humanities Initiative, and the global outreach of comparative literature studies.…
Georgetown College Writes About the Medical Humanities Initiative’s New Minor
March 22nd, 2021
Georgetown College shared the announcement of the launch of the interdisciplinary minor in Medical Humanities, Culture, and Society, which, in Nicoletta Pireddu’s words, “demonstrates that the rigor of scientific data and the spark of imagination can work together with exciting results”. …
“Medical Humanities Initiative Creates Novel Learning Opportunities with Interdisciplinary Students and Faculty”, The Georgetown University Medical Center Covers the Work of the Medical Humanities Initiative
January 28th, 2021
The Georgetown University Medical Center wrote about the novel learning opportunities that the Georgetown University Medical Humanities Initiative provides for undergraduate and medical students, by extending classical humanities studies into the realm of illness and disease.…
Nicoletta Pireddu Spoke at the “Humanities Centers as Sites of Dissent” Virtual Panel
December 2nd, 2020
On December 2, 2020, Nicoletta Pireddu was invited to speak the “Humanities Centers as Sites of Dissent” virtual panel, hosted by the Center for Humanities Research of George Mason University.…
Humanities in the Time of COVID-19: What Literature, Ethics, and the Arts Can Teach Us in a Quarantine Environment
May 28th, 2020
This virtual panel of Georgetown humanities scholars discussed the role of the humanities in this most distinctive of times. The panelists took French novelist Albert Camus’s 1947 novel The Plague as the point of departure to address how literature, philosophy, history, and the arts can help us understand ourselves in relation to the world, foster empathy and a sense of connection in times of crisis, and help people make everyday ethical decisions.…
Georgetown Hosted the American Comparative Literature Association 2019 Annual Conference
March 10th, 2019
From March 7 to 10, Georgetown University hosted the 2019 American Comparative Literature Association’s Annual Meeting, one of the world’s largest conferences of comparative literature scholars, which Nicoletta Pireddu spent over two years planning.…
The Criminal Crowd and Other Writings on Mass Society
November 8th, 2018
This book, with an introduction and notes by Nicoletta Pireddu, who edited and co-translated it, is the first English collection of writings by Italian jurist, sociologist, cultural and literary critic Scipio Sighele.…
Reframing Critical, Literary, and Cultural Theories. Thought on the Edge
August 28th, 2018
This book, edited by Nicoletta Pireddu, and with contributors from diverse cultural and scholarly backgrounds and based in three different continents, participates in the ongoing debate about the alleged “death of theory”, proposing new areas of investigation and interpretive possibilities, reopening dialogues with past and present discourses from a plurality of perspectives and locations.…
The Works of Claudio Magris: Temporary Homes, Mobile Identities, European Borders
January 6th, 2015
This book, authored by Nicoletta Pireddu, is the first comprehensive critical analysis for an English-speaking audience of the corpus of Claudio Magris.…
