man in blue button down in front of domed building in italy

Degree: Ph.D., University of Connecticut, 1990

 Position: Professor

 Research Interest: Modern and contemporary  Italian  literature, critical and cultural theory

Campus Address: B-453 Wells Hall

 Phone: (517) 884-6310

 Email: francese@msu.edu 


Joseph Francese is University Outstanding Faculty and Professor of Italian. He is also Senior Editor of Italian Culture (the journal of the American Association for Italian Studies); Editor of “Studi di italianistica moderna e contemporanea nel mondo anglofono/Studies in Modern and Contemporary Italianistica in the Anglophonic World” (a monograph series published by Firenze University Press); and has served on the PMLA Advisory Committee. He is the author of numerous articles and chapters on topics in Renaissance and contemporary literature, and has written books on Pasolini, postmodern narrative, Italian cultural politics in the 1950s, and the fictions of Eco, Consolo, and Tabucchi. His most recent books, Leonardo Sciascia e la funzione sociale degli intellettuali was published by in 2012; Vincenzo Consolo: gli anni de «l’Unità» (1992-2012), ovvero la poetica della colpa-espiazione in 2015. In addition, he has edited three volumes of collected essays, the latest being Perspectives on Gramsci: Culture, Politics, and Social Theory for Routlege.