Manuela di Franco

Visiting Researcher (January to June 2024)

Email: difrancm@tcd.ie

Manuela Di Franco is a MSCA Postdoctoral Fellow based at Ghent University with a project on Americanisation and gender representation in Italian comics (1934–65). She is seconded to Trinity College Dublin during the second semester, 2023-2024.

She obtained her PhD in Italian Studies at the University of Cambridge with a dissertation on the development of Italian popular press in Fascist Italy. She worked as lecturer of Italian language and culture at the University of Michigan (2022–2023) and was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Toronto in 2021. Her research interests are the Americanisation of Italian popular culture and society in the 20th century, the development of popular media in Fascist Italy, Fascist censorship, Italian modern comics, and gender representation. While her main research focus is popular culture in the 20th century, she is also working on 21st century comics and representation of gender and gender violence.