Introduction

Joseph Luzzi is associate professor of italian and director of italian studies at Bard College. He is author of Romantic Europe and the Ghost of Italy (2008), which received the Modern Language Association's Scaglione Prize for italian Studies and was named an outstanding Academic Title by Choice (2009). His recent essays have appeared in Comparative Literature, European Romantic Review, Modern Language Notes, and PMLA, and his essay “Romantic Allegory, Postwar Film, and the Question of italy” appeared in the March 2007 issue of MLQ.