Media and genderBiographical profile
Maria Elena D’Amelio (Doctorate, University of San Marino; Ph.D., State University of New York – Stony Brook) is associate professor of media studies in the Department of Humanities at the University of San Marino.
Before working at UNIRSM, she taught for several years in the United States, at the State University of New York and at Fordham University. Since 2020, she has been qualified as a professor of second level (ASN) for the competitive sector PEMM-01/B – Cinema, photography, radio, television and digital media. Her research areas include history of cinema, stardom and celebrity, feminist media theories, audiovisual media in a transnational perspective, digital media. She has published the monographs Hercules, the god (AIEP 2012) and The Mother Diva. Essays on motherhood and stardom in Italian cinema (Meltemi 2024). He edited the volumes Italian Motherhood On Screen (Palgrave 2017, with Giovanna Faleschini Lerner) e Media and Gender: History, Representation, Reception (BUP 2023, with Luca Gorgolini). She has published in various national and international class A and double-reviewed scientific journals and is the author of the entry Stardom on Oxford Bibliography Online.
She has participated in various European projects (E+, CERV, Horizon 2020, World Bank) and at UNIRSM she is the Rector's Delegate for International Relations. In this role, she is a member of the board of the University of the Faroe Islands.
She collaborates with the magazines "Cinema Errante" and "Fata Morgana Web".
Main publications
Books
- The Mother Diva. Essays on motherhood and stardom in Italian cinema, Milan: Meltemi, 2024.
- Hercules, the god. San Marino: AIEP, 2013.
Edited journals and books:
- Italian Motherhood on Screen(Maria Elena D'Amelio and Giovanna Faleschini, eds.), New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017
- Media and Gender: History, Representation, Reception(with Luca Gorgolini, eds). Bologna: BUP, 2023.
Articles in academic journals
2024 “Motherhood Rights and Digital Activism: An Interview with Francesca Fiore and Sarah Malnerich, Content Creators of the Account @mammadimerda”, European Journal of Women's Studies (accepted).
2024 “Like a natural mom: social media influencers and digital maternal ambivalence in Italy”, Celebrity Studies, 15 (2), 177–192. https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2024.2341597
2023 “Chiara Ferragni, Fashion, and Digital Brand-Mom Activism”, Film, Fashion and Consumption Journal, 12.2 (2023): 169-179. https://doi.org/10.1386/ffc_00060_1
2022 “Anna Magnani and 'hysterical vaginismus'. Stardom, melodrama and sexuality in the case of the nullity of marriage by Goffredo Alessandrini”, The adventure - International Journal of Italian Film and Media Landscapes, 1, 2022.
2021 “The Unfit: Gassman, masculinity, and the Latin lover complex in Hollywood,” The Valley of Eden, 37/2021, pp. 139-146.
2021 “'A Job Unsuitable for a Woman': Female Protagonists in Italian Crime Series”, Arabesques, Wild Trails: Cinema and Women's Studies in Italy, edited by L. Cardone, F. Polato, G. Simi, C. Tognolotti, n. 18, 2021, http://www.arabeschi.it/15-un-lavoro-inadatto-a-una-donna-protagoniste-femminili-nella-serialit–crime-italiana1/ (with V. Re).
2021 “Neither Voiceless Nor Unbelievable: Women Detectives & Rape Culture in Contemporary Italian TV”. MAI Feminism Journal, Issue 7, June 14, 2021 (co-authored with Valentina Re).
2020 “Ingrid happy mother and Sophia in trouble. motherhood, stardom and media scandals on the pages of Oggi» 1949-1959”. Screens. V. 4 n. 8 (2020).
2020 “Cumbersome Legacies: The Rossellinis by Alessandro Rossellini”, Fata Morgana Web, December 16, 2020.
2020 “The Handmaid and the Care. The (non)visibility of women in the time of Covid-19”. Fata Morgana Web. June 8, 2020.
2018 “Maternal Bodies. Anna Magnani between Stardom and Motherhood”. Arabesques, no. 12.
2018 “'The Ideal Man': Amedeo Nazzari, Fatherhood, and Italy's Melodramatic Masculinity.” Gender/Sexuality/Italy, no. 5.
2014 “The hybrid star: Steve Reeves, Hercules and the politics of transnational whiteness”, Journal of Italian Cinema & Media Studies 2:2, pp. 259–277.
2013 “Hercules Roosevelt and Maciste Truman”. Black&White. Rome: Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia. A. LXXIV, n. 576-577, May-December 2013, pp. 113-125.
2012 “Stardom”. In Oxford Bibliographies Online: Cinema and Media Studies.
Essays in anthologies
2023 “Mina madre moderna. Giovani, società dei consumatori e famosi in the Sixties”, in Giulia Muggeo, Gabriele Rigola, Jacopo Tomatis (edited by), Mina. The Voice of Silence: Presence and Absence of a Pop Icon, Il Saggiatore, Milan (forthcoming).
2023 “A 'Bottom-Up' Approach to Transcultural Identities: Petra and Women Detectives in Italian TV Crime Drama.” Contemporary European Crime Fiction: Representing History and Politics. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2023, 229-251 (with Valentina Re).
2021 “Isabella Rossellini and the Lancôme Case: Aging and Postfeminism in the Neoliberal Era”. In Aging girls: Female identity, sexuality and aging in Italian media culture, edited by E. Mandelli, P. De Rosa, V. Re, Mimesis, pp. 103-126.
2017 “Motherhood 2.0: 'An imperfect mother' and the representation of imperfect motherhood in new media”. Italian Motherhood on Screen (Maria Elena D'Amelio and Giovanna Faleschini, eds.), Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 257-275
2013 “The comedy of precariousness in Whole life ahead (P.Virzì, 2008)”. William Hope, ed. A New Italian Political Cinema?, London: Troubador, pp. 33-41.
2012 “Romantic Renaissance: Rossellini, Stendhal, and Melodrama in Vanina Vanini”. Fulvio Orsitto, ed. Cinema and the Risorgimento: Visions and Revisions, Vecchiarelli, Rome, pp. 129-138.
2011 “Hercules and the Elsewhere, from the Italian Peplum to Truman’s America”. Fulvio Orsitto, ed. The Other and Elsewhere in Italian Culture. Nerosubianco, Cuneo, pp. 174-182.
“Hercules, Politics, and Movies.” Michael G. Cornelius, ed. Of Muscle and Men. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, pp. 15-28.
2010 “Metamorphosis of the myth of Hercules in the pepla of the Sixties”. Gian Piero Brunetta, ed. Metamorphosis of the classical myth in cinema, Padua, Italy: Istituto Veneto, pp. 285-299.
2009 “Beautiful and Damned. Women of Power in Italian Historical-Mythological Cinema”. Monica Dall'Asta, ed. Not only Dive. Pioneer of Italian cinema, Bologna, Italy: Cineteca di Bologna, pp. 305-313.
Reviews
2021 “Sergio Rigoletto, The Traviate Norms”. Other Modernities, no. 25 (May):397-99, 2021.
2020 “The mother: Interrogating a National Stereotype” by Penelope Morris and Perry Willson, Journal gender/sexuality/italy, 7 (2020).
