Lisa Dolasinski

Lisa holds a PhD in Italian and a minor in Gender Studies from Indiana University and an M.A. in Italian Studies and a film certificate from the University of Pittsburgh. Lisa’s teaching and research interests center on contemporary Italian media and culture. Lisa has received multiple awards and honors for her teaching, including Most Innovative Approach to Teaching Culture in a Foreign Language Classroom and a grant for the development of online instruction materials. She was a finalist for the 2023 Franklin College Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award. Lisa was recently selected to participate in the 2024-2025 Teaching Academy Early Career Fellows Program (TAECFP), and she was awarded a 2024-2025 Teaching Enhancement and Innovation Fund. Lisa is co-author of Paese che vai, an eBook used in intermediate Italian language courses at Indiana University. She has designed and taught original Italian language, literature, culture, and cinema courses on the topics of migration, gender, and sexuality in at the University of Pittsburgh, Indiana University, Dickinson College, Bucknell University, SUNY New Paltz, and the University of Georgia. Lisa has also organized and led more than a dozen workshops on teaching and pedagogy, some of which have been supported by grants like the Humanities Center High-Impact Teaching Grant at Bucknell University. She has served as a session evaluator for ACTFL (the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language), for which she selected presentations on Italian language and culture for the annual convention. Lisa’s chapter, “Hip-Hop Based Education (HHBE) and Italian Studies: A Culturally Responsive Pedagogy for Teaching Migration and Contemporary Italy,” is forthcoming in the Modern Language Association volume Teaching Migration in Literature, Film, and Media.

Lisa has presented her research at more than 30 national and international conferences, which has been supported with grants from the Mellon Foundation, the Medioteca Toscana Film Archive, the Modern Language Association, the Nina Salant Hellerstein Professional Development Fund, and The Willson Center for Humanities and Arts. Her refereed journal articles interrogate the fluid sexual and ethnic identities of migrant protagonists and second-generation artists in Italian media. Lisa has also published on representations of old age and aging in Italian film comedies. She recently published an article titled “‘In Between’ Ethnic Heritage and Italian Identity: The Global Hip-Hop of Mahmood and Ghali.” Lisa also serves as Managing Editor for the peer-reviewed journal, Gender / Sexuality / Italy. ​