Wednesday 9 May 2012

a couple of things about myself


I am an independent scholar speacialied in dance and cultural history, literature, gender and postcolonial studies. I am also a language teacher (English, Italian and Spanish), a translator (mainly English to Italian), a self-taught cartoonist, a blogger and an activist.

Rosella Simonari, photo M.T. De Roberto.

I was temporary lecturer (docente a contratto) of the Dance and Mime course at the University of Macerata, Italy from 2003 to 2007. In 2012 I completed a PhD in literature at the University of Essex, UK, with a research project on Martha Graham’s Letter to the World, supervised by Marina Warner. Before that, in January 2006, I had completed a Master’s Degree at the same university, with a thesis on two dance adaptations of Carmen.

After the degree in foreign languages and literatures gained in 1999 from the University of Macerata, Italy, and supervised by Marina Camboni, I moved to London where I continued my research on dance at Laban (now TrinityLaban), attending the Dance Research Programme (2000) and worked as teacher of Italian in places such as Cryodon College and CityLit.  In July 2002 I returned to Italy for family reasons and decided to stay there teaching English and Spanish as a private teacher and substitute teacher in public schools. In spite of this, I managed to frequently travel to the UK to continue to work on my research projects attending both the MA and the PhD as a part-time student.

In September 2003 I attended the NOISE Summer School, an advanced course in Women’s Studies promoted by the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, organised by philosopher Rosi Braidotti. In 2006 I began a research on Italian music-hall dancer and painter Alberto Spadolini, research which is still in progress.

Roberto Lori in Simonari's lecture performance on Spadolini, photo M.T. De Roberto.
I have presented papers at conferences in Italy, Sweden, The Netherlands, England, Scotland, the United States and Spain. I have published essays and articles in English, Italian and Spanish mainly on Martha Graham, Carmen and Alberto Spadolini. I have organised dance-related events, such as conferences, workshops, meetings with choreographers and lecture performances. My research method is based on cultural and dance history and gender studies. In particular, I am interested in the relationship between dance, culture and literature. 

I was part of a Collective called Via Libera 194 that fought for women's reproductive rights. I was part of a Book Club called Libera la Lettura tied to the Centro Studi Libertari Luigi Fabbri and its rich historical, political and sociological archive.I am part of a Book Club tied to the Independence bookshop, Sabot.

At present I am a member of  SDR (Society for Dance Research) and was a member of AAS (Association of Adaptation Studies) and other Societies. I collaborated in Italian with the cultural journal Leggere Donna, in English with www.ballet-dance.com.

I have four other blogs:

It is in Italian and represents a kind of alter ego to this blog, but it does not necessarily contain always the same material.

It is in English and Italian and has exsisted since 2008. I use it to experiment new ways to talk about dance writing and relfect on my research, with poems, cartoons and articles among other things. With time I have began to insert other questions only loosely related to my studies. 

It is in Italian and was born on January 2014 as a blog dedicated to my language (especially English) teaching activity following a new method based on great stories mainly taken from literature. 

It is in English and Italian and has exsisted since 2008. It was born out of dancescriber.blogspot.com and is dedicated to a strip whose protagonist is the p.s. (precarious scholar). It is the result of a research I am conducting on the concept of precarity in the academic and not only academic world. 

You can also find me on:

Facebook
LinkedIn
Academia

(updated on 9 October 2015;
updated on 16 September 2019)

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