Gemma PERSICO

Full Professor of English literature [L-LIN/10]

Professor of English Literature since november 20o5 and member of the academic board of the PhD in “Scienze dell’Interpretazione”.

She has been President of the MA course in Comparative languages and literature, after being Vice Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures of the University of Catania (December 2005 - 2011) and President of the Faculty’s Teaching Commission (from March 2006 till January 2010) as well as a member of the University’s Teaching Commission (from 2006 till 2010). .

Coordinator of he Foreign Language section of SISSIS (from December 2007), then of TFA (teachers' training courses) for teachers of English, she is now responsible also for the CLIL courses organized by DISUM-UNICT.

She is also the Coordinator of a Socrates exchange programme with the University of Cardiff, in whose School of European Studies she taught courses during the academic years 2005 and 2006.

 

Previous activities:

Recipient of a Fellowship over the years 1974-l980 at the Faculty of “Magistero” (Faculty of Education), in l976 she qualified as a high school teacher of English (L.L. 100/100).

In 1979 she got a position as teacher of English (through a national competition). During the year l979, she was granted a Scholarship by Cambridge University and attended thereof a course on “Linguistics and the English Language”; in February l980 the Council Board of the Faculty of “Magistero” (Education) conferred her the title of “studiosa della disciplina” (scholar of the subject) in English Language and Literature.

In 1981 she was granted scholarships by the University of Oxford and the British Council whereof she attended a course on “Literature, History and Society from l870 to the Present Day”.

In July l98l she became a Lecturer in English Language and Literature; ever since she has participated to congresses and conferences as speaker or convenor as well as been actively involved in the ongoing training courses for Language and Literature Teachers, governed by the associations IRRSAE, Provincial Education Offices of Enna, Ragusa and Syracuse as well as by a number of cultural associations.

Since 1982 she has been a member of A.I.S.C. In 1987 she was granted a Specialisation Fewllowship for university teachers by the Canadian government. During the Years 1991-95 she was Italy’s member in the “International Advisory Board” of the International Journal of Canadian Studies; since 1991 she has been a member of the Board of Directors in the “Centro di Studi sul Canada” (Canadian Studies Centre) at the University of Messina. In 1996 she was granted a further specialisation Fellowship for university teachers by the Canadian Government.

From 1991 to 1999 she held a position as temporary chair of English Language and Literature at the Faculty “Scienze della Formazione” (Educational Sciences);

From 1995 to 1999 she held a position as temporary chair of English Language and Literature at the Faculty of Letters/Humanities and Philosophy; in the academic year 1999/2000 she held a position as temporary chair of English Language and Literature at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures of the University of Catania.

From 1 November 1998 she was associate professor of English Language and Literature (at first for the Faculty of Letters/Humanities of Messina, from 1 November 2001 to 31 October 2005 at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures of the University of Catania). Since it was founded till 31 October 1998, she was a member of the Board of Directors of the Language Centre of the University of Catania.

Both at the University of Messina and Catania she has taken part into a large number of Faculty Commissions.

Since 1998 to 2012 she was a member of the Academic Body Board for a Ph.D. programme in English and Anglo-American Studies – wherein she has also assisted the Coordinator’s work.

From 2003 to 2006 she held a position as auditor of A.I.A. (Associazione Italiana di Anglistica).

 

Amongst her main areas of scientific interest, are to be mentioned: the Victorian social novel, Mary Wollstonecraft’s and William Godwin’s essays and narrative works, Restoration and twentieth-century theatre, nineteenth-century stereotypes of femininity, Victorian sensation novel, contemporary Canadian literature.

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VIEW THE COURSES FROM THE A.Y. 2022/2023 TO THE PRESENT

Academic Year 2020/2021


Academic Year 2019/2020


Academic Year 2018/2019


Academic Year 2017/2018


Academic Year 2016/2017


Academic Year 2015/2016

Gemma Persico's areas and fields of publication are anglophone post-colonial literature, Restoration and twentieth-century theatre, tradition and transformations of the sentimental novel, late eighteenth-century literature, condition-of-England novels, the Woman Question in Victorian literature. Recently she has published Criminali, assassine, adultere, degenerate… folli? Rappresentazioni del femminile nel ‘sensation novel’, Mary Wollstonecraft tra (auto)biografia e critica sociale and a few essays on myth and cultural interactions in contemporary Canadian fiction.

Director/contact person CLIL courses