Flavia Laviosa - Wellesley College Department of Italian Studies

Flavia Laviosa, Ph.D.

Senior Lecturer and Language Course Coordinator in the Department of Italian Studies

Email: flaviosa@wellesley.edu

Phone: 781-283-2618

Fax: 781-283-2876

Flavia Laviosa is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Italian Studies at Wellesley College since 1992. She teaches and coordinates language courses, offers culture and cinema courses, and directs the Wintersession study abroad program in Rome and the Summer session in Lecce.

Flavia Laviosa holds a Ph.D. in Foreign Language Education from SUNY Buffalo. She also studied for a Master's Degree in European Film Studies and Criticism at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and completed her Italian Laurea in Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Bari.

Her training of foreign language teachers in the USA, Europe, Mexico, the Republic of South Africa, and the People's Republic of China has helped her to earn international recognition as a Teacher Educator, Supervisor, and Curriculum Consultant. She has elaborated an approach which combines Humanistic and Cognitive theories with Communicative principles of foreign language pedagogy. She develops instructional, multimedia, digital, and interdisciplinary materials for Italian language and culture courses. Her videos and dvds have been adopted in schools and universities in the USA and abroad. Furthermore, she has been active as an internationally certified Italian Oral and Writing Proficiency Trainer and Tester for ACTFL, Test Consultant for the Italian AP, and Test Developer for the Italian SAT II.

Flavia Laviosa also lectures on Italian Women Directors, Women in Italy, and Comedy Italian Style. Her research interests are in the cinema of Francesca Archibugi and Cristina Comencini. Her articles on Italian contemporary cinema have appeared in Studies in European Cinema, Italica, Rivista di Studi Italiani, Kinema, Italian Politics and Society, and American Journal of Italian Studies. She has also published essays in the following edited anthologies Italian Cinema-New Directions, Incontri con il Cinema Italiano, and La Scuola Italiana di Middlebury.

Flavia Laviosa has been the initiator and organizer of the international symposium and film festival Visions of Struggle: Women’s Filmmaking in the Mediterranean, hosted by Wellesley College on 28 October - 3 November 2007. Sponsored by the Wellesley College Treves Memorial Fund, the Departments and Programs of History, Jewish Studies, Writing, Art, Italian Studies, Political Science, Newhouse Center, Middle Eastern Studies, German, French, Religion, Cinema and Media Studies, Media Arts and Sciences, Women's Studies, Peace and Justice, Theatre and Wellesley Summer Theatre Company, Africana Studies, Spanish, Sociology, and the Student Film Society.

She was awarded the 1998 Gold Medal by the Federation of Abruzzi Association in the USA for her commitment in academic research and her contribution to the development of Italian culture. Flavia Laviosa is a well-known figure in the Italian-American community in Massachusetts for her dedication to promote the Italian language and culture among the various generations of Italians in the USA.

Publications

Chapters and Articles in Books

“ESTetica: la Puglia nel cinema.” La Scuola Italiana di Middlebury (1996-2005) Passione Didattica Pratica. Antonio Vitti (Ed.) Metauro Edizioni, 2005, pp. 233-263.

“Francesca Archibugi: Families and Life Apprenticeship.” Italian Cinema-New Directions. William Hope (Ed.) Peter Lang AG, 2005, pp. 201-227.

“La metalingua del gioco in La vita è bella.” Incontri con il Cinema Italiano. Antonio Vitti (Ed.) Sciascia Editore, 2003, pp. 71-78.

“Intervista con Francesca Archibugi: la famiglia postmoderna nella sua firma d'autore.” Incontri con il Cinema Italiano. Antonio Vitti (Ed.) Sciascia Editore, 2003, pp. 375-386.

Articles in Journals

“Francesca Archibugi’s Cinema: Minimalism or Micro-History?” Studies in European Cinema (Forthcoming, 2008).

“Feelings and Private Conversations: an Interview with Director Cristina Comencini.” Kinema, Fall 2005, pp. 55-66.

“The Post-Modern Italian Family: the Reality Changes but the Word Stays the Same.” The Teacher Trainer, November 2005, pp. 20-28.

“La 'sdrammaticità' storica in La vita è bella” Italian Politics and Society 57, Spring 2003, pp.10-21.

“Archibugi's Cinematic Representations of the Socio-Cultural Changes in the Modern Italian Family.” Italica, 80, 4, Winter 2003, pp. 540-549.

“Themes and Motifs in the Cinema of Francesca Archibugi.” Kinema 20, Fall 2003, pp. 43-54.

“Cinema as a Social Mirror: Flavia Laviosa in Conversation with the Italian Director Francesca Archibugi.” Kinema 20, Fall 2003, pp. 55-60.

“Family and Art in Francesca Archibugi’s Cinema. An Interview.” Rivista di Studi Italiani, 20, 1, giugno 2002, pp. 499-507.

“The Listening Processes and Strategies of Learners of Italian: a Case Study.” Rassegna Italiana di Linguistica Applicata 2, 2000, pp. 129-159.

“Life Beyond Sound: Liliana Cavani's Film Dove siete? Io sono qui!” Special Issue on Contemporary Italian Cinema American Journal of Italian Studies 22, 59, pp. 52-65.

“The Challenge of Italian Women in the 1980s and 1990s: Resolving the Paradox of Legislation on Affirmative Action in a Reality of Unequal Opportunity.” Italian Politics and Society 48, Fall 1997, pp. 61-70.

“1970s: a Decade of Legislative Reforms for Italian Women's Protection and Equality.” Italian Politics and Society 47, Spring 1997, pp. 57-63.

“How to Test and Evaluate Oral Proficiency in Italian.” Tuttitalia, 13, June 1996, pp. 3-15.

“A Process-Product Approach to Writing in Italian.” Italica 71, 4, 1994, pp. 484-504.

“Reading Strategies in Italian Language Courses.” South African Association for Language Teaching 28, 3 1994, pp. 234-257.

“L2 Listening Strategy Training.” Italiana V, 1993, pp. 295-302.

“A Psycholinguistic Approach to Reading Comprehension in Italian.” Il Forneri 7, 1, 1993, pp. 3-23.

“Curriculum Design for Italian Language Courses.” South African Association for Language Teaching 26, 3, 1992, pp. 26-39.

“Why and How to Teach L2 Listening Comprehension Strategies.” South African Association for Language Teaching 25, 3, 1991, pp. 17-29.

“Italy and the European Economic Community in 1992.” New York State Association of Foreign Language Teachers Every Student; Every Day 7, Oct. 1990, pp. 113-116.

I wish to thank Linda and George Levine for their support and encouragement throughout my career. They deserve the credit for my academic accomplishments.

Niagara Falls, NY January 1987 Bologna, Italy, June 2001

Contact: Flavia Laviosa, flaviosa@wellesley.edu
Created By: Rebecca Kayes '07
Created: February, 2007
Last Modified: October 10, 2007
Expires: September 1, 2008