Roberta Ferrari

Roberta Ferrari is Professor of English Literature in the Department of Philology, Literature and Linguistics, Pisa University. She holds a PhD from the University of Florence. She received her Degree cum laude in Foreign Languages and Literatures (English, German, French) from Pisa University.
Her research spans from 18th-century literature to Modernism and Postmodernism, with a particular focus on the evolution of prose. She has written extensively on the beginnings of female professional writing, the early 18th-century novel, Gothic fiction, contemporary drama and narrative. She has also devoted specific attention to the study of travel literature and to Anglo-Italian cultural relations. Her publications include "La scrittura come travestimento dell’io. La narrativa di Flann O’Brien" (1995), "La nascita di un genere. Il novel del primo Settecento" (2002), "Ian McEwan" (2012), ("L'Italia di Walter Savage Landor", 2022).
Among her main research interests is the essay genre, examined both in its historical development and in its cultural and political implications. She has studied the Romantic familiar essay, focusing on Charles Lamb, and investigated the critical and ideological dimensions of essays by authors such as George Orwell. More recently, her work has embraced theoretical and pedagogical perspectives on the essay as a dynamic form of thought and discourse, addressing its role in environmental writing and climate change narratives. Her ongoing research engages with planetary approaches to literature and explores how the essay mediates ecological awareness and global interconnectedness.
She has published over 100 works, including 7 monographs, 12 edited and co-edited volumes and numerous articles and chapters in international journals and collections.
She is co-editor of the scientific journal Synergies: A Journal of English Literatures and Cultures and a member of several scientific committees of journals and editorial series.