Alberto ZAVA

Alberto Zava (born in Venice in 1969) graduated in Modern Literatures from the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice on February 23rd, 1999, with a thesis entitled La teoria del comico nella linea Cantoni-Pirandello (Comic theory from Cantoni to Pirandello). He received his Ph.D in Italian Literary Studies from the same university on December 9th, 2004. His dissertation, by the title Epistolario di Alberto Cantoni con Angiolo ed Adolfo Orvieto (1882-1903) (Alberto Cantoni’s letters to Angiolo and Adolfo Orvieto), has been published by Il Poligrafo (Padua). From 2005 to 2007, Alberto Zava was awarded a research grant for a project on the Italian novel in the 18th century, and he completed an annotated modern edition of Pietro Chiari’s novel La donna che non si trova, published by Piero Manni Editore (San Cesario di Lecce). From 2008 to 2011 he worked as a contract lecturer at the Ca' Foscari University of Venice, and taught online courses on the topic “Contemporary Italian Literature – Literature and Journalism” (SSD L-Fil-Let/11) for part-time students. Since December 12th, 2011, he has a full research position at the Department of Humanities of the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, in the field of contemporary Italian literature. Since December 1th, 2019, he is Associate professor at the Department of Humanities of the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, in the field of contemporary Italian literature.
Alberto Zava’s research interests include three major time periods, namely, the second half of the 18th century, prose writing between the 18th and the 19th century, and the 20th century.
In details, he has explored the birth and development of the modern Italian novel in the 18th century, with particular emphasis on the figure of Pietro Chiari.
He has dealt with literary criticism on comedy in the 19th and 20th century and its theoretical interpretations, focusing on Alberto Cantoni and Luigi Pirandello.
Finally, he analyzed the interactions between journalism and literature in the 20th century, with special emphasis on the birth and development of the “Terza Pagina” in the first decades of the 20th century, and the figure of the journalist-novelist in the second half of the 20th century (Guido Piovene, Carlo Levi, Enrico Emanuelli, Tiziano Terzani, Gina Lagorio). He is also the author of critical essays on Francesco Algarotti, Luigia Codemo, Dino Buzzati, Giuseppe Dessì, Massimo Carlotto, Paolo Maurensig and Giulio Ghirardi.
Alberto Zava is a member of the executive board of the journal «Ermeneutica Letteraria», of the editorial board of «Diaspore. Quaderni di ricerca», and of the board of readers of the journal «Archivio d'Annunzio».