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What do you teach at Ca’ Foscari? What are your main research interests? 
I teach Persian language, narratives and cultural dynamics and a course on literary genres and translation. My main research interests are the poetry of Nezami Ganjavi (12th c.), the classical Persian poetry system (11th-14th c.) and some translation issues related to figurative language.
I graduated from Ca' Foscari and then spent one academic year at Tehran State University. I did my PhD at the Orientale in Naples and then started my academic career at Ca' Foscari shortly after that.

What led you to pursue a research career? What are you most passionate about in your field of study? 
The way to research opened under the guidance of my teacher Riccardo Zipoli: with him I started the first computerised lexical survey project of classical Persian lyric poetry (Lirica Persica), which kept me busy in the field of lexical statistics for almost 20 years while I consolidated a methodological approach and a grasp of the texts that are still the essential foundations for quality research.
What fascinates me most in my research is to always discover new language and content in classical Persian texts (from epic to mysticism, from historical prose to lyric poetry); to discover every day that these texts draw a picture of humanity that is rich in cultural and philosophical nuances that are always relevant.  

What does teaching at the university mean to you?
Teaching at university means being responsible for the young people who approach the disciplines I teach, with more or less clear motivations. It means constantly checking the intellectual honesty of what I teach, encouraging their critical spirit towards the worlds they approach and those they come from. It means breathing life into my teaching through my research and striving to listen to their expectations with an open mind, while keeping the focus on my teaching project, which must be constantly reviewed.  

You work in a department dealing with non-European worlds: what does working on cultural diversity mean to you in an increasingly interconnected world?
I cannot think "globally" and this question does not touch on any fundamental element of my work, although the issue of "cultural diversity", as it surfaces disruptively in language and literature, is a key element for those who deal with "the words of others". As far as I am concerned, I prefer to start from the details. Then, if this detail, both in terms of teaching and research, extends to a global perspective, I take note of it, but my work does not seek to confirm or develop "an increasingly interconnected world".