Elena Coda
- Interim Head // SIS
- Professor // Italian // SLC
- Professor // Philosophy and Literature // SIS
- Professor // Comparative Literature // SLC
- Affiliated Faculty // Film and Video Production // Rueff School
- Affiliated Faculty // Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies // SIS
- Associate Department Head // SLC
Research Focus
Italian and Comparative Literature
Office and Contact
Ph.D., UCLA
Specialization
Elena Coda is a Professor of Italian Literature at Purdue University. A native of Italy, she received her Ph.D. in Italian Literature from the University of California –Los Angeles in 1998. Currently she also serves as Associate Head of the School of Languages and Cultures. She is affiliate faculty in the Philosophy and Literature program and in the Comparative Literature program. Professor Coda teaches undergraduate courses in Italian literature and culture. At the graduate level she teaches courses with an interdisciplinary comparative focus.
Her research interests include Triestine literature; modernism; modern and postmodern landscapes in literature, European identities, and essayistic narrative. Her essays have appeared in peer reviewed collections and journals such as Quaderni d’Italianistica, MLN, The European Legacy, Nuova Prosa, Journal of European Studies and Lettere Italiane.
She is the author of Scipio Slataper (2007) a book length study on an important Triestine writer and intellectual active in Trieste at the turn of the Twentieth Century.
She is also the editor of several books and anthologies:
- The Promised Land (with Luigi Ballerini, Beppe Cavatorta, and Paul Vangelisti, 2000)
- Balleriniana (with Beppe Cavatorta, 2010)
- Revisioning Terrorism: A Humanistic Perspective (with Ben Lawton 2016)
The volume My Karst and My City and Other Writings by Scipio Slataper, (edited, with an introduction and notes, by Elena Coda; translated by Nicholas Benson and Elena Coda, 2020) won the 2022 John Florio Prize for best translation. The competitive prize was awarded by the UK Society of Authors. https://www2.societyofauthors.org/2023/02/08/marta-dziuroszs-truly-astounding-translation-from-polish-wins-ta-first-prize/