Kristina Marie Olson
Kristina Marie Olson
Italian Program Coordinator
Associate Professor
Italian: Medieval and Early Modern Italy; Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch; Gender Studies; Translation and Adaptation Studies
Selected Publications
(See attached CV for complete list.)
Monograph
- Courtesy Lost: Dante, Boccaccio and the Literature of History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014.
Edited Volumes
- Approaches to Teaching Dante’s Divine Comedy. Second edition. Edited with Christopher Kleinhenz. Series: Approaches to Teaching World Literature. New York: Modern Language Association, 2020.
- Boccaccio 1313-2013. Edited with Francesco Ciabattoni and Elsa Filosa. Ravenna: Longo Editore, 2015.
- Open City: Seven Writers in Post-War Rome. Edited with William Weaver. South Royalton, VT: Steerforth Press, 1999.
Audiobook
- Title: “Books That Matter: Boccaccio's Decameron,” Audible, 2021.
Edited Journal Forum
- Editor, “Ideology and Pedagogy: The Tensions of Teaching Dante,” in Dante Studies: The Annual Publication of the Dante Society of America 137 (2019): 124-216.
Selected Articles
- "Migrant Purgatories: Dante, Lô, Nabil, and Sedira," Le Tre Corone. Rivista internazionale di studi su Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio IX (2022): 77-92.
- “’Maintaining Neutrality in a Period of Moral Crisis’: The Appropriation of Inferno 3 from JFK to Martha Nussbaum.” In Dante Beyond Borders, ed. Nick Havely. Cambridge: Legenda, 2021, pp. 311-323.
- “Dante in a Global World: Sandow Birk’s Divine Comedy.” In Unexpected Dante, ed. Lucia Wolf. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2021, pp. 47-59.
- “The Tale of Lisabetta da Messina.” In The Decameron Day Four in Perspective, ed. Michael Sherberg. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020, pp. 86-106.
- “Legacies of Greed and Liberality: Angevin Rulers in Dante and Boccaccio,” Studi sul Boccaccio XLVII (2019): 181-201.
Expanded Publication List
Courses Taught
At George Mason University:
- FRLN 550: Boccaccio's Decameron
- FRLN 330: Topics in World Literature
- HNRS 122/230: The Language of Empire: Ancient Rome, Italy and Africa
- ITAL 420: Global and Local Italy
- ITAL 360: The Italian South
- ITAL 340: Italian through the Arts (Film / Opera)
- ITAL 330/331: Advanced Italian: Language and Culture I & II
- ITAL 320: Italian Cinema / Neorealism and Global Cinema / Neorealism and Its Legacy
- ITAL 325: Major Italian Writers ("Dante's Divine Comedy"; "Dante's Inferno"; "The Literature of the Black Death: Boccaccio's Decameron")
- ITAL 201 & ITAL 202: Intermediate Italian II
- ITAL 101 & ITAL 102: Elementary Italian I and II
- ITAL 110: Elementary Italian
Thesis Advisor and Reader (at Mason)
- URSP Mentor for Giovanna Uberti, August-December 2017. Project Title: “Urban Policing in Contemporary Italy.” George Mason University.
- URSP Mentor and English Honors Thesis Advisor for Georgia Wood, June 2014-May 2015. Project Title: “The ‘Divine’ Revisited: Reflections of Dante’s Divine Comedy in Toni Morrison’s Trilogy.” George Mason University.
Extramural Teaching
- The Teaching Company (Great Courses / Wondrium). Course title: "Learning Italian: Step by Step and Region by Region," December 2020.
- Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), Fairfax, Virginia. Course title: Dante’s Inferno. Spring 2017.
- Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), Fairfax, Virginia. Course title: Dante’s Purgatorio. Spring 2018.
- Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI), Fairfax, Virginia. Course title: Dante’s Paradiso. Spring 2019.
Education
- Ph.D., Department of Italian, Columbia University (2006)
- M.A., Department of Italian, Columbia University (2001)
- B.A., Division of Languages and Literatures, Bard College (1998)
Recent Presentations
- “Dressing Babylon: Semiramis in Dante and Boccaccio.” The Department of Italian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, CA. February 9, 2024.
- “Crossing Sex and Species: Dante’s Corporeal Poetics between the Inferno and Purgatorio," The Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America, University of Notre Dame, March 2024.
- “Cowardice is Political: The Legacy of Inferno 3 in 20th- and 21st-Century America.” Medieval Studies Program’s 2023-2024 Speaker Series: “Then/Now: Modern Medievalisms.” University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI. April 19, 2024.