Lourdes Contreras

Lourdes Contreras’ academic interests encompass the themes of exile, displacement, rootedness, and ecological representations in literature. Her interest in displacement and rootedness stem from the presence of the root metaphor in Italian literature from the fifteenth century to the contemporary period and the implications that this metaphor has on broader political and theoretical issues. Her research in these subjects investigates connections in Ecocriticism, Mediterranean Studies, and Ecofeminism through authors such as Fausta Cialente, Grazia Deledda, Gianna Manzini, and Alba de Céspedes, among others. 

Before arriving at Penn, Lourdes obtained her Bachelor's degree, summa cum laude, at DePaul University, double majoring in Italian Studies and Political Science. In Chicago she worked at the Italian Trade Agency where she assisted in updating state profiles and revitalizing the Italbooks website. During her undergraduate years she worked as an Italian tutor at DePaul’s Tutoring and Language Learning Center and as a language instructor at Insieme a Chicago, an elementary language learning program. 

She holds a MA in Italian Studies from the University of Pennsylvania and has received the certificate in Global Medieval and Renaissance Studies in 2021. She is a recipient of the School of Arts and Sciences Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching by Graduate Students for the 2022-2023 academic year and is a current CETLI Graduate Fellow. Lourdes is a Fontaine Society Fellow and contributes to a repository of equitable and diverse texts, films, and content for Italian language courses at Penn. As an Andrew W. Mellon Mid-Doctoral Fellow in Digital Humanities (2023-2024) she assists on digital projects managed by the Price Lab and has completed a Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School strand in digital archiving. Lourdes attended the Italian Paleography Institute at the Newberry Library in Chicago as part of her training in Manuscript Studies, archiving and rare books. She is also a co-editor for the Bibliotheca Dantesca journal.

Although contemporary literature remains her primary field of study, digital humanities, visual arts and translation are among her areas of interest. Lourdes is an Aquarius. 

Conference Participation: 

• “Sradicata: An Ecocritical Reading of Fausta Cialente's Natalia,” Rethinking Scarcity/Abundance through Italian Studies and Environmental Humanities, University at Buffalo (UB) Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) Conference, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. March 8th-10th 2024.
• “Ecocritical Approaches in the Contemporary Italian Literature Classroom,” Innovative Approaches to Equitable and Inclusive Pedagogy/ Teaching Language and Content Courses, American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI) Conference, Università degli Studi di Catania, Catania, Sicily, Italy. July 5th-9th 2023.
• “Stratigraphic readings of perceptions of nature and/as medicine in Erbario, LJS 419” Mysterious hands: paleographic curiosities across the early-modern Italian north, American Association of Italian Studies (AAIS) Conference, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX, USA. May 18th-20th 2023.
• “The Fall of Phaethon: Body and space in Michelangelo’s poetry and drawing,” AATI Presidential Panels on Graduate Student Research & Dissertations in Progress Workshop American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI) Conference, Scuola di Lingue, Fondazione Campus, Lucca, Italy. May 25th-29th 2022.
• “Liminality and Boundary in Fall of Phaethon: Body, space, and the Heliades in Michelangelo’s poetry and drawing”, Sibyls, Sirens, Crazies, and Crones: Female Figures Of Power And Threat From The Ancients To Today SESSION IV, American Association of Italian Studies (AAIS) Conference, Bologna, Italy. May 29th - June 1st, 2022.
• “The Tower of Babel and Solidarity in La Divina Commedia: Nimrod, pride, and the transient nature of language” French and Italian Graduate Society Conference, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. March 20th- 21st 2021.