Elena Margarita Past (bb0478)

Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures

413 Manoogian Hall
906 West Warren
Detroit, MI 48201

Elena Past is professor of Italian. Her research and teaching focus on contemporary Italian literature and cinema, ecomedia studies and the environmental humanities, posthumanism and animal studies, Italian crime fiction, and ecomafia. She is currently working on a project about Ferrania Film, Italy's historic manufacturer of analog film stock for cinema.

Research Enhancement Program Grant, Wayne State University, 2022-2023
Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award, 2021-2022
American Academy in Rome, full-term Rome Prize in Modern Italian Studies, 2021-2022
Modern Language Association, Howard R. Marraro Prize in Italian Studies, 2020
Board of Governors Faculty Recognition Award, Wayne State University, 2020

Italian Ecocinema Beyond the Human. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019, winner of the MLA's Howard Marraro Prize.

Italy and the Environmental Humanities: Landscapes, Natures, Ecologies. Eds. Serenella Iovino, Enrico Cesaretti, and Elena Past. University of Virginia Press, Under the Sign of Nature Series, 2018.

"Itinerant Ecocriticism, Southern Thought, and Italian Cinema on Foot." Ecozon@ 11.2 (2020): 26-33.

“Toxic Fruits: Tomatoes, Migration, and the New Italian Slavery.” Co-authored with Giovanna Faleschini Lerner. Journal of Modern Italian Studies. Published online October 2020.

“Volcanic Matters: Magmatic Cinema, Ecocriticism, and Italy.” L’analisi linguistica e letteraria XXIV.2 (2016): 135-46.

“Animal Humanities, or, On Reading and Writing the Nonhuman.” Introduction to special section of Ecozon@. Co-authored with Deborah Amberson. Ecozon@ 7.1 (2016): 1-9.

“Gadda’s Pasticciaccio and the Knotted Posthuman Household.” Co-authored with Deborah Amberson. Relations: Beyond Anthropocentrism 4.1 (2016): 63-78.

“Mediterranean Ecocriticism: The Sea in the Middle.” Handbook of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology. Ed. Hubert Zapf. De Gruyter, 2016. 368-84.

“Documenting Ecomafia.” Nuovo Cinema Politico. Eds. Giancarlo Lombardi and Christian Uva. New York: Peter Lang (Italian Modernities), 2016.

“Il cinema e il suono del silenzio: Le quattro volte.” Animal Studies: Rivista italiana di antispecismo 11 (2015): 56-71.

Thinking Italian Animals: Human and Posthuman in Modern Italian Literature and Film. Eds. Deborah Amberson and Elena Past. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

 Elena Past joined the faculty at Wayne State University in 2006. She is currently Professor of Italian in the Department of Classical and Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, and the former Associate Chair of that department. She teaches a wide range of courses in Italian literature, film, and culture on topics including contemporary Italian literature and cinema, literary theory, and ecocriticism and the environmental humanities, and is honored to be a past recipient of the President's Award for Excellence in Teaching. She also teaches a course for the Global Studies program and is a member of the program's advisory board.

Elena has taught frequently on location in Abruzzo, Italy, as part of Wayne State's study abroad program. In Detroit, she helps coordinate the annual Italian Film Festival and other cinematic and cultural events. She currently serves as a member of the President’s Standing Committee on Environmental Initiatives and is a core member of the new Detroit-Windsor United Nations Regional Centre for Expertise (RCE) in Education for Sustainable Development.

Elena's publications include the books Italian Cinema Beyond the Human (2019), winner of the Modern Language Association’s Howard R. Marraro Prize; Methods of Murder: Beccarian Introspection and Lombrosian Vivisection in Italian Crime Fiction (2012); and the co-edited collections Landscapes, Natures, Ecologies: Italy and the Environmental Humanities (with Serenella Iovino and Enrico Cesaretti, 2018) and Thinking Italian Animals: Human and Posthuman in Modern Italian Literature and Film (with Deborah Amberson, 2014).

In 2021-2022, Elena spent the year conducting research in Italy on a project about Ferrania film, Italy's iconic producer of celluloid film stock, thanks to support from a Rome Prize Fellowship in Modern Italian Studies at the American Academy in Rome, a Fulbright fellowship, and Wayne State's Research Enhancement Program in the Arts and Humanities.

A graduate of the Plan II Honors Program at the University of Texas at Austin, she is excited to join the Irvin D. Reid Honors College at Wayne State University.