Giusti Giulio Luciano
Address: Samuel Alexander Building, School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, University of Manchester, M13 9PL
Email: Giulio.Giusti@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk
PhD title: Modern and Contemporary painting in Dario Argento's films
Supervisors: Dr Francesca Billiani and Professor Stephen Milner
Main discipline areas
- Dario Argento's Giallo and Horror Films from the 70s to the present
- Italian Horror Films of the 60s and 70s: Mario Bava, Riccardo Freda
- Gothic Literature: Gaston Leroux, Edgar Allan Poe, Thomas De Quincey
- Modern and Contemporary Painting from the Renaissance to the present
Research specialism
My research focuses on the work of Dario Argento (born on September 7, 1940), an Italian director, producer and screenwriter who is famous internationally both for his own contribution to the horror film genre and for his successful attempt to develop and popularise the Italian detective story, a subgenre known as giallo, outside of Italy. In particular, I am interested in analysing the director's constant and extensive use of intertextual references to modern and contemporary painting in order to create the voluptuousness of his tableaux. In the first section of my thesis, I intend to scrutinize some overt references from modern and contemporary painting in order to show their impact on the general architecture and psychology of Argento's work. The second section of my research will analyse Argento's Gothic notion of the sublime through painting. According to the director, art is something both fascinating and dangerous at the same time. It is the artist's expression of creativity and freedom that is able to awake people's inner and unconscious thoughts. At the same time, it can be dangerous because not only does it free people's instincts and repressive passions but also the dark side of the human mind. In this respect, I will explore the role of Argento's serial killer as the alter ego of the artist and as the expression of the dark side of the artistic creation.
Teaching areas
- 2007-present: Full-time GTF in Italian within the LEAP program.
My teaching covers a wide range of cultural and linguistic aspects of Italian at Post-Intermediate and Advanced levels. - 2005-2007: Foreign Language Assistant in Italian at Sheffield Hallam University.
My teaching in Italian included a range of modules from first year to final year undergraduate level. These included: Ab Initio 1-Italian for beginners, Ab Initio 2-Italian for intermediate, Techniques of interpreting, negotiation and translation from English into Italian and vice versa. - 2004-2005: Teacher of English and Italian for foreigners at the British Institutes-Language Centre in Cento, a small town near Ferrara.
My main task was mainly to lead Italian students, divided in classes of 5-8 people, to internationally-recognised qualifications of English, such as Cambridge ESOL KET, PET and FCE-First Certificate in English. - 2000-2004: Translator from English and French into Italian of publicity material for companies and tourist leaflets.
Professional biography
- 2007-present: PhD in Italian Studies at the University of Manchester
- 2006-2007: Postgraduate Course in Screen Translation at the MLTC-Modern Language Teaching Centre at the University of Sheffield. The Course aimed to develop awareness of cultural and historical issues related to the countries the films are from and to provide the necessary knowledge about the cultural, historical and social background of the film in question. The core modules I attended are: Approaches to Translation Genres, Film Translation of Literary Classics and Theory and Practice of Subtitling and Dubbing.
- 2004: Creative and screenplay writing seminar and a five-month editing course at the Cineteca di Bologna.
- 1997-2003: Degree in Foreign Languages and Literature at the University of Genova (Italy). I graduated in Modern Languages and Literature (English as first language/ French as second language) at the University of Genova in the year 2003, presenting a thesis on the translation from English into Italian of the Irish epic "The Táin" by Thomas Kinsella, for which I obtained full marks with distinction.
- 1997-1998: One-year course in English Literature and Linguistics as an Erasmus student at the University of Reading, focusing my studies on Old English, Victorian Poetry and the varieties of English that are currently spoken all around the world.