Alexa Rojas, an undergraduate student from ELTS, has been awarded The Velli Prize given by the American Boccaccio Association for the second time, once in 2025 and again this year. The Velli Prize comes from research Rojas developed as part of Professor Roberta Morosini’s Italian 102A class and will be presented in October at the Boccaccio conference co-sponsored by ELTS. Rojas was a Psychobiology and Sociology double major with minors in CESC and ELTS with Italian. Her project, “Do Clothes make the (Wo)man?”, explores the role of clothing in The Decameron as a means of expressing both outward characteristics and inner identity — whether that identity is consciously chosen or externally imposed. Through a close reading of several stories, she examines how clothing reflects and constructs identity. She says that she was drawn to this particular topic because of its relevance to contemporary conversations around immigration, where clothing often serves as the first — and sometimes only — marker of identity and privilege. Clothing transcends language and remains a powerful form of communication, both in Boccaccio’s time and today.
For 2026, her research is titled, “Costumbres and Costumes: Weaving History and Identity from the Decameron to the Quinceanera”, and was conducted for the UCLA Keck Fellowship under the mentorship of Professor Roberta Morosini.
Learn more about the American Boccaccio Association’s Velli Prize here.