ELTS welcomes two new faculty: Roberta Morosini and Vetri Nathan

As the 2024–25 academic year begins, the Humanities Division is welcoming seven new faculty members. Collectively, they bring to the division a wide array of expertise and interests; the subjects of their research span the globe, range from ancient times to the present day and even transcend species.

We extend a warm welcome to each of them. Following is a look at our newest faculty members’ scholarly interests and the courses they plan to teach:

Roberta Morosini, European Languages and Transcultural Studies, investigates Dante and, more generally, Medieval and Early Modern visual and literary culture within a pan-Mediterranean perspective. Her studies revolve around blue humanism, and her teaching and research raise awareness of forced migrations, displacement and slavery of and in the Black Mediterranean. She is teaching courses on Archipelagic-Mediterranean Dante and on Boccaccio and women at the sea.

Vetri Nathan, European Languages and Transcultural Studies, studies a range of subjects, from the cultural foundations of environmental justice — and injustice — to national, racial and diasporic identities, particularly but not limited to Italy and the wider Mediterranean region. He is the founder and director of the Cybercene Lab, a new humanities lab that will start up at UCLA in the coming year. The lab is envisioned as a gathering space to study multispecies wellbeing, healing and habitability, and the connections between cultural discourse in a digitally connected world, manufactured conflicts, climate change and habitat and biodiversity loss. His courses will explore various topics such as Italian and global food studies, Black and migrant Italy and the multispecies humanities.