Rachel A. Walsh
Rachel A. Walsh
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Chair, Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures and Associate Professor of Italian
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Ph.D. UNIVERSITY of CHICAGO
Sturm Hall 341, rachel.walsh@du.edu, 303.871.3492
Dr. Walsh is Chair of the newly formed department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures. She is also a tenured Associate Professor of Italian language, literature, and culture. Her research interests are 18th- and 19th-century Italian literature, Italian theatre, canon formation, and literary histories. Her book on Ugo Foscolo and his quest to become one of the foremost Italian tragedians of the period - Ugo Foscolo's Tragic Vision in Italy and England (University of Toronto Press, 2014) - has been reviewed by Choice, Annali d'Italianistica, Italian Culture, Spunti & Ricerche, Modern Language Review, Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, Romanic Review and Italica. Dr. Walsh has placed articles in several leading academic journals of her field, including Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana, Italica, MLN, and Rassegna Europea di Letteratura Italiana. She is also working on a critical edition of the Roman Academy of the Arcadians' manifesto La bellezza della volgar poesia (1700). Dr. Walsh was awarded a Newberry Library Long-Term Fellowship in Residence during 2013 - for her work on this project.
Dr. Walsh actively serves the profession at the national level. Her roles have included positions on the Program Committee for the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (2019, Chair 2020), and the Executive Committee for the MLA's Forum on 17th-, 18th-, & 19th-Century Italian Language, Literature, & Culture (2013-18) and the MLA Delegate Assembly (2017, 2023-25)
Advising and mentoring are integral aspects of Dr. Walsh's work. She views both as extensions of teaching that have the potential to advance student persistence and success, as well as positively advancing faculty development. Her current career goal is to foster collaborations, envision and streamline new and innovative processes that ultimately move conversations and initiatives (with students and faculty) to the next phase.
When she's not thinking, teaching, and researching in Italian, Walsh can be found with her marvelous 16 year-old daughter, incredibly delightful 12 year-old twin sons, her brilliant husband, and their rescued Australian Shepherd dog, Patches.
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News - Notizie
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REVIEWS of: Ugo Foscolo's Tragic Vision in Italy and England, Walsh, Rachel A. (University of Toronto Press, October 2014):
- Annali d’italianistica 33:472-474 (November, 2015)
- Spunti e Ricerche 30: 91-95 (2015; publ. 2016)
- Italian Culture 34.1: 51-53 (April, 2016)
- Modern Languages Review 111.3: 557-559 (July, 2016)
- Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 643: 474-475(2016; publ. 2017)
- Romanic Review 108.4: 329-331 (Nov. 2017-Jan2018; publ. 2018)
- Italica 98.2: 447-449 (Summer 2021 – publ. 2022)
"In the first English-language study of these neglected texts, Walsh crafts a detailed, informative reception history of each play in turn, drawing extensively and helpfully on contemporaneous reviews and Foscolo’s own accounts of their composition and early performances. ... A significant contribution to the literature on Italian romanticism and European theater... Recommended.
-- Choice (June, 2015), Steven Botterill, Dept. of Italian Studies, University of California, Berkeley
"Erudite and well informed, Rachel A. Walsh’s study of Ugo Foscolo the tragedian tackles a seriously understudied subject that is eminently worthy of more scholarly attention, both because of its important place in the literary output of one of Italy’s most important writers and because of its visceral link to issues of Italian identity in the period leading up to the Risorgimento.”
-- Joseph Luzzi, Italian Studies Program, Bard College
“While many scholars have written in piecemeal fashion about the three tragedies Foscolo wrote, Walsh is the first to demonstrate their intrinsic worth as well as their evolving role in Foscolo’s career. This is a well-researched book that leaves no stone unturned.”
-- Clorinda Donato, George L. Graziadio Chair of Italian Studies, California State University, Long Beach
