- Dr. Santa Casciani, Faculty Director
Professor of IC 360, Dante’s Divine Comedy
Santa Casciani, Ph.D., director of the Bishop Anthony M. Pilla Program in Italian American Studies at John Carroll University. As Associate Professor of Italian language and literature at John Carroll, Dr. Casciani has developed undergraduate courses dealing with Italian and Italian American literature. She has published extensively in Italian literature, including work focused on authors such as Dante and Michelangelo.
Before coming to John Carroll to direct the Bishop Pilla Program in 1999, Dr. Casciani held faculty positions at the Pennsylvania State University and the University of Missouri at Columbia. She earned her Ph.D. in Italian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, her M.A. in Italian at the Ohio State University, her B.A. in Italian and English at Saint John Fisher College in Rochester, New York and AS in Marketing from Monroe Community College also in Rochester, New York.. She was born in L’Aquila, Italy, and immigrated to Rochester, New York, as a teenager.
- Luigi G. Ferri, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Italian
Dr. Luigi G. Ferri is Assistant Professor of Italian Language and Literature at John Carroll. He graduated in 1998 from Università degli Studi di Urbino – Italy with a doctoral degree in Education (specialization in Foreign Languages and Literatures), and in 2003 he earned a Ph. D. in Italian at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also developed a course of Italian for Business. Before joining John Carroll University, Dr. Ferri held a faculty position at the University of Central Florida, Orlando.
He has published scholarly articles on Alessandro Manzoni and Carlo Emilio Gadda, and a book of short stories titled “Resurrecturis”. His research and teaching interests include all levels of Italian language (including Italian for Business and Finance), Italian modern literature, Italian opera of the 19th and 20th century, Italian politics, and the relationship between Italian intellectuals and Fascism.
The Pilla Program Summer Institute 