Jo Ann Cavallo

Jo Ann Cavallo is Professor of Italian in the Columbia University Department of Italian, where she has taught since 1988 and served as Chair from 2014 to 2025. She has published widely on Italian literature and culture, especially Renaissance chivalric epics and their adaptation in popular performance traditions.  Her latest book is Narrazioni epiche nella cultura popolare italiana: L’Opera dei Pupi siciliana e il Maggio tosco-emiliano. Her previous two books, The Sicilian Puppet Theater of Agrippino Manteo and The World beyond Europe in the Romance Epics of Boiardo and Ariosto, received multiple awards and have been published in Italian translation. She has edited and co-edited several volumes, including Libertarian Literary and Media Criticism, Teaching World Epics, World Epics and Puppet Theater, Teaching the Italian Renaissance Romance Epic, and Speaking Truth to Power from Medieval to Modern Italy. She created the eBOIARDO and World Epics websites, founded the Anthem World Epic and Romance book series, and edits the Literary Encyclopedia’s Italian literature and culture volume.