Meet the Team
The UPLIFT research group brings together experts in different languages and literatures, coordinated by a Comparative Literature scholar to ensure interdisciplinary dialogue and methodological cohesion. With diverse expertise and a shared drive for innovation, the team builds both rigorous research and a foundation for future international collaborations.
Serena Fusco
Principal Investigator
Associate Professor of Literary Criticism and Comparative Literature, Fusco studies speculative fiction, digital narratives, and Chinese/American literature. She explores how utopian and dystopian stories reimagine culture globally, coordinating the project while researching Sinophone, Anglophone, and Italophone literary and digital media.
Andrea Fernando De Carlo
Associate Professor of Polish Literature, De Carlo studies 19th–20th century authors and urban imagery, from Warsaw under siege to literary Naples. In the project, he offers a Central and Eastern European perspective, analyzing recent Polish literature’s urban destruction and reconstruction through an ecocritical lens.
Raffaele Esposito
Associate Professor of Modern Hebrew Literature, Esposito studies Hebrew and Jewish texts and theatre. His research focuses on contemporary Israeli speculative fiction, exploring ecological and political dystopias. In the project, he examines how global crises intersect with local history, memory, and cultural identity.
Gala Maria Follaco
Associate Professor of Japanese Literature, Follaco studies the Japanese city from modern to contemporary times, with a focus on Tokyo. In the project, she brings a historical and literary perspective on Japan, enriching the global comparative study of urban space in literature.
Marco Ottaiano
Associate Professor of Spanish Language and Translation, Marco Ottaiano studies contemporary Spanish urban fiction and Ibero-American dystopias. In the project, he analyzes urban narratives, focusing on Madrid as both a Spanish microcosm and a global metropolis, exploring its portrayal in contemporary Spanish literature.