I’m a literary scholar, writer, and Assistant Professor of Italian Studies at NYU. Previously, I was at Princeton University’s Society of Fellows. My academic training, which focused on literary history, philology, and literary theory, took place at the University of Milan and Stanford University. 

My scholarship is rooted in modern Italian literature, with particular emphasis on the nineteenth-century polymath Giacomo Leopardi. I also write on topics ranging from horror studies and the philosophy of technology to the role of internet culture in politics. Most of my publications can be found here.


Ordinary Horror: The Aesthetics of Deformation from Leopardi to Ferrante
Stanford University Press, 2026

Ordinary Horror is about the horror that haunts ordinary life and the forms it takes in literature outside the horror genre. Its introduction is available here.

I spoke about this book on Entitled Opinions and Hermitix. I also wrote a piece about my concept of “ordinary horror” for the Los Angeles Review of Books.


Strano mondo nuovo
(Forthcoming with Sellerio, 2027)

This trade book explores the role of internet subcultures in the rise of the New American Right, analyzing how cyberspace is no longer simply leaking into the “real world,” but actively terraforming it. Blending narrative essay, media archaeology, critical theory, and memoir, Weird New World examines how imageboards like 4chan, online gaming communities, and internet thinkers have been reshaping contemporary political discourse and our collective imagination.