Roberto M. Dainotto will present a lecture based on his book by Duke University Press, Europe (In Theory), winner of the $10,000 Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies for 2010.
Dainotto is professor of romance studies and of the literature program at Duke University, where he has been teaching modern and contemporary Italian literature since 1998. His research focuses on the relationship between writing and places (real or imaginary). A native of Italy, Dainotto did his undergraduate work at the University of Catania. He completed his master’s and doctorate degrees in comparative literature at New York University.
The Shannon Prize is presented annually to the author of the best book in European studies that transcends a focus on any one country, state, or people to stimulate new ways of thinking about contemporary Europe as a whole and rotates between the humanities, history, and social sciences. This is the inaugural award for the humanities, given to a book published in 2007 and 2008.