Madeline Grossman

Biography

Madeline is a first-year PhD student in Italian Studies at the University of Notre Dame. She earned her B.A. summa cum laude in Italian and Art History at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts with an honors thesis on gender dynamics in Elena Ferrante’s L’amica geniale, and subsequently completed a 9-month Fulbright fellowship as an English teacher in Campania, Italy. She came to Notre Dame Italian Studies in 2024, where she started her M.A. with a focus on 20th-century Italian culture, literature, and intellectual history. Her master’s thesis, entitled “Margherita Sarfatti’s Pursuit of Happiness: Negotiating Fascism and Femininity in a Transatlantic Context,” explores Italian Fascist intellectual Margherita Sarfatti’s propagandistic work in the United States in the 1930s, analysing her personal records as well as her 1937 travel narrative. The thesis investigates the stability of Sarfatti’s ideological affiliations as she negotiated between her Fascist origins and her fascination with American modernity. Throughout her doctoral studies, Madeline intends to continue studying Italian cultural and intellectual production during and after the Fascist Ventennio through figures like Sarfatti.

Beyond her academic studies, Madeline is passionate about second language acquisition and has taught beginning Italian courses as a graduate instructor at Notre Dame and as a teaching assistant at Mount Holyoke College.