Hello! I’m an author, lecturer and teacher in the humanities. I hold a B.A. in Music from the University of California at Berkeley, a Masters in Italian from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Italian Studies from U.C. Berkeley. I’ve taught at U.C. Santa Cruz, Stanford, Cornell, the University of Zagreb, and Syracuse University, where I am Professor of French, Italian and Comparative Literature, Emerita, and where I directed the Humanities Interdisciplinary Doctoral Program and held the William P. Tolley Distinguished Teaching Professorship in the Humanities. During the 1990s, I engaged in investigative journalism and activism in Bosnia and Croatia. Insiders at the U.N. have praised my book, Rape Warfare, saying it influenced the Security Council to create new laws making rape a Crime against Humanity and a War Crime.
 
Rome was home for me in the late Sixties, as I studied piano and participated in a community of musicians, journalists, dramatists, and filmmakers. Invited to translate screenplays, I learned the art of screenwriting from the inside. Teaching film along with literature at Stanford and Syracuse, I honed my analytic talents. My passion for stories readied me to answer a director’s call when, during my work in Bosnia, he asked for an original screenplay about the war crimes. The result was “His Name Is Daniel,” produced by Hallmark, followed by “The Bitter Chalice,” prizewinner at the Roma Independent Film Festival.

Every creative act is positive! I hope to see what you are doing!