After a bout of two years in medical school (enough to get a taste of the hard sciences), Maurizio Viano got a Laurea in Lettere Moderne (Bachelor in Modern Literatures) at the University of Genova, and a PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Oregon. Hired to teach in the Italian department at Wellesley College in 1984, he would soon become one of the main actors behind the creation of the Cinema and Media Studies program in 2000- a program that he currently co-directs. In addition to a book length study on Pier Paolo Pasolini’s film theory and practice, he has published on a variety of topics, ranging from philosophy to Italian-American cinema. His lifelong passion for global film history and ‘off-beat art cinema’ (yes, the elitist kind) is today taking the form of an active interest in animation, videography and pedagogy’s vicissitudes.
