Michigan State University

Arts and Letters College Directory

Juliet Guzzetta

  • (She / lei)
  • Associate Professor
  • English
Biography

Juliet Guzzetta holds joint appointments in the Department of English and the Department of Romance and Classical Studies. Her first book, The Theater of Narration: From the Peripheries of History to the Main Stages of Italy (Northwestern UP, 2021; translation in Italian by Accademia University Press, 2023), explores a form of contemporary solo theater in its historical, political, and performative dimensions. It received an honorable mention from the Modern Language Association for the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Publication Award for a Manuscript in Italian Literary Studies. She has published articles and essays in Theatre History Studies, Annali d’Italianistica, gender/sexuality/italy, Spunti e ricerche, Italica and several edited volumes, and recently published a translation of Giuliana Musso’s Dentro. Una storia vera se volete, which was awarded the 2025 American Society of Theatre Research Translation Prize. Her co-edited collection with Graziella Parati, Italian Feminisms: Transnational Praxes for Today and Tomorrow is slated for publication in October of 2026 with SUNY Press. Currently Guzzetta is writing a monograph provisionally titled Acting Class: Lessons from Franca Rame about politics and feminism in postwar Italy that centers Rame’s performances and activism as a model for political discourse, socially committed artistry, and grounded wide-ranging critique. This project received a 12-month Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities (that DOGE illegally rescinded).  From 2021-2025 she was the President of the Women’s Studies Caucus for the American Association for Italian Studies. Her research has also received support with a year-long Fulbright grant to Italy, and Harvard’s Mellon School for Theater and Performance Research among a range of internal grants and awards. Prior to her academic career, Guzzetta co-authored and acted in numerous plays throughout New York City and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, after studying at the Moscow Art Theater and at the British American Drama Academy in Oxford.

Research Interests: 20th and 21st century Italian culture; dramatic literature; performance studies; cinema studies; gender studies

Degrees: PhD, University of Michigan; BA, Connecticut College

Works

For a complete list, visit the scholarship tab at https://julietguzzetta.com/

The Theater of Narration: From the Peripheries of History to the Main Stages of Italy. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2021. (Il teatro di narrazione. Dalle periferie della storia ai grandi teatri italiani. Tradotto da Monica Capuani e Francesco Bianchi. Accademia University Press: Turin, Italy, 2023)

“In Search of a Human/e Logic: An Introduction to Giuliana Musso’s Dentro (Inside);” Dentro (Inside). A True Story, If You Think So [translation of Giuliana Musso’s full-length play Dentro. Una storia vera, se volete]; “Conclusion: Translation Reflections.” Delos: A Journal of Translation and World Literature. University of Florida Press, vol. 38.2 (2024): 121-164.

“Epistemologie incarnate: La drammaturgia somatica di Giuliana Musso in Mio eroe.” Italica. University of Illinois Press, vol. 100.3 (2023): 445-457.

“Dominique Morisseau’s Blood at the Root: Intersectionality and the Jena Six” in Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Plays by Women: The Early Twenty-First Century. Eds. Penelope Farfan and Lesley Ferris. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2021: 211-219.

College of Arts & Letters News
Notice of Nondiscrimination | Privacy Statement | Site Accessibility
SPARTANS WILL | © Michigan State University