Chiara De Santi (she/her/hers) is Associate Professor of Modern Languages at Farmingdale State College (FSC), where she teaches courses in Italian language, culture, and cinema, and international cinema, in face-to-face, synchronous, hybrid, and online modalities. At FSC, she previously served as the Italian Language Coordinator and the Advisor of the Minor in Italian Studies. Before joining FSC in the fall of 2017, she taught for several years at the State University of New York at Fredonia as a Lecturer in the World Languages and Cultures Department, beyond serving as a teaching faculty in the departments of Visual Arts and New Media, Communication, and English.
A strong supporter of global engagement for students, faculty, and staff, she is the COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) Coordinator and the Chair of the COIL Advisory Council and of the COIL Review Board, after having led the Provost COIL Task Force in 2021-2022. As a faculty, her COIL collaborations have been with Chile, Italy, Japan, Mexico, and South Africa. She is also the advisor of the Global Learning: COIL Microcredential and of the Global and Cultural Awareness Microcredential. For COIL at Farmingdale, see here: https://www.farmingdale.edu/provost/coil.shtml
She is a representative for the states of New York and New Jersey in the Modern Languages Association (MLA) Delegate Assembly (2023-2026). Previously, she served a three year term as a New York State representative in the American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI) Executive Committee (2021-2023).
Her research interests include cinema, history, migrations, travel literature, and Italian as a second language. Her scholarly contributions have appeared in Cinema e Storia, The Journal of Language Teaching and Technology, Teaching Italian Language and Culture Annual (TILCA), Mosaic, Cultura e Comunicazione, L'Anello che non tiene, Digital Georgetown, Griselda Online, Insula Europea, Faculty Research Network, and Slavia. She co-edited a volume on Passato e presente nel cinema italiano. Storia e società sul grande schermo [Past and Present in the Italian Cinema: History and Society on the Silver Screen] (Manziana: Vecchiarelli Editore, 2022) with Federica Colleoni, and co-authored a textbook of Italian in two volumes with Francesca Calamita, DiversITALY: Elementary Italian with Inclusive Language & Gender Equality (Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt Publishing): Volume 1 (2022) and Volume 2 (2023). Her monograph was published in 2023 by Le Lettere, Florence, as Privet, compagne e compagni! Intellettuali in Unione Sovietica negli anni Cinquanta [Privet, Comrades! Intellectuals in the Soviet Union in the 1950s], while her PhD dissertation from the European University Institute was previously published as Strategies of Sovietization in Central Asia (Köln: Lambert Academic Publishing, 2009). She is currently focusing on the representation of Italian emigration in film and on Italian emigration to the Southern Cone and particularly to Chile.
A native of Tuscany, Italy, where she grew up, she now lives on Long Island. She practices yoga, and she loves traveling, reading, and cooking.
Courses Taught
ITA 121 (First Semester Italian)
ITA 122 (Second Semester Italian)
RUS 101 (First Semester Russian)
MLG 201 (Italian Food Culture and History)
MLG 300 (International Cinema)
MLG 301 (Italian Cinema)
MLG 306 (Italian Culture and Civilization)
Education
- PhD, Dept. of French and Italian (Italian; Minor: History), University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2011
- PhD, Dept. of History and Civilization (History), European University Institute, 2009
- MRes, Dept. of History and Civilization (History), European University Institute, 2004
- Laurea (MA equival.), Dept. of Foreign Languages and Literatures (Russian and French), Università degli Studi di Firenze (University of Florence), Italy, 2001 – Summa cum Laude
Certificates & Licensures
- SIELE, Certificate of Qualification in Spanish: level B2/C1, International Service of Evaluation of Spanish Language, 08/23/2024–08/23/2029
- Certificate in Belonging , Certificate of Effective Teaching Practice: Lumen Circles Fellowship in Belonging & Inclusive Teaching, Lumen Circles, 07/27/2022
- FRN Leadership Initiative, FRN Leadership Initiative, Faculty Research Network at NYU, 04/08/2022
- CITI Program Certificate, Group 3: Advanced Social/Behavioral Research (New as of August 2020), CITI, Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative, 01/28/2024–01/28/2027