Professor Santovetti’s principal research interests are modern literature, cultural politics, intellectual history, linguistics, and film studies. She has written, edited, and translated books and essays on eighteenth-century aesthetics, modern topography, fluvial culture, the cinema of poetry, film adaptation, public intellectuals, and slow food. Most recently she edited and wrote the introduction to Modernitalia by Jeffrey T. Schnapp (London: P. Lang, 2013) –a comparative study of Italian modernities.

In 2012, she developed the model for the Modern Languages curriculum and recently proposed an Italian III course. She is a member of the Foreign Language Center.

Last but not least, Francesca holds a diploma from the French Cordon Bleu Cuisine School, and likes to think of herself as an educated, trans-national chef. After all, gastronomic recipes have always helped her students to overcome the difficulties in learning the secrets of the ‘imperativo’, and the ‘forma impersonale’.