Bionote
Laura Tosi is Full Professor of English Literature at the University Ca’ Foscari in Venice and Deputy Head of the Department of Linguistics and Compared Cultural Studies. Her primary research fields are Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, and children’s literature. In the field of early modern literature, she has written monographs on Ben Jonson’s plays and John Webster and co-edited essay collections for Ashgate and Palgrave Macmillan. In March 2013 she was awarded an International Teaching Excellence Bursary by University College, London and was visiting lecturer at the Department of English Language and Literature. She was in the executive board of the Italian Association of Shakespeare and Early Modern Studies from 2012 to 2018. In the field of children’s literature, she has edited and translated a collection of Victorian fairy tales, Draghi e Principesse (2003, second updated edition in 2017) and a volume on the literary fairy tale in England (La fiaba letteraria inglese, 2007, second updated edition in 2018). Her extensive work on Victorian and contemporary adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays for children has resulted in papers presented at conferences around the world, and a monograph, Raccontare Shakespeare ai bambini (2014) and articles in journals and edited volumes in English and Italian. Her own adaptation of The Merchant of Venice for Italian young readers was published in 2015: an English version of her adaptation was staged at the Globe Theatre, London in July 2016 and February 2017. Her latest monograph in the field of children’s literature is The Fabulous Journeys of Alice and Pinocchio: Exploring Their Parallel Worlds (with Peter Hunt, McFarland, 2018), which was awarded the international prize “Elisa Frauenfelder” for the area “Culture and innovation” and The AIA Book Prize 2020 (Senior category) by the English Association of Italy (AIA – Associazione Italiana Anglisti). She is responsible for the website Children’s Literature in Italy https://pric.unive.it/projects/childrens-literature-in-italy/home.