DrDiana Battaglia

My research interests span from  Cultural Studies, Literary Theory, Literary Analysis to ELE and Intercultural communication. 

I am broadly interested in literature and fiction as theoretical tools for reflecting on cultural and social questions in the contemporary world, and as privileged media for exploring and interrogating how cultural identities are constructed and represented. My work on contemporary Latin American literature and on detective fiction focuses on the negotiation and redefinition of the concepts of cultural memory, spatial belonging and identity in crime novels settled during periods of transitions and crisis. The crime genre is examined as a cultural medium for analysing shifting identities in contemporary society, adopting a comparative perspective that foregrounds its transnational and diasporic dimensions, as well as alternative forms of memory and non-normative identity performances. This research proposes the reading of crime fiction as a site for the enactment of cultural memories and the re-construction of cultural identities. The genre results particularly fruitful to analyse and represent conflicts and transformations and to address current issues such as gender politics, sistemic violence, international migration, historical legacies of coloniality, cultural hybridity.

My first research project focused on the representation of Cuban identities in the crime novels of Leonardo Padura Fuentes. Drawing on theories on transculturalization, identity positionality, cultural memory and spatial belonging, the project showed how Padura's characters constantly negotiate and reshape their identities in the post-Soviet period.

My previous research and dissertation also explored the representation of memory, trauma and cultural identity in contemporary Hispanic cultural production.

My main area of interest related to ELE is the study of the development of intercultural and pragmatic competence in Spanish as a Foreign Language through the use of authentic material. Achieving full communicative competence, especially in advanced learners, involves considering the socio-cultural component and the context in which communicative exchanges take place. The cultural component cannot be conceived as something isolated from the study of the foreign language, but rather as an everyday tool shared by speakers and embedded in the language.Thus socio and inter cultural competence and awareness are essential parts of a language training and, for this reason, the L2 teacherar and learner must acquire a cultural dimension and a socio-cultural knowledge that enable them to communicate appropriately and effectively in a different language and culture. The emergence of new communication tools and technologies makes available to the foreign language teacher a variety of authentic materials which can serve as a starting point and support for the foreign language teaching/learning process and that can serve as a genuine example and vehicle to share cultural knowledge.