Course Materials

Primary sources (volumes to buy, see http://hunter.textbookx.com/institutional/)

  • My Ferrante, Elena. My Brilliant Friend. Book One of the Neapolitan Novels. Ann Goldstein. New York: Europa Editions, 2012. ISBN 978-1609450786
  • Ferrante, Elena. The Story of a New Name. Book Two of the Neapolitan Novels. Ann Goldstein. New York: Europa Editions, 2013. ISBN 978-1609451349
  • Ferrante, Elena. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay. Book Three of the Neapolitan Novels. Ann Goldstein. New York: Europa Editions, 2014. ISBN 978-1609452339
  • Ferrante, Elena. The Story of the Lost Child. Book Four of the Neapolitan Novels. Ann Goldstein. New York: Europa Editions, 2015. 978-1609452865

Secondary Sources (subject to change)

Other suggested readings:

  • Blackwood, Sarah and Sarah Mesle. “The Function of Pettiness at the Present Time.” ASAP July 22, 2017.
  • Cavanaugh, Jillian R. “Indexicalities of Language in Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels: Dialect and Italian as Markers of Social Value and Difference.” In The Works of Elena Ferrante: Reconfiguring the Margins. Ed. Grace Russo Bullaro and Stephanie V. Love. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2016. 45-70.
  • De Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex (1949)
  • Deutsch, Abigail. “Fiction in Review: Elena Ferrante.” The Yale Review2 (2015): 158-165.
  • Eigen, Michael. Toxic Nourishment. London: Karnac, 1999.
  • Eigen, Michael. Damaged Bonds. London: Karnac, 2001.
  • Ferrante, Elena. Frantumaglia: A Writer’s Journey. Ann Goldstein. New York: Europa Editions, 2016. (excerpts). On reserve at the library.
  • Gill, Rosalind. “Postfeminist media culture: Elements of a sensibility,” European Journal of Cultural Studies 10.2 (2007): 147-166.
  • Maksimowicz, Christine. “Maternal Failure and Its Bequest: Toxic Attachment in the Neapolitan Novels.” In The Works of Elena Ferrante: Reconfiguring the Margins. Ed. Grace Russo Bullaro and Stephanie V. Love. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2016. 207-236.
  • Milkova, Stiliana. “Mothers, Daughters, Dolls: On Disgust in Elena Ferrante’s La figlia oscura.” Italian Culture2 (September 2013): 91-109.
  • Ngai, Sianne, Ugly Feelings. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007. (especially chapter “Envy”)
  • Ricciardi, Alessia, “Can the Subaltern Speak in Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels?” Estetica 7.2 (2017): 293-312.
  • Segnini, Elisa, “Local Flavour vs Global Readership: The Elena Ferrante Project and Translatability,” The Italianist 37.1 (2017): 100-118.

Films and videos

  • Costanzo, Saverio (Dir.), My Brilliant Friend, season 1, 2018.
  • Durzi, Giacomo (Dir.) Ferrante Fever, 2017. The series is available on demand on HBO and on Amazon Prime. The DVD will be on reserve in the Library.