Luca Barattoni, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of World Cinema and Visual Rhetorics

Contact
Department of Interdisciplinary Studies
Office: Daniel 330D
Email: lbaratt@clemson.edu

Education
Ph.D. Italian Studies and Communication, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill; M.A. Italian Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; B.A. Russian Language and Literature, University of Bologna

Curriculum Vitae

Courses
Global Hollywood; History of Soviet-Russian Cinema; Film Genres; Introduction to Documentary; Cinema and the Anthropocene (RCID); Serious Games (RCID)

Research Interests
Film Philosophy; Cinema and the Anthropocene; Biopolitics and the Visual; Video Games and Popular Industries

Dr. Barattoni is the author of Italian Post-Neorealist Italian Cinema (Edinburgh UP, 2012) and The Biopolitical Turn in World Cinema: Visual Landscapes of Social Power (SUNY P, 2026). He is the lead editor of the forthcoming Intellect Handbook of Cinema and the Anthropocene which will be the first publication of its kind to address the intersection of the visual and ecocritical, post-human, and Anthropocenic anxieties at the transnational level. Dr. Barattoni supervises doctoral research in film history, theory and criticism and game studies: he worked for the Criterion Collection Blu-ray of Antonio Pietrangeli’s I Knew Her Well (2016) and is a member of the Organization Committee of the annual Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference. His most recent research project, tentatively entitled Materialist Routines, Scripted Desires: Procedural Logic in the Age of Virtual Ideology investigates how FP shooters and sims engage with the material base during their world-building processes. Dr. Barattoni has served in the Clemson University’s Faculty Senate and is currently a member of the Council of Undergraduate Learning.

Selected Professional Works

Books (Published)

The Biopolitical Turn in World Cinema: Visual Landscapes of Social Power. New York: SUNY Press, 2026.

Italian Post-Neorealist Cinema. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 2012.

Natura, cosmo e città nel primo Majakovskij. Pasian di Prato: Campanotto Editore, 2011.

Books (Edited)

Nuriel, Patricia and Luca Barattoni (eds.): Jewish Identities in Latin American Cinema, a special issue for Post Script: Essays in Film and the Humanities (2019)

With Massimiliano Delfino. The Intellect Handbook of Cinema and the Anthropocene. Bristol: Intellect Books, forthcoming 2028.

Journal Articles & Book Chapters (Published)

“Tonino Guerra’s Partnership with Franco Indovina: Bio-egalitarianism and Anarcho-Bakhtinianism.” Geoffrey M. Lokke, ed. Screen Storytellers: Tonino Guerra. London and New York: Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2027.

“Abel Ferrara’s The Funeral: Taking Aim at the Stereotype.” In Fulvio Orsitto and Daniele Fioretti, eds. Italian Americans on Screen. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022.

“The Phenomenology of Orphan Black as Molecular Politics.” In Di?dem Sezen, Feride Çiçeko?lu, Asl? Tunç, Ebru Thwaites Diken, eds. Female Agencies and Subjectivities in Film and Television. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020.

Bergsonian themes and the human condition in Pirandello's Notebooks of Serafino Gubbio, Cinema Operator. Forum Italicum, Vol. 45 No. 1, Spring 2011, 80-99.

On the Phenomenology of (Mis)Representation: Anna As Failed Encounter. In Antonio Vitti, ed. Incontri culturali da oltreoceano. Pesaro: Metauro Edizioni, 2008, 23-39.

Translation of Aleksandr Melichov's novel Ispoved' Evreja in Slavia, 1999-2000.

Conference Presentations (Delivered)

“The phenomenology of Orphan Black as molecular politics.” Female Agency and Subjectivity in Film and Television. Bilgi University, Istanbul, April 11-13, 2019.

“Biopower in the Films of Asghar Farhadi and Kirill Serebrennikov.” Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Online conference, previously intended for April 2020 and then rescheduled because of COVID-19, March 17-21, 2021.

“From Bio- to Eco-politics: The (Un)intended consequences of biopower in Xiaoshuai Wang and Wang Bing.” Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Online conference, March 31-April 3, 2022.

“The Freedom of Forced Labor: Lazzaro felice and the New Forms of Serfdom.” Society for Cinema and Media Studies. Denver, April 12-15, 2023.

“Shakhnazarov, Balabanov, Loznitsa: Genealogizing/Legitimizing Power in Soviet-Russian Cinema.” Boston, Society for Cinema and Media Studies, March 14-17, 2024.

“How WOKE Won and Saved Capitalism in the Process: Borderlands The Series as Culture Wars.” Chicago, Society for Cinema and Media Studies, April 3-6, 2025.

With Andreea Mihalache, “Decay, Deform, Divide: Radu Jude’s Bucharest and the Deconstruction of a National Mythology.” Architecture & Film: A Biannual Symposium on the Intersection of Film and Space. Kent, Kent State University, October 23-24, 2025.