History of Consciousness
ACADEMIC INTERESTS | COURSES | PUBLICATIONS
Semiotics, psychoanalysis, film theory, literary theory, feminism, lesbian and queer studies
Teresa de Lauretis, born and educated in Italy, came to the United States shortly after receiving her doctorate in Modern Languages and Literatures from Bocconi University in Milan. Before joining the History of Consciousness faculty, she taught Italian and comparative literature, semiotics, women's studies, and film studies at several American universities including the University of Colorado and the University of Wisconsin. She has also held Visiting Professorships at universities in Canada, Germany, Italy, and The Netherlands, as well as the United States. The author of seven books and over 100 articles on semiotics, psychoanalysis, film, literature, science fiction, and feminist theory, she writes in both English and Italian. Her works have been translated into fourteen other languages of Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Her books in English include Alice Doesn't: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema (1984), Technologies of Gender (1987), The Practice of Love (1994), and three edited or coedited volumes of essays, Feminist Studies/Critical Studies (1986), The Cinematic Apparatus (1980), and The Technological Imagination (1980), all published or distributed by Indiana University Press. She has also guest-edited two special issues of journals, including the "Queer Theory" issue of differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies (1990). Her books in Italian include La sintassi del desiderio: struttura e forme del romanzo sveviano (Ravenna: Longo, 1976), Umberto Eco (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1981), and Soggetti eccentrici (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1999). Collections of her essays have appeared in Spanish and Finnish translation. A collection of her essays from 1985 to 2004, Figures of Resistance: Essays in Feminist Theory, edited and with an introduction by Patricia White, is forthcoming by the University of Illinois Press in spring 2007. She is currently completing a book on the relevance of Freud's theory of drives for the present time, Death@Work: Psychoanalysis, Literature, and Film, forthcoming at Macmillan, U.K.
In 2005, de Lauretis received the honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa from the University of Lund in Sweden.
