Gianna Albaum’s research explores the role of intoxication and addiction in modern culture. Tracing drugs and their many entanglements across philosophy, science, medicine, and literature, she is interested in the fraught relationship between colonial plant-drugs and European modernity. Drawing attention to boundaries and spaces of exchange, drugs have been a critical site in Italy and in the Global South for interrogating the legacies of colonialism and the inequalities that result from globalization. As a result, they prove rich terrain for studying race, national identity, and the Italian experience of modernity.

Her research has been supported by a number of grants and fellowships, including a Remarque Fellowship, Friends of FAI (Fondo dell’Ambiente Italiano) Fellowship, NYU Global Research Initiative Fellowship, and a Marietta di Croce Research Grant. She also studied at the Università Statale di Milano as a Fulbright Scholar.

Her work has been published in Italian Quarterly, and she currently has an article forthcoming in California Italian Studies.

Current projects include a volume on Italian Narcoliterature for Words without Borders as well as an article on race and migration in the popular television series Gomorra.

Her full CV can be found here.