Prof. Heather Sottong is Assistant Professor - Literary & Cultural Studies at FLAME University. She received her PhD degree and MA in Italian from University of California, Los Angeles. In addition, she also has a Bachelor’s degree in German from University of Notre Dame.

Prof. Heather has a total work experience of over fifteen years and was associated with UCLA, Northeast Normal University (China), Coverfly, UC Riverside, Institute for Intercultural Studies, Los Angeles, Tolomei Cultural Institute and Inlingua, Italy.

She specializes in medieval and Renaissance literature in comparative contexts and the literary appropriation of Dante in the Americas. Her research and publications focus on the role that the Divine Comedy played in 19th and 20th century Argentine letters and politics. Her most recent articles include “The Afterlife of Dante in Argentina,” California Italian Studies Vol. 9 (2019); “Bartolomé Mitre’s Translation of the Divine Comedy: An Anti-Martín Fierro,” Annali d’italianistica 38 Nation(s) and Translations (2020); and “‘The Hero of Two Worlds’: The Equestrian Monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi in Buenos Aires, Argentina,” Italian American Review, 12.1 (forthcoming). 

Prior to joining FLAME, Heather was Visiting Assistant Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature at UC Riverside and Principal Editor for the UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, where she managed the journals Viator and Comitatus and the book series Cursor Mundi. 

Scholarly Publications

• “Hypermedievalizing and De-medievalizing Dante: Leopoldo Lugones’s and Jorge Luis Borges’s Rewritings of Inferno V,” Iberoamerican Neomedievalisms, edited by Nadia Altschul (forthcoming).


• “‘The Hero of Two Worlds’: The Equestrian Monument to Giuseppe Garibaldi in Buenos Aires, Argentina,” Italian American Review: Monuments, Memorials, and Italian Migrations, 12.1 (forthcoming).


• “Bartolomé Mitre’s Translation of the Divine Comedy: An Anti-Martín Fierro,” Annali d’italianistica 38 Nation(s) and Translations (2020): 325-342. https://www.academia.edu/44689018/_Annali_dItalianistica_Volume_38_2020_Nation_s_and_Translation_edited_by_Norma_Bouchard_and_Valerio_Ferme


• “The Afterlife of Dante in Argentina,” California Italian Studies 9 (2019): 1-22.             https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2qq1510s


• “Three Argentine Visions of Francesca: Victoria Ocampo, Jorge Luis Borges, and Leopoldo Lugones,” in Women in Hell: Francesca da Rimini & Friends Between Sin, Virtue, and Heroism, edited by Massimo Ciavolella and Ferruccio Farina (Rimini: Editrice Romagna Arte e Storia, 2013), 59-72.


• “The Crowd and Manzoni’s Conception of Cultural Unification,” Carte Italiane 8 (2012): 29-39. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5nd9x6ds


• “Excess and Antagonism in Giordano Bruno’s Il candelaio,” Carte Italiane 7 (2011): 1-13. https://escholarship.org/content/qt7h68q6dk/qt7h68q6dk.pdf?t=nd0sw1


• “Marinetti’s Metaphorical Break with Tradition,” Carte Italiane 6 (2010): 7-16.             https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6s96x8h5