Pasquale Verdicchio is Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature at the University of California San Diego, where he teaches courses in film, literature, and cultural studies. As a translator, he has published the works of Caproni, Lamarque, Merini, Pasolini, and Zanzotto, among others. His poetry, reviews, criticism, and photography have been published in journals and in book form, including Bound by Distance: Rethinking Nationalism through the Italian Diaspora (1997), Devils in Paradise: Writings on Post-Emigrant Cultures (1998), and Looters, Photographers, and Thieves: Aspects of Italian Photographic Culture in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (2011). He is also editor of the volume Ecocritical Approaches to Italian Culture and Literature: The Denatured Wild (2016). His most recent poetry collection, This Nothing”s Place, was awarded the 2010 Bressani Prize. He was among the founding members of the San Diego Italian Film Festival and the Association of Italian Canadian Writers.