Education:
Ph.D. in Romance Languages with Major in Italian Studies and Minor in Spanish; University of Oregon (Supervisor: F. Regina Psaki, PhD).

M.A. in Italian with minor in Critical Theory (focus on Postcolonialism); Florida State University (Supervisor & Mentor: Ray Fleming. PhD)

B.A. in Italian with Minor in English and American Literature and Education; University of South Florida

World Languages Laboratory

As director of the World Languages Lab, Dr Applauso helps all faculty in World Languages select the best technological enhancements for their courses.   He provides supervision and assistance to students who are using the language lab to improve their aural and oral skills.    

Teaching and Research Interests
Dr. Applauso specializes in Dante and medieval literature (with emphasis on creative writing and political satire) and history as well as contemporary Italian history, Cinema, humor, ethics, and international politics. He particularly interested in the topic of diversity in Italian studies in relation to pedagogy and African American studies. His aim is to bring awareness and create a more inclusive representation of current demographic changes in Italy, in order to connect the new emerging Afro-Italian population in Italy with minority students in the United States. He is currently working on a monograph about the history of Italian American immigration in Maryland and examining the interaction between Italians and African American intellectuals, educators, musicians, actors, and activists such as Ira Aldridge, Frederick Douglass, Booker Taliaferro Washington, and John Kitzmiller.

Recent Courses Taught
Dr. Applauso designs and teaches all levels of Italian and Latin, as well as beginning Spanish language courses.

Since Fall 2018, he has been teaching and developing the first Italian language program at MSU and has created assessment and proficiency exams at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

The new Italian program at Morgan State University is of historical importance because it is the only Italian program currently taught in HBCUs across the United States.

https://www.jbhe.com/2019/01/morgan-state-university-in-baltimore-now-offering-courses-in-italian-language/

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_State_University

Course taught:

ITAL 204: Intermediate Italian II

ITAL 203: Intermediate Italian I

ITAL 102: Beginning Italian II

ITAL 101 Beginning Italian I

LAT 102: Beginning Latin II

LAT 101: Beginning Latin I

SPAN 101: Beginning Spanish I

Selected publications:

Books

2020    
Dante satiro: Satire in Dante Alighieri’s Comedy and Other Works. Eds. Fabian Alfie and Nicolino Applauso. Lanham, MD and London, UK: Lexington Books. Manuscript 220 pages.                                      
ISBN: 978-1-7936-2171-9. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793621726/Dante-Satiro-Satire-in-Dante-Alighieri%27s-Comedy-and-Other-Works

2019    
Dante’s Comedy and the Ethics of Invective in Medieval Italy: Humor and Evil. Lanham, MD and London, UK: Lexington Books. Manuscript 350 pages. ISBN 978-1-4985-6778-7. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498567787/Dante's-Comedy-and-the-Ethics-of-Invective-in-Medieval-Italy-Humor-and-Evil

Reviewed in Annali d’italianistica 39 (2021): 436-38 (by Madison U. Sowell, Brigham Young University)

Reviewed in Speculum 97.1 (January 2022): 141-42 (by Fabian Alfie, University of Arizona)

Reviewed in Forum Italicum (July 2022):1-2 (By Renato Ventura, University of Dayton)

Reviewed in Sixteenth Century Journal (2022) Vol. LIII, n.1: 266-268 (By Thomas J. Santa Maria, Yale University)

Forthcoming Books:

2024    
Italy Today: Changes and Challenges from WWII to the Coronavirus Pandemic, 4^th Revised Edition. Mario Mignonet and Nicolino Applauso. Manuscript 450 pages, New York: Peter Lang Publishing.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles, Book Chapters, Translations, and Encyclopedia Entries Published:

2022

“Rustico di Filippo e nuovi spunti biografici: Esplorando il campo aperto da Suitner per una nuova interpretazione della poesia comica medievale.” Santi, giullari, romanzieri poeti: Studi per Franco Suitner. Eds. Giuseppe Crimi, Luca Marcozzi, and Anna Pegoretti. Ravenna: Longo Editore, 2022. 21-30.

2021    
“African Americans and the Future of Italian Studies: Teaching Italian in Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the United States.” Diversity in Italian Studies. Ed. Anthony Tamburri. New York: Bordighera Press, 13-24.

“Rustico Filippi” eds. The Literary Encyclopedia: Exploring Literature, History and Culture; eds. Carla Bregman and Jo Ann Cavallo. First published 23 August 2021 

 “Folgore da San Gimignano.” The Literary Encyclopedia: Exploring Literature, History and Culture; eds. Carla Bregman and Jo Ann Cavallo. First published 29 June 2021 

2020    

“L’epistola a Pavia sull’Abate Tesauro,” DVD in Le Opere di Brunetto Latino, Maestro di Dante Alighieri, La Rettorica, Il Tesoretto, Il Tesoro, Scribi, Guido Cavalcanti, Dante Alighieri e Franciscus de Barberino. Ed. Julia Bolton Holloway. Florence: Regione Toscana, 2020.

“Ethics: Ethical Dimensions of Medieval Comedy,” A Cultural History of Comedy: The Middle Ages. Ed. Martha Bayless. London, UK.: Bloomsbury Publishing, 161-179.

  
“Il Capo della cancelliere imperiale: Pier della Vigna:” Nel Duecento di Dante. I personaggi. Ed. Franco Suitner. Società Dantesca Italiana. Florence: Le lettere, 2020. 337-50.

   
“Writing Like Dante: Understanding the Inferno through Creative Writing.” MLA’s Approaches to Teaching Dante’s Divine Comedy. 2nd edition. Eds. Christopher Kleinhenz and Kristina Olson. 223-30.

“Scelestissimis florentinis: Violence, Satire, and Prophecy in the ars dictaminis and Dante’s Political Epistles. Dante satiro: Satire in Dante Alighieri’s Comedy and Other Works. Eds. Fabian Alfie and Nicolino Applauso. Lanham, MD and London, UK: Lexington Books. 147-167.

2019    
“La Satira in prosa di Dante nella tradizione dell'ars dictaminis medievale: il caso delle epistole politiche.” La satira in prosa: Tradizioni, forme e temi dal Trecento all’Ottocento. Eds. Giuseppe Crimi, Carlotta Mazzoncini, and Paolo Rigo. Florence: Franco Cesati Editore. 15-25.

    
“Cenne della Chitarra.” The Literary Encyclopedia: Exploring Literature, History and Culture; eds. Carla Bregman and Jo Ann Cavallo. https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=14159

2018    
“Sarcasm and its Consequences in Diplomacy and Politics in Medieval Italy: Brunetto Latini’s Letter to Pavia and Dante’s Monarchia.” Words that Tear the Flesh: Sarcasm in Medieval and Early Modern Literature and Cultures. Eds. Alan Baragona and Elizabeth Rambo. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2018. 119-42.

2017    
“Dante, Berlusconi, and the Bordello State: Paolo Sylos Labini and James Walston’s Democratic Dante at the Ebb of the Seconda Repubblica.” ‘Dante politico’: Ideological Reception Across Boundaries. Eds. Dennis Looney and Donatella Stocchi-Perucchio. Spec. issue of Mediaevalia 38 (2017): 249-78.

  
Armando Gnisci. “Emigrants and Mestizos in Twenty-First Century Europe.” European Review, 25.4 (2017), Cambridge University Press, 1-9 [Italian-English transl. of “Migrazione e transculturazione in Europa nel XXI secolo,” Cultura del Portale Integrazione Migranti, 2014].

   
“Folgore da San Gimignano e la parodia di Cenne della Chitarra: intrighi politici e poetici (con nuovi dati  biografici).” La poesia in Italia prima di Dante. Ed. Franco Suitner. Ravenna: Longo Editore, 2017. 237-55.

2014    
“The Squallor Phenomenon: Social and Political Satire in Italian Music during the First Republic.” ‘Send in the Clowns!' Humour and Power in Italian Political, Social and Cultural Life. Eds. Andrea Hajek, Daniele Salerno, and Clare Watters. Spec. issue of Incontri:Rivista europea di studi italiani 29. 2 (2014): 30-42.

    
“S’i’ fosse foco ardere’ il mondo: L’esilio e la politica nella poesia di Cecco Angiolieri.” Letteratura Italiana Antica: Rivista annuale di testi e studi, XV (2014): 223-38. 

2013    
“Invective and Humor in the Poetry of Dante and Cecco Angiolieri.” At Whom Are We Laughing? Humor in Romance Languages and Literatures. Eds. Zenia DaSilva and Gregory Pell. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013. 207-20.

2012    
“Peasant Authors and Peasant Haters: Matazone da Caligano and the Ambiguity of the ‘Satira del villano’ in High and Late Medieval Italy.” Rural Spaces in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Time: The Spatial Turn in Premodern Studies. Eds. Albrecht Classen and Christopher Clason. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture, 7. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2012. 607-38.

2010    
“Curses and Laughter in Medieval Italian Comic Poetry: The Ethics of Humor in Rustico Filippi’s Invectives.” Laughter in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age: Epistemology of a Fundamental Human Behavior, Its Meaning, and Consequences. Ed. Albrecht Classen. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture 5. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2010. 383-412.

SELECTED SERVICE to ACADEMIA

2023-Present       Review Editor of the Editorial Board of Speculum, a Journal of Medieval Studies, The University of Chicago Press appointed by the Council of the Medieval Academy

2023-Present      Programs Coordinator of the Mid-Atlantic Association for Language Learning Technology (MAALLT) 

2019                  Committee Member of “Dante e il Mare,” International conference organized with the University of  Genova, Dept. of Italianistica, Romanistica, Antichistica, Arti e Spettacolo.

2017-Present       Editorial Board Member of the interdisciplinary journal Documenta (Fabrizio Serra Editori, Pisa, Italy) founded by Armando Antonelli, University of Bologna, Italy.

Media Coverage:

2023 

Give us our Dream Space: World Language Lab up fo Renovation, by Jordynn Blackwell, The Spokesman                                                                                                                                                                                

2021      
Lo studio della diversità degli Italiani al Calandra Italian American Institute by Giulia Baldini, La Voce di New York  

2020      
There Is Only One Race, the Human Race: Teachers of Italian in the US and Activism by Cristina Latino and Francesca Oliveri, La Voce di New York [Italian version Here]. 

2019      
Morgan State University in Baltimore Now Offering Courses in Italian Language, The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education

2019
New Italian Courses set Morgan Apart, Morgan State University Press Release.

2005
New Multicultural Magazine Makes Debut Appearance by Ryan Nutson, The Daily Emerald,