Marco Petrelli

Marco Petrelli is Associate Professor of Anglo-American Literatures in the Department of Philology, Literature and Linguistics at the University of Pisa. He holds a Ph.D. in English-Language Literatures from Sapienza University of Rome and has previously taught at the Universities of Catania, Parma, Turin, and Bologna.
In 2021 he obtained the Italian National Scientific Qualification (ASN – Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale) as Associate Professor, and in 2025 as Full Professor.
He has served as a Visiting Fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (2015) and as a Visiting Professor at Vanderbilt University (2022) and the City University of New York (2025).
He has published widely in Italian, American, and international journals and edited collections on authors including Cormac McCarthy, William Faulkner, Stephen King, Sara Taylor, Jesmyn Ward, Toni Morrison, H.P. Lovecraft, Alan Moore, Natasha Trethewey, Pauline E. Hopkins, Ida B. Wells, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison. His books include Paradiso in nero. Spazio e mito nella narrativa di Cormac McCarthy (2020); Nick Cave. Preghiere di fuoco e ballate assassine (2021); and the co-authored volume Cormac McCarthy: saggi a margine del canone (2020).
He is co-founder and co-editor-in-chief of JAm It!—Journal of American Studies in Italy, and serves on the editorial board of From the European South.
His research interests include African American literature, the American Gothic, the literatures and cultures of the U.S. South, Postmodernism, Geocriticism, and Graphic Narratives. He is also a literary critic for il manifesto. He is currently at work on a book about spectrality, the blues, and African American literature.