Lourdes Contreras holds a B.A summa cum laude from DePaul University (2020), where she completed a double major in Italian and Political Science. As part of her Italian Studies program, she focused on Moderata Fonte’s Il merito delle donne and studied the development of female companionship and Castiglione’s notion of sprezzatura during the Italian Renaissance. Throughout her Political Science studies, she concentrated on Machiavellian understandings of classic realism within international politics as well as the ways in which neoliberalism affects national identities and politics. Her work in both Italian studies and Political Science helped her cultivate an interest in literatures of migration in both Italy and the U.S. which also inspired her study of the intersections between the modern Italian political and cultural identity and Italy’s gastronomic history.
Website: www.sas.upenn.edu/italians/people/contreras
