Dr Alessandro Castellini

Dr Castellini is currently working on two new projects that further advance his research interests in motherhood and translation respectively. The first investigates a growing preoccupation with a "maternal potential for violence" in contemporary Italian culture. Using an interdisciplinary methodology that borrows from cultural studies, feminist theory and sociology of emotions, it explores a multimedia cultural archive on postpartum disorders to expand current discussions of maternal ambivalence beyond the familiar politics of guilt, shame and medicalization.

Dr Castellini’s second project foregrounds how "thinking-through-translation" problematizes ideas of centre/periphery in the teaching and practicing of gender theories, dislocating the West as the privileged site of theoretical processing, and calling into question the global hegemony of English as the lingua franca of academia. Building on postcolonial feminist theory, socio-linguistics, philosophy of translation, critical pedagogies, as well as an evolving sensitivity to language diversity in transnational gender and sexuality studies, this second strand of research encourages the collective envisioning of a "translational pedagogy" to enhance accountability inside and outside the classroom.

Dr Castellini has taught extensively at both undergraduate and postgraduate level across departments at the LSE and at UCL. He has been Teaching Fellow in Transnational Gender Studies at the Department of Gender Studies where he contributed to courses such as Gender Theories: An Interdisciplinary Approach, Gender, Knowledge and Research Practice and Screening the Present: Contemporary Cinema and Cultural Critique. He was LSE Fellow on the undergraduate course LSE100: The LSE Course where he co-led the LSE100 Equity Diversity and Inclusion project which is devoted to gender and diversity mainstreaming and the creation of an inclusive curriculum.

Dr Castellini is Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and the student-focused pedagogy that informs his teaching practice benefits from his training in Nonviolent Communication. As a member of the GTA London Network (in part funded by the Staff and Educational Development Association), he co-created a series of scenario-based resources for GTAs in higher-education institutions. At the LSE the project was coordinated by Dr Claire Gordon and Dr Colleen McKenna and focused on a range of EDI (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) issues such as "sexist and homophobic micro-aggressions in the classroom." The resources thus created are currently being used in the context of teachers' PGCHE training at the LSE.

Dr Castellini has taught on the following courses during his time with the Department:

• MC408 Theories and Concepts in Media and Communications
• MC411 Media and Globalisation
• MC418 Communication: Cultures and Approaches
• MC438 Mediated Feminisms
• MC4M1 Methods of Research in Media and Communications
• MC499 Dissertation (as dissertation supervisor)