Kristina Marie Olson

Olson’s specialization is in medieval Italian literature. She employs new approaches to reading and teaching this literary canon, often with an eye to understanding ethics, gender, economics, and political history. Many of her essays explore the later reception of Dante and Boccaccio in artistic and literary adaptations and translations. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Dante Studies. She served as the President (2020-23), Vice President (2017-20), and Treasurer (2014-17) of the American Boccaccio Association. She served two terms as Vice President of the Dante Society of America (2016-18). She is the author of an Audible Original book on Boccaccio's Decameron which is part of the Great Courses "Books That Matter" series. For the Teaching Company (Great Courses), she also created and taught an original Italian language course program, titled "Learning Italian: Step by Step and Region by Region," which consists of twenty-four video lectures and a workbook.

Education

• PhD - Italian, Columbia University

Courses Taught

• FRLN 550: Boccaccio's Decameron
• FRLN 330: Topics in World Literature
• HNRS 122/230: The Language of Empire: Ancient Rome, Italy and Africa
• HNRS 122: Hell on Earth
• ITAL 420: Global and Local Italy
• ITAL 360: The Italian South
• ITAL 340: Italian through the Arts (Film / Opera)
• ITAL 330/331: Advanced Italian: Language and Culture I & II
• ITAL 320: Italian Cinema / Neorealism and Global Cinema / Neorealism and Its Legacy
• ITAL 325: Major Italian Writers ("Dante's Divine Comedy"; "Dante's Inferno"; "The Literature of the Black Death: Boccaccio's Decameron")
• ITAL 201 & ITAL 202: Intermediate Italian II
• ITAL 101 & ITAL 102: Elementary Italian I and II
• ITAL 110: Elementary Italian

Publications

Monograph

• Courtesy Lost: Dante, Boccaccio and the Literature of History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015.

Edited Volumes

• A World of Possibilities: The Legacy of 'The Undivine Comedy.' Series: Cultural Inquiry (#37). Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2025.
• Boccaccio Internazionale / International Boccaccio: Selected Essays of the Fifth Triennial Conference of the American Boccaccio Association, University of Padua (June 6-8, 2022). Edited by Valerio Cappozzo, Maggie Fritz-Morkin, Rino Modonutti, and Kristina Olson. Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2025.
• Approaches to Teaching Dante’s Divine Comedy. Second edition. Edited with Christopher Kleinhenz. Series: Approaches to Teaching World Literature. New York: Modern Language Association, 2020.
• Boccaccio 1313-2013. Edited with Francesco Ciabattoni and Elsa Filosa. Ravenna: Longo Editore, 2015.
• Open City: Seven Writers in Post-War Rome. Edited with William Weaver. South Royalton, VT: Steerforth Press, 1999.

Audiobook

• "Books That Matter: Boccaccio's Decameron,” Audible, 2021.

Selected Articles

• "The Whole Book: Eroticism and Censorship in Boccaccio’s Decameron.” In The Oxford Handbook of Italian Literature, ed. Stefano Jossa. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press (2025). https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197613955.001.0001
• "In Good Faith: From Dante’s First American Poet-Translator, Thomas William Parsons, to Sandow Birk, Marcus Sanders and Mary Jo Bang." In American Dantes: Traditions, Translations, Transformations, eds. Theodore J. Cachey, Jr., and Zygmunt Barański. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2025, pp.161-180.
• "'Maintaining Neutrality in a Period of Moral Crisis': The Appropriation of Inferno 3 from JFK to Martha Nussbaum.” In Dante Beyond Borders, ed. Nick Havely. Cambridge: Legenda, 2021, pp. 311-323.
• "The Ethical and Sartorial Geography of the Far East: Tartar Textiles in Boccaccio’s Decameron and Esposizioni," Le Tre Corone. Rivista internazionale di studi su Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio 6 (2019): 125-139.
• “Shoes, Gowns, and Turncoats: Reconsidering Cacciaguida’s History of Florentine Fashion and Politics,” Dante Studies 134 (2016): 26-47.
• “The Language of Women as Written by Men: Dante, Boccaccio, and Gendered Histories of the Vernacular,” Heliotropia 8-9 (2011-12, http://www.heliotropia.org/08-09/olson.pdf) Reprinted in Heliotropia 700/10: A Boccaccio Anniversary Volume (LED, 2013), pp. 217-236.