Judith Tauber is a PhD candidate concentrating in Italian and French Cultural History. Before commencing her doctoral studies, she received a B.A. from the College of William & Mary. Her research focuses on social change, cultural representations, the functioning of power, as well as the meanings of violence and consensus. In her dissertation, she traces the development of narratives—particularly those present in cinema—retelling Italy and France’s social protests in the 1960s and 1970s. Other projects have centered on the Red Brigades’ interpretation of consensus; Siegfried Kracauer’s comments on the political potential in Italian neorealist films; and the Situationist International’s take on violence. Her work, which tends to cross cultural and linguistic boundaries thanks to her competency in six languages, has been supported by the Cesare Barbieri Endowment at Trinity College, the American Association for Italian Studies, the Northeast Modern Language Association, the Modern Language Association, and the Mellon Foundation as well as Cornell University’s Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, Institute for European Studies, and Society for the Humanities.

Rooted in social justice pedagogy and the multicultural teaching approach, her classes enable students to think critically about themselves in relation to their own and other cultures. She employs a strongly student-centered approach to cultivate both autonomy and collaboration in her students. In addition to teaching Italian language at Cornell, she has taught in medium- and maximum-security prisons in Upstate New York for the Cornell Prison Education Program as instructor of record for “Cinematic Eye of Italy” and teaching assistant for “World Literature I” and “The Poetics of Modernism.” Her teaching has been recognized by the Stephen and Margery Russell Distinguished Teaching Award and the Cornelia Ye Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award.