I am an Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Milan. My research is primarily concerned with issues of cultural change, with particular attention to the interrelationships between religion and marketing, the transformations in the use of religious symbols, and the relationship between Catholicism and the media. I have published, among other things, the first major study on religion and advertising in Italy. I have also co-authored a book on the controversies sparked by the appropriation of religious symbols outside the religious domain and edited a volume on the renewed public presence of religions in Western societies.
Since October 2023, I have been serving as the Principal Investigator for a research project titled “Religion in Public: Forms and Dynamics of Religious Publicization in Italy” funded by Italy’s Ministry of University and Research (MUR-PRIN). During the 2010, 2017 and 2018 academic years, I was a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication and the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Media, Religion and Culture.
In addition to ongoing research and teaching, I am an Advisory Board member of the Network for New Media, Religion and Digital Culture Studies and Editorial Team member of Sociologica.
Please see the following links to read more about my research agenda and teaching. News coverage of my research and my media commentary are available here.