Dr. Román de la Campa has been appointed to the Edwin B. and Leonore R. Williams Professorship of Romance Languages.

Dr. de la Campa, who is Chair of the Department of Romance Languages, came to Penn last fall from SUNY-Stony Brook. He is a leading scholar of Latin American literature whose recent books include Nuevas Cartografías Latinoamericanas, América Latina: Tres Interpretaciones actuales sobre su studio, Cuba on My Mind: Journeys to a Severed Nation and Latin Americanism. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota.

Dr. Edwin Williams, served as chairman of the Department of Romance Languages, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and provost of the University. Leonore Williams was an active member of University life for more than 60 years. She was a founder of the Faculty Tea Club and was an honorary board member of the Penn Women’s Club.

Dr. Fabio Finotti has been named the Mariano DiVito Professor of Italian Studies in the Department of Romance Languages.

Dr. Finotti joined the Penn faculty last fall from the University of Trieste, in Italy. He serves as director of Penn’s Center for Italian Studies. He specializes in intertextual and rhetorical strategies in Italian literature exploring the relationships among different national traditions, codes, media, genres and social structures. He is currently working on the rhetorical metamorphosis and multiplications of the ‘self’ in Italian literature, from the medieval stage to contemporary writers. A member of the advisory Board of Lettere Italiane, Dr. Finotti is general secretary of the Associazione Internazionale per gli Studi di Lingua e Letteratura Italiana.

The Mariano DiVito Professorship was created through the bequest of Mariano DiVito. Mr. DiVito came to the United States from the Abruzzo region of Italy. Upon his retirement in 1956, he traveled the world and pursued his interests in art, history and the Italian Renaissance. The DiVito chair was established in 1989 (Almanac September 26, 1989) to benefit and further Italian culture on the local, national and international levels.