Fabrizio Foni (Umbertide, 1980) is a senior lecturer in the Department of Italian and a member of the Institute of Anglo-Italian Studies at the University of Malta. His work focuses on popular culture, with research interests spanning the Gothic, horror, science fiction, posthumanism, the adventure novels of Emilio Salgari and his followers, comic-book series, and the varied fictional depictions of sideshows and freaks. Through monographs, edited anthologies, and articles, he has challenged the long-standing view that Italy's late 19th- and early 20th-century cultural industry failed to produce a popular Gothic and fantastic literature comparable to the sensational fiction of pulp magazines, dime novels, and penny dreadfuls abroad. He is also co-author, with Stefano Lazzarin, Felice Italo Beneduce, and others, of the most comprehensive annotated bibliography of criticism on the Fantastic in Italian literature.
