Professor Ronnie Ferguson
Contact Details
rgf@st-andrews.ac.uk
Phone: 01334 463668
Office: Buchanan 303
Research and Teaching
My main research interest is Italian Renaissance theatre, especially comedy in Venice and the Venetian state between c.1500 and c.1560. I have published extensively, and am continuing to carry out research, on Angelo Beolco (Ruzante), on the popular theatre of the early Conquecento, on multilingual Renaissance theatre and on stage sets of the period.
I work and publish on Italian dialectology, with a particular focus on the dialects of the north east of Italy. I have recently applied koineisation and sociolinguistic models to establish the origins of Venetian. My book A Linguistic History of Venice was published by Olschki of Florence (2007). I have published a series of etymological studies of north-eastern Italian lexis in major journals (Lingua Nostra, L'Italia Dialettale, Ce Fastu). I am continuing to research and publish on aspects of Venetian and Veneto linguistics, etymology and onomastics.
My next monograph will be Saggi di Lingua e Cultura Veneta. It will consist of some 10 chapters amounting to c. 100,000 words. It will cover aspects of literature, drama, philology and linguistics relating to Venice and the Veneto.
My research on Italian identity has ranged from work on the Italian far right to my edited volume on Italian Identities (Oxford, Forum for Modern Language Studies). I am currently working on the links between language and identity and on the theory and mechanics of language variation and change.
My work on Dante is particularly focused on Dante's use of naturalistic similes. At the moment I am carrying out a study of bird imagery in the Commedia.