Dennis Looney

Dennis Looney has  worked at the Modern Language Association of America as director of the Office of Programs, overseeing projects related to the profession, and director of the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages (ADFL), overseeing projects focused on non-English languages, since 2014. Previously, Looney taught Italian at the University of Pittsburgh, with secondary appointments in classics and philosophy. While at Pitt, he served as chair of the Department of French and Italian for eleven years and as assistant dean of the humanities for three years. Publications include Compromising the Classics: Romance Epic Narrative in the Italian Renaissance (1996), which received honorable mention in the judging for the 1996–97 joint Howard R. Marraro Prize and Scaglione Award in Italian Studies from the MLA, and Freedom Readers: The African American Reception of Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy (2011), which received the American Association of Italian Studies Book Prize (general category) in 2011.