Dr Elena Borelli joined King’s College London Language Centre in 2017. She completed her Classics MA at Bologna University (2002) and her Second Language Acquisition MA from the University of Venice (2005). She completed her Ph.D. in Italian and French Literature at Rutgers University (2012). From 2012 to 2016, she was Assistant Professor of Italian at the City University of New York, She speaks English, French, Spanish and German. Dr Elena Borelli is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is the co-founder of NILI UK (Network Insegnanti di Lingua Italiana), a network of Italian language educators focusing on innovative and inclusive pedagogy. She is now Team Leader for Italian and Linguistics. She looks after the Italian and Intercultural Awareness provisions, in particular assessment, quality assurance, and teacher training.

Research, Scholarly projects and Academic Awards

Her research focuses on the history and practice of translation, as well as on nineteenth-century Italian literature, with a focus on the notions of desire and on Darwinism and Gothic literature in fin-de-siècle Italy. She has co-translated Poemi Conviviali by Giovanni Pascoli into English, produced a podcast and organised several public readings of this work in Italy and in the UK. She is currently working on the first complete translation of Giovanni Pascoli's Canti di Castelvecchio. She is also interested in ecocriticism in the fin de siècle, and she is currently writing a book chapter on narratives of the end of the world, as well as an article on multilingualism in Decadent literature.

Elena also teaches and researches issues of cultural identity and intercultural competence. She is currently involved in a qualitative research project focusing on the development of cultural competence among teachers in the King’s Language Centre.

Academic Publications:

Podcat: “An Ancient Language for a Modern Soul. Poemi Conviviali by Giovanni Pascoli.” www.poemiconviviali.com

Borelli, E. Baronti, G. (2025) Teach Yourself Complete Italian. John Murray/Hachette.

Borelli, E., Farabegoli, G. (2025) “Musica Sine Anima. Fear and Attraction towards the Musical Automata in the Churches of 20^th-Century Italy” in SIM Yearbook 2022, pp.99-118.

Borelli, E. (2024) “Tra l’Universale e il Particolare: le traduzioni inglesi dei Canti di Castelevecchio” in Rivista Pascoliana no. 35, pp. 167-180.

Borelli, E., Farabegoli, G. (2022) “Pettirossi pascoliani per Puccini: la corrispondenza tra Pascoli e Puccini (1897-1904) e Madama Butterfly” in Rivista Pascoliana no. 34, pp. 59-74