Massimo Leone

Full Tenured Professor ("Professore Ordinario") of Philosophy of Communication and Cultural Semiotics at the University of Turin, Italy, Permanent Part-Time Visiting Full Professor of Semiotics at the University of Shanghai, China,  Associate Member of Cambridge Digital Humanities, Cambridge University, and Director of the Center for Religious Studies, "Bruno Kessler Foundation", Trento, Italy. He has obtained two ERC Grants, in 2018 and in 2022. Since 2024, he is an Ordinary Member of the Academy of Europe. He graduated in Communication Studies from the University of Siena, and holds a DEA in History and Semiotics of Texts and Documents from Paris VII, an MPhil in Word and Image Studies from Trinity College Dublin, a PhD in Religious Studies from the Sorbonne, and a PhD in Art History from the University of Fribourg (CH). He was visiting scholar at the CNRS in Paris, at the CSIC in Madrid, Fulbright Research Visiting Professor at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, Endeavour Research Award Visiting Professor at the School of English, Performance, and Communication Studies at Monash University, Melbourne, Faculty Research Grant Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto, “Mairie de Paris” Visiting Professor at the Sorbonne, DAAD Visiting Professor at the University of Potsdam, Visiting Professor at the École Normale Supérieure of Lyon (Collegium de Lyon), Visiting Professor at the Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Munich, Visiting Professor at the University of Kyoto, Visiting Professor at the Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University, Visiting Professor at The Research Institute of the University of Bucharest, Eadington Fellow at the Center for Gaming Research, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Fellow of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg „Dynamics in the History of Religions Between Asia and Europe“ (Bochum, Germany), Visiting Senior Professor at the Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften, Vienna, High-End Foreign Expert and Visiting Professor at the University of Shanghai, China,  Visiting Senior Professor at the Centre for Advanced Studies, South Eastern Europe (Croatia), Visiting Senior Professor at the Polish Institute of Advanced Studies, Warsaw (PIAST), Visiting Senior Professor at the Freiburg Institute of Advanced Studies (FRIAS, Freiburg), Senior Visiting Professor at the Paris Seine Institute of Advanced Studies, Visiting Fellow at CRASSH, University of Cambridge, Visiting Professor ("Directeur d'Études Associé) at the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (Paris), at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies, South Africa, at the Center for Advanced Studies, University of Buenos Aires, at the University of Liège, at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, and at the Hamburg Institute for Advanced Studies. His work on the semiotic study of cultures, with particular enphasis on religion and images. Massimo Leone has single-authored fifteen books, among which _Religious Conversion and Identity: The Semiotic Analysis of Texts_ (London and New York: Routledge, 2004; 242 pp.), _Saints and Signs: A Semiotic Reading of Conversion in Early Modern Catholicism_ (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2010; 656 pp.),  _Sémiotique de l'âme_, 3 vols (Berlin et al.: Presses Académiques Francophones, 2012), _Annunciazioni: percorsi di semiotica della religione_, 2 vols (Rome: Aracne, 2014, 1000 pp.), _Spiritualità digitale: il senso religioso nell'era della smaterializzazione_ (Udine: Mimesis, 2014), _Sémiotique du fondamentalisme : messages, rhétorique, force persuasive_ (Paris: l’Harmattan, 2014; translated into Arabic in 2015), and _Signatim: Profili di semiotica della cultura_ (Rome: Aracne, 2015, 800 pp.), _A Cultural Semiotics of Religion_ (in Chinese) [Series “Semiotics & Media”] (Chengdu, China: University of Sichuan Press, 2018, 210 pp.), _On Insignificance_ (London and New York: Routledge, 2019, 226 pp.; Chinese translation 2019), _Colpire nel segno: La semiotica dell'irragionevole_ (Rome: Aracne, 2020, 260 pp.), and _Scevà: Parasemiotiche_ (Rome: Aracne, 2020, 260 pp.), edited more than fifty collective volumes, and published more than five hundred articles in semiotics, visual studies, and religious studies. He has lectured in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Americas. He is Editor-In-Chief of _Semiotica_ (De Gruyter) the Journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies, and _Lexia_, the Semiotic Journal of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Communication, University of Turin, Italy, and editor of the book series “I Saggi di Lexia” (Rome: Aracne),  “Semiotics of Religion” (Berlin and Boston: Walter de Gruyter), and "FACETS Advances in Face Studies" (London and New York: Routledge). He directed the MA Program in Communication Studies at the University of Turin, Italy (2015-2018) and was vice-director for research at the Department of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, University of Turin, Italy (2018-2021).
Supervisors: Omar CALABRESE, Anne-Marie CHRISTIN, Barbara WRIGHT, Jean-Robert ARMOGATHE, and Victor I. STOICHITA
Phone: 0039 011 670 2748
Address: Department of Philosophy
University of Turin
Via S. Ottavio 20
10124 - Turin
ITALY