Samuele Grassi is completing his PhD at the University of Florence on the shaping and performing of gender identity in contemporary British and Irish theatre (1980-today). He is the author of L’Apocalisse e la peste dei gay. L’AIDS come metanarrativa nella letteratura anglo-americana, Il dito e la luna, Milano, 2007, a volume on AIDS representations in Anglo-American literature, and has translated and edited Rebecca Brown’s The Gifts of the Body (2006). His main areas of research are Gay Studies/Performance Studies/Queer Studies, and contemporary theatre. He is a member of the editorial board of the journal Studi irlandesi.