Timothy Campbell, chair of Romance studies, has been named editor of a new Fordham University Press series on political thought, titled "Commonalities." The series was inspired by a conference Campbell organized last year at Cornell, "Commonalities: Theorizing the Common in Contemporary Italian Thought."

For the series, Campbell plans to include works by Italian philosophers Roberto Esposito and Remo Bodei, who attended the conference, as well as texts by Maurizio Ferraris, Kevin Attell and Jean-Luc Nancy. "Commonalities" will not be limited to any one philosophical tradition, says Campbell, but rather will "spotlight the forms that the 'common' assumes in a number of disciplines and traditions. The series is addressed to those interested in imagining possible worlds held in common."

Campbell is professor of Italian in the Department of Romance Studies. In addition to his translations of Esposito's "Bios: Biopolitics and Philosophy" and "Communitas: The Origin and Destiny of Community," he is the author of "Wireless Writing in the Age of Marconi." He is also the author of the forthcoming "Improper Life: Technology and Biopolitics from Heidegger to Agamben" and co-editor of "Biopolitics: A Reader." His current project concerns the notion of grace in the films of Roberto Rossellini and Michelangelo Antonioni.

Linda B. Glaser is a staff writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.