"This course opened me up to the literary life in a way that had seldom been done for me before."
-Anonymous Student Evaluation (Bowdoin)
"He is by far the most committed professor I have had to making class interesting, engaging, and welcoming to all students. He facilitated excellent conversations, and was able to draw in almost every student, even those who seemed shy and reluctant to participate."
-Anonymous Student Evaluation (Columbia)
"This course was my favorite in all of the four years at Yale largely in part because of the leadership of Alejandro Cuadrado. He was incredibly down to earth in class. When talking about sensitive and important topics, he knew how to navigate the room in such a way to make everyone feel comfortable. His liveliness made me look forward to class and I believe contributed almost entirely to the great community we built of the fifteen or so of us in the course. I have never felt more connected to another cohort of classmates in my four years, and I will look back on this class very, very fondly in future years because of Cuadrado."
-Anonymous Student Evaluation (Yale)
Teaching
I have taught courses at the undergraduate and graduate level on literature, writing, and interdisciplinary humanities. I've taught all levels of Italian language, as well as graduate writing workshops. I have experience leading classrooms in various modalities (in-person, remote, hybrid) and contexts (Ivy League research university, small liberal arts college, study abroad program).
Dante's Divine Comedy
I teach Dante's Commedia in either a lecture or seminar format, at the undergraduate or graduate level. I have taught Dante in Translation at Yale (Fall 2023) and Bowdoin (Spring 2025), as well as a Dante seminar in Italian for advanced students at Bowdoin (Fall 2025). The students in my seminar curated a special exhibition in for Bowdoin's Special Collections & Archives.
Graduate Seminar on Lyric Poetry
In the Fall of 2023 I taught a graduate seminar at Yale on medieval and Renaissance Italian lyric poetry that took advantage of the rich holdings of the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library.
Interdisciplinary Sequences in Western Literature
I have experience teaching interdisciplinary humanities courses at both Columbia and Yale. Through the Literature Humanities and Directed Studies programs I have taught first year students close reading, effective argumentation, and critical writing through the sustained reading of some of the greatest texts of the western literary tradition.
Travelers, Immigrants, and Exiles from Italy to the Americas
In the Spring of 2024, I taught a cross-listed Italian/History seminar for undergraduates on the history of the Italian diaspora in the Americas, with a focus on the research methods of transnational Italian Studies.
Italian Language Courses
I have taught all levels of Italian language, from Elementary to Immersive Advanced Italian in a summer study abroad program. These language courses use the communicative method and focus on authentic language production.
Graduate-Level Academic Writing
As part of Columbia's Summer Research Program, I led a seminar on academic writing skills to a group of STEM undergraduates preparing to enter graduate school.
Exporting Authenticity: Global Tourism and Local Culture
In the Fall of 2025 I taught a new First-Year Writing Seminar at Bowdoin that combined transnational Italian studies with critical tourism studies, offering first-year students a way to learn the craft of academic writing through the study of an exciting global phenomenon. From medieval pilgrimage to travel in the age of social media, the course incorporated socioology, art history, religion, and literary studies.
Boccaccio
In Fall 2026, I am offering an advanced course for undergraduates in the Italian program, focused on Boccaccio's Decameron.
Dissertation Prospectus Workshop
Through my work at the GSAS Writing Studio, I have developed a hands-on seminar-style workshop that guides graduate students through the prospectus-writing process.
Advanced Italian: Encountering the Other in Italian Literature and Culture
Beginning in the Fall of 2026, I have redesigned the fifth-semester "bridge" course for the Italian Studies program at Bowdoin to serve as an introduction to medieval and early modern Italian literature. This course satisfies Bowdoin's "Difference, Power, and Inequity" distribution requirement.
I would be happy to share the syllabus for any of these courses upon request.