is professor of Italian Literature at Texas University, specialized in 19th and 20th century literature, culture, philosophy and opera. She became famous with a study on Giacomo Leopardi, A Fragrance from the Desert: Poetry and Philosophy in Giacomo Leopardi (1983), from whose Zibaldone she also translated parts into English. In 1992 her much acclaimed intellectual biography Carlo Michelstaedter and the Failure of Language (1992) appeared, on the untimely deceased writer and philosopher who is also the subject of her contribution to Nexus 50. Bini gained international applause with her book Pirandello and His Muse: The Plays for Marta Abba (1998). Her current research focuses, among other things, on the place of Sicily in Italian literature and film, and on nowadays women philosophers.