Hall Margherita Heyer-Caput completed her education in Italy (Laurea in Filosofia, 1980, University of Torino) and the United States (Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures, 1993, Harvard University), and taught for several years at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and various universities of the East Coast. Her research and teaching areas cover the Italian literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with particular attention to philosophical approaches to literature, Italian women writers, literature and film, Italian and Italian American Cinema.

She is the author of Grazia Deleddas Dance of Modernity (2008), Per una letteratura della riflessione: elementi filosofico-scientifici nell’opera di Luigi Malerba (1995) [For a Literature of Reflection: Philosophical and Scientific Aspects of Luigi Malerba's Work]?, Esistenza e ragione nell’opera di Franz Kafka (1982) [Existence and Reason in Franz Kafka's Work]?. Her latest book on Italian woman writer and 1926 Nobel laureate, Grazia Deledda, includes a chapter on the relationship between one of Deledda’s novels, Cenere (1904. Ashes), and the homonymous silent movie made in 1916 by Italian “diva”, Eleonora Duse. In Film Studies, Professor Heyer-Caput is particularly interested in Italian American Cinema and Italian Cinema. She regularly teaches Film Studies 120, Italian American Cinema and a recently approved course, Film Studies 121, New Italian Cinema. At present, Professor Heyer-Caput is working on a research project that studies the visual metaphors of Italian American cinema in an interdisciplinary perspective.