INTERNATIONAL PHD IN GERMANIC AND SLAVIC
STUDIES

email: emilia.dirocco@uniroma1.it
phone:
building: Marco Polo
room: 209

Emilia Di Rocco is Professor of Comparative Literature at the Department of European, American and Interdisciplinary Studies, at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. In 2019 she was awarded the Fulbright Distinguished Chair Lectureship at Northwestern University, Department of Italian and French (spring term 2021). She is the Editor in Chief of Status Quaestionis. Language, Text, Culture (https://rosa.uniroma1.it/rosa03/status_quaestionis ). She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Fondazione Lorenzo Valla/Mondadori, Collana dei classici greci e latini and of the Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur les Modèles Esthétiques et Littéraires (Crimel), Université de Reims, Champagne-Ardenne. She is a member of the Board of Editors of Nuova Informazione bibliografica and of Thersites. Journal for Transcultural Presences and Diachronic Identities from Antiquity to Date, of the Editorial Committee of Edizioni Studium and Marcianum Press where, together with Professors Fabio Pierangeli, she coordinates the humanities section. Since 2020 she has been Project Peer Reviewer of the Science Fund of the Republic of Serbia, and in 2021 she participated in the Evaluation Panel “Languages and Literature” of the Portuguese The Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P. (FCT). She has published many articles and books in Italy and abroad. Her latest publications include: Baciare la terra. Un topos letterario (2012), two monographic issues on the prodigal son in western literature (Studium 2013, 2014) and Raccontare il ritorno. Temi e trame della letteratura (2017). Lately she edited Storie del Grande Sud. Per Piero Boitani (2017), Mondi di Fede e di invenzione. Intersezioni tra religioni e letteratura (2018 together with Elena Spandri), Astonishment. Essays on Wonder for Piero Boitani (2019) and Voci femminili dell’Antica Roma (2024, with Riccardo Antonangeli). She is currently working on a book on the parable of the prodigal son in literature and the arts and on another one of Rainer Maria Rilke. She’s also carrying on research on Robert Holcot’s Commentary on the Book of Wisdom with a view to an Italian edition to be published with the Fondazione Valla. Over the years she participated and organized many conferences in Italy and abroad. Most recently she organized the 24th International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities: Traveling Concepts in the Humanities. The Transfer and Translation of Ideas in the Humanities (2024) and the 10th International Congress of the European Society of Comparative Literature (2022). She participated in several research groups (all funded by the Italian government or by Spaienza University) such as PRIN (Reseach Project of National Interest, funded by the Italian Ministry of Education, 2009-2012), Dante in England (PI Prof. P. Boitani); 2012-2013 The Tragic and the Sublime in Literature: From the Middle Ages to Modernity (Funded by the University of Rome Sapienza, PI Prof. P. Boitani); 2014-2016 The Books that Made Europe (Awards Research Project, funded by the University of Rome Sapienza, PI Prof. Piero Boitani); 2015– Power of the Word: Literature, Theology and Philosophy (International Research Group, coordinator Francesca Bugliani Knox (Heythorp College, London)). She has been the PI of the following projects funded by Sapienza-University of Rome: 2020-2023 Imagining Inclusive Communities in European And American Culture; 2017 – 2020 New Intersections between Literature and Religion (Research Project funded by the University of Rome Sapienza, PI). She is the PI of Politics of Worship Pre- and Post-Reformation, a research project of national interest funded by the Italian Ministry of the University. Her current research interests include literature and theology, literature and the Bible, the rewritings of ancient myth in medieval and modern literature and medieval devotional literature with a particular focus on women and authorship.