Research

We have a lively research culture in Italian at Trinity, with specialisms in: Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, the intellectual history of Italian Renaissance Humanism; Italian cinema and post-cinema, intermediality, identity, interdisciplinary methodologies, religion; the contemporary reception of Dante, Carlo Emilio Gadda, 20th and 21st-century literature and culture, satire and humour studies.

Trinity is brilliantly positioned for the study of Italian literature and culture. In Dublin, there is a vibrant Italian Cultural Institute with a rich programme of cultural events and speakers. We also have strong historic and current links with the neighbouring Department of Italian Studies at University College, Dublin. Trinity College’s renowned Long Room Hub is next door to the Department and provides us with an interdisciplinary humanities research centre, housed in a state-of-the-art building and providing a stimulating programme of talks and events. The Italian holdings in Trinity Libraries are rich and continuously updated, thanks also to the fact that Trinity Libraries are Copyright Libraries.

We host several large collaborative and/or funded projects.

Intermedia in Italy [Prof Clodagh Brook]. Interdisciplinary Italy is an international, AHRC-funded research project exploring interartistic and intermedial practices in Italy from 1900 to the present. It explores why and how the arts and artists transgress boundaries between artistic disciplines and how this transgression transforms creative practice. The project, which has been running since 2014, has run workshops in Rome, London and New York, an exhibition at the Estorick Collection in London, and has many publications, including the culminating monograph: Intermedia in Italy: From Futurism to Digital Convergence (Brook, Mussgnug, Pieri, Legenda 2024).

IBE [International Boccaccio Edition] [Dr Igor Candido] The International Boccaccio Edition will publish the complete works, in both vernacular and Latin, of Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375). The series comprises 13 volumes in total, organized by literary genre, which are edited by specialists selected from among the most experienced international scholars of Boccaccio and medieval literature. In order to meet the needs of an international audience, English is the publication language for most metatexts, but each volume will provide a scholarly preface as well as a detailed philological and linguistic introduction, all in Italian. Our books will be published in print at affordable prices by the scholarly publisher Quod Manet, but as the series grows future editions will be made available in open access as well. Launched in 2025, the 650th anniversary of Boccaccio’s death, the IBE intends to provide updated, scholarly editions of his works to a truly international readership. The series’ intended timeline: 2026-2035.

Religion, Identity and Dissent in Contemporary Italy [Prof Clodagh Brook]. This international project investigates the place of religion – Catholicism, Islam and emerging forms of spirituality – in Italian cinema and media. Monograph: Screening Religions in Italy: Contemporary Italian Cinema in the Post-Secular Public Sphere (University of Toronto Press, 2019). Special Issue: Postsecular Italy: Transnational and Interdisciplinary Perspectives (with Jansen and Urban), Italica 2024 (101:3).

«L’ombra sua torna»: Dante, the Twentieth Century and Beyond [Dr Serena Vandi]. This international research network aims to explore the multifarious reception of Dante Alighieri’s work in contemporary global culture. The network was co-founded by Carlota Cattermole Ordóñez, Maddalena Moretti, and Serena Vandi, and is now co-directed by Cattermole Ordóñez (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) and Vandi. «L’ombra sua torna» have organised two international conferences (Leeds 2017 and Madrid 2021), one series of four panels at the Congresso Dantesco Internazionale Alma Dante 2023 in Ravenna, and one roundtable discussion at the Society for Italian Studies Biennial Conference 2024 at Royal Holloway University of London; «L’ombra sua torna»: Dante, il Novecento e oltre, special issue of Tenzone 22 was published in 2023. The network is always open to scholars working on any aspects of the contemporary reception of Dante.

Applying for a Postdoc Position, PhD, Distance PhD, or Masters in Italian 

We warmly welcome applications from students or researchers whose work aligns with ours and who would like to develop either a PhD or Masters thesis or postdoctoral research with us. Have a look at our research profiles on the Italian Staff page and feel free to get in touch with our lecturers directly. Contact the School's Postgraduate office for general enquiries. PhDs can be full-time (3 years), part-time (6 years), and taken either on site or as a Distance PhD.

Funding deadlines:

PhD: For doctoral applications, you can apply at any time for September entry. Note that funding deadlines are always in October (Research Ireland PhD awards) or March (Trinity Scholarship) for entry the following year. Please contact us at least 3 months before application deadines. We have an internal selection process for the Research Ireland awards.

Postdoc: For applications to Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship, the deadline falls in mid-September each year and for the Research Ireland (former IRC) fellowships, the deadline falls in October. Please contact us 3-6 months before application deadlines. We have an internal selection process for Research Ireland and unfortunately can only support one candidate at each round.

Postdoctoral researchers (Recent):

Dr El Crabtree – Visiting Research Fellow (Irish Research Council (IRC) Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow, 2023-2025)
Advisor: Professor Clodagh Brook.
Post-doctoral research project: Investigating how translingual experiences intersect with the methodological becoming of doctoral researchers.

Dr Rebecca Walker – Visiting Research Fellow (IRC Postdoctoral Fellow, 2023-2025)
Now: Statutory Lecturer, University of Oxford.
Advisor: Professor Clodagh Brook
Post-doctoral research project: Madonnas, Mystics, and Materialists: Religion and Spirituality in Modern Italian Women’s Writing.

Dr Cecilia Brioni – Visiting Research Fellow (IRC Postdoctoral Fellowship, 2020-22).
Now: Assistant Professor, University of Aberdeen.
Advisor: Professor Clodagh Brook.
Post-doctoral research project: (Trans)national Online Communities: Celebrity, Identity, and Reception on YouTube Italia.

Dr Adele Bardazzi – Visiting Research Fellow (IRC Postdoctoral Fellow, 2021-23).
Now: Assistant Professor, Univesity of Utrecht.
Advisor: Professor Clodagh Brook. 
Post-doctoral research project: A Textile Poetics of Entanglement. 

Dr Lorenzo Dell’Oso – Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow.
Now: Assistant Professor, University of Durham.
Advisor: Dr Igor Candido 
Post-doctoral research project: Theology, Aristotelianism, and Poetry in Late-Medieval Italy: Dante’s Intellectual Formation in Florence and Bologna (1283-1307).

Dr Eleonora Lima – Visiting Research Fellow (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellow, 2018-20).
Now: Research Fellow on EU Grant in Digital Humanities, Trinity College Dublin.
Advisor: Professor Clodagh Brook.
Post-doctoral research project: Mapping Remediation in Italian Literature Beyond the Digital Revolution. 
Narrating Computing project website.

Phd Researchers (Current):

Enrico Dal Fovo – PhD Italian (2025-2029)
Supervisor: Clodagh Brook
Research topic: Inclusive Language and Artivism in Contemporary Italian Literature. 
The aim of this project is to investigate the adoption and reception of gender-inclusive linguistic devices in the Italian language, codifying their usage in 1990-2025 Italian poetry, experimental prose and hybrid forms (march placards and chants, fanzines, pamphlets). A corpus of literary works will be established and examined, the analysis of which may provide an innovative tool to further advance research on the evolution of the Italian language beyond binarism. The research will also explore how the adoption of inclusive language graphemes can be analysed as an artivistic stance against the backdrop of the contemporary socio-political scene, through textual analysis and interviews with authors. The goal is to investigate the wider relationship between linguistic innovation and cultural change, from a basis of linguistics, sociolinguistics, and gender- and queer studies, toward the definition of a literary and artistic framework. 
Research interests: Contemporary Literature, Sociolinguistics, Linguistics, Artivism, Gender Studies, Queer Studies, Social Research.

Joseph Muratore – PhD Italian (2025–2031, part-time)
Supervisor: Clodagh Brook
Research Topic: Crisis Governance and Statecraft in Italy through Exceptional Law and Substitutive Rituals of Care. Focusing on Bologna as a site of civic memory and political tension, this project will examine two major crisis conjunctures in Italian history: the 1980 Ustica air disaster and Bologna train station bombing, and the 2020 to 2022 COVID-19 pandemic. It will trace recurring patterns of emergency governance, secrecy, and symbolic care. By centering Bologna as a site of civic memory and political tension, the research will explore how unresolved trauma, exceptional law, and ritualized narratives of care shape public response and reinforce executive authority. Drawing on political theory, memory studies, and Italian history, I will investigate how the Italian state manages crisis through both legal frameworks and affective performances that substitute for structural accountability.
Research Interests: Italian culture, political theory, memory studies, philosophy, resistance, crisis governance, Gramsci, Arendt, neoliberalism, finance.

Antonio Belfiore – PhD Italian (2024-2028, Trinity PhD Fellowship)
Supervisor: Clodagh Brook
Research topic: Methodologies and Applications for Analysing Contemporary Italian Literature through its Plurimedial Relationship with Sound. Project awarded with the Trinity Research Doctorate Award (2024-2028) and the Irish Research Council fellowship. This project aims to evaluate and apply methods for studying the relationship between literature and music in cases where a written text is embodied by a voice in musical works (e.g., operas, choral pieces, songs). The research explores how the expressive and communicative value of literary texts can change in this new plurimedial context. Case studies are drawn from the contemporary landscape, comparing Italian works with English ones to assess the use of different phonetic systems. A study on synthesised-digital voice is also planned, as an instrument that can transcend the boundaries and limitations of the human voice (e.g., in terms of timbre, gender, pitch, breath), offering a renewed perspective on the subject. 
Research interests: Contemporary Literature, Contemporary Music, Intermediality, Musicology, Linguistics, Posthumanism, Art Reception.

Berenice Daniele – PhD Italian (2024-2028, IRC PhD Fellowship)
Supervisor: Igor Candido
Research topic: Ovid in Giovanni Boccaccio’s ''Genealogia deorum gentilium'': the intersection of Classical and Medieval culture in Boccaccio’s Humanism, funded by Irish Research Council (2024-2028). Berenice Daniele’s research objective is to examine the manner in which Ovid was used as source in Boccaccio’s "Genealogia" and how it interacts with the Classical sources and Medieval sources. This type of research aims to identify evidence on the existing of a Boccaccio’s Humanism, characterized by a comprehensive approach, that combines Latin literature with Greek and Medieval literatures.
Research interests: Boccaccio research, Dante Studies, Medieval Italian Literature, Humanistic and Medieval Philology, Humanism, Classics’ reception in Middle Ages and Humanism.

Federico Vigano – PhD Italian (2020-2026, part-time)
Supervisor: Clodagh Brook
Research topic: The influence of Marxism in the cinema of Marco Bellocchio of 60s and 70s.  Links between groups of the revolutionary left and artistic production in Italy of the 1960s and 1970s. The focus is on the influence of non- orthodox Italian Marxism on Bellocchio’s production with a synchronic view of Italian society evolution. 
Research interests: Italian revolutionary left and its artistic production, the influence of contemporary American literature on Italian writers.

Viviane Rabelo Pires – PhD in Italian (2020-2026)
Supervisor: Igor Candido
Research topic: This thesis explores the theme of suicide in the vernacular works of fourteenth century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio, namely The Elegy of Lady Fiammetta (c. 1343–1344), the Decameron (c. 1350), Corbaccio (c.1363–1365), Filostrato (c.1335), and The Nymph of Fiesole (Ninfale fiesolano, c.1344–1345). While there is substantial research on the theme of healing through literature and investigations of its correlation with Ovidian sources such as the Ars Amatoria, and Remedia Amoris, research into the theme of suicide, which is a recurring one in Boccaccio’s works, is almost nonexistent. This thesis, therefore, aims to address this research gap, arguing that Boccaccio’s works aimed to provide a means of healing from traumatic romantic experiences through literature, as well as aiming at self-preservation both for himself and for his readers.

Phd Researchers (Recent):

Dr Giulia Bonaldi – PhD Italian – completed PhD in 2024
Supervisor: Igor Candido
Research topic: Smiling, Weeping and Knowledge in Dante and Medieval Culture. 

Dr Gianluca Caccialupi – completed PhD in 2024. Now: Lecteur in Italian, Tours, France.
Supervisor: Igor Candido
Research topic: Dante's "Divine Comedy" and the "Queste del Saint Graal". Project funded by the Irish Research Council (2019-2023).

Dr Elisabetta Leopardi – completed PhD in 2021. Now: Team Lead at Accenture, Dublin
Supervisor: Clodagh Brook and Peter Arnds
Research topic: Morphology of the Phenomenon of Metamorphosis in Literature: New Approaches to the Problems of Systematization.

Dr Martina Mendola – completed PhD in 2021. Now: Researcher at R&D, Accenture, Dublin.
Supervisors: Clodagh Brook and Giuliana Adamo
Research topic: Contemporary Italian literature - transmedia Italian pulp fictions and the literary canon.