Simona Martorana
Simona Martorana
Classicist, Feminist, Globetrotter
Introduction
I am a Lecturer in Classics at the Australian National University (Canberra), where I currently teach "Continuing Latin" (LATN2119), "Life, Love and Loss in Ancient Greece and Rome" (CLAS3002), and "Rome: Story of an Empire" (CLAS1005). I am the author of Seeking the Mothers in Ovid's Heroides (Cornell University Press, 2024) and the co-editor of Body and Medicine in Latin Poetry (forthcoming with De Gruyter, 2024), which arises from my research network on "Body and Medicine in Latin Poetry": https://bodyandmedicinelatin.weebly.com/. My publications include several articles and book chapters on classical and medieval Latin literature.
After having completed my two degrees (B.A. and M.A.) at the University of Trento and got some work experience in Italy, I moved to Durham, where I completed my Ph.D. in Classics in July 2021. Globetrotter, wisdom seeker, explorer, I spent some time in Freiburg as an Erasmus student during my B.A., at Columbia University in New York during my M.A., and at Harvard University as a Visiting Fellow. Before starting working at ANU, I was an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at Kiel University and the University of Hamburg (2022-24).
My main research focus on Latin verse combines philological rigor in attention to the detail of the texts, with contemporary theoretical and interdisciplinary approaches to antiquity (gender; posthumanism; environmental and medical humanities; legal theory). As I see 'antiquity' as a fluid concept and think that the margins of the discipline must be expanded to include (supposedly) less canonical texts, I am also finalizing the critical edition of a collection of Medieval Latin fables, the Romulus (RG). My new research project focuses on "The Diseased Body and the Landscape: Rethinking Human-Environment Interaction within Plague Narratives from the Roman World".
A daughter, a sister, almost a worshipper of Sappho, I have combined my work with my personal history by co-organizing a panel on Sappho at the 13 CCC (Celtic Conference in Classics) in Lyon (July 2022): http://www.celticconferenceinclassics.org/index.php/next-conference. I am now working towards the publication of the conference papers as an edited volume.
See above for my CV and Academia.edu page.