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Staff Profiles

Dr Arianna Gullo

Leverhulme Early Career Fellow

  • Email: arianna.gullo@ncl.ac.uk
  • Address: Desk 28, Mezzanine
    Old Library Building
    Newcastle University
    Newcastle Upon Tyne
    NE1 7RU
    United Kingdom


    Office hour in Semester 1 (academic year 2021-2022): Wednesdays 12-13 in person. Please do send an email in advance to book an appointment. Also, drop me an email if you request a meeting outwith my office hour either in person or via Zoom

    Research days: Monday and Friday
Background

I hold a PhD in Classics from the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, and am currently Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Newcastle, having previously held a fellowship in Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks - Trustees for Harvard University, Washington DC (2019-2020), a lectureship in Classics at the University of Glasgow (2018-2019), a Newton International Fellowship hosted by the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University (2016-2018), and research fellowships at Dumbarton Oaks, the University of Cincinnati (2016), and the American Academy in Rome (2013-2014).

My main research interests are Greek Epigram, Hellenistic Poetry, Late antique and Byzantine Studies.

Research

I am a specialist in ancient Greek literature whose research focuses on Greek poetry, in particular on Greek epigram in Late Antiquity and the early Byzantine period, Byzantine manuscript transmission, and the relationship between epigraphic/artistic material and textual traditions. 

My doctoral studies on sepulchral epigrams led to the completion of the first full commentary on Book 7 of the Greek Anthology, which contains more than 750 sepulchral epigrams by roughly 140 authors, dating from the 5th century BCE to the Byzantine era. Working on that monograph, which is forthcoming in the ‘Edizioni della Normale’ in 2021, gave me a broad understanding of epigram from the classical to the Byzantine period. At the heart of that volume is an interrogation of Greek views on the afterlife, which takes as its cue real and fictitious funerary inscriptions.

My current project, funded by a three-year Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, focuses on ekphrasis in sixth-century CE Greek epigrams on artworks and ask how visual description is affected by religious, artistic and social change. My new research follows from the project on Book 7 of the Greek Anthology, expanding my investigation of funerary epigrams into a wider consideration of the evolving ways in which late antique epigram was disseminated in the light of major structural changes in the society of the sixth-century CE Eastern Roman Empire.

I am also preparing the first edition with commentary of the epigrams of one of the most important late antique Greek poet, the sixth-century CE epigrammatist Julian the Egyptian, which I plan to publish by 2022.

Teaching

I have teaching experience at higher education level in a wide range of courses on both the history and literature of the classical world, also including late antique literature, both Greek and Latin.


Undergraduate modules

  • CLA3002 : Level 2/3 Latin: Special Study Stage 3 (2020/2021)
  • CAG3001 : Level 3 Greek: Interpretation of Texts (2021/2022)

Postgraduate modules
  • CLA8002 : MA Latin: Special Study (2020/2021)
  • CAC8009 : Performance and Text (2021/2022) 

Postgraduate supervision

I am willing to supervise dissertations on any aspect of the following topics:

  • Hellenistic poetry (particularly epigram)
  • Greek epigraphy (particularly in verse)
  • Late Antiquity (with special focus on the age of Justinian)
  • Byzantine manuscript transmission
  • Byzantine poetry
  • Relationship between epigraphic/artistic material and textual traditions
  • Reception of Classical Antiquity in American, British and Irish poetry  

I am currently co-supervising the following PhDs:

Elly Polignano: critical edition with commentary and translation of Marcus Argentarius' epigrams

Publications