Alberto Rigolio | Durham University (original) (raw)

I work on the cultural and intellectual history of the Eastern Mediterranean world during the Roman and late antique periods. After my first degree in Milan, I went to Oxford for an M.Phil. and a D.Phil., and later held fellowships at the Harvard University Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, and at the Princeton University Society of Fellows (2015-18). Since 2020, I am Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

My current research focuses on the emergence and development of Syriac literature and civilization in the broader context of the Graeco-Roman Near East and the diffusion of Christianity. I am writing a monograph on this subject, with a focus on the encounters of Syriac culture with Graeco-Roman civilization. This project brings together literature and epigraphic and documentary sources both in Greek and in Syriac, and it focuses on education and schooling as the lens through which to assess and study the history of culture.

I have recently published a book on Greek and Syriac literature in dialogue form by Christian authors during late antiquity (Oxford University Press, 2019). These dialogues, on religious, philosophical, and political subjects, show that the classical dialogue form did not disappear with the rise of Christianity but was instead transformed, and reinvigorated, alongside of cultural and religious change. This vibrant tradition of writing in dialogue form (at least sixty dialogues survive until the end of the sixth century CE, only in Greek and Syriac) attests to the emergence and the development of a particular culture of debate on theological and philosophical matters. Academic reviewers describe this book as "a significant advance in scholarship" (JECS), "opening up the field" (BMCR), and "an opus magnum" (MEG).

I am also interested in the translation of Greek texts into Syriac and Arabic, and, more broadly, in the reception of Graeco-Roman thought in early Christianity and Islam. I have published on the Syriac and Arabic translations of Aristotle’s Poetics, on a Syriac dialogue with Socrates on the soul, and on the Syriac translations of Ps.-Isocrates, Plutarch, Lucian, and Themistius. One of these texts surviving only in Syriac, a philosophical oration by Themistius known as On Virtue, may reveal Themistius’ lukewarm engagement with emperor Julian’s project of pagan restoration.

My research has been supported by the British Academy (Mid-Career Fellowship, 2024), All Souls College Oxford (Visiting Fellowship 2024), the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study (Membership, 2023), the American Philosophical Society (Franklin Grant, 2018), the Princeton University Society of Fellows (Behrman-Cotsen Fellowship in Humanistic Studies, 2015-18), the Harvard University Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection (Junior Fellowship 2012 and Summer Fellowship 2010), the Oxford Centre for Byzantine Research (Leventis Graduate Award, 2012), the Classical Association (bursary for research at the Fondation Hardt, 2012), the University of Oxford Faculty of Classics (Craven Scholarship, 2010), St. John’s College Oxford (Graduate and North Senior Scholarships, 2010-13), All Souls College Oxford (E.O. James Bequest Grant, 2009), the A.G. Leventis Foundation (Scholarship, 2009), and the Catholic University, Milan (ISU Award, 2007).

I am also a regular contributor to the Dumbarton Oaks/HMML Syriac Summer School. With the support of Harvard University and the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library, this programme is designed for doctoral students and early career scholars who lack the opportunity to learn Syriac at their home institution.

less