Claudio’s current research centers on the representation of labor in poetry from Ancient Greece, the Near East, and India. Other ongoing projects engage with the history of philology and the politics of literary reception.
Claudio earned his B.A. (Hons.) in English Literature from Trinity College Dublin in 2014, where he also received the prestigious Foundation Scholarship (Sch.), and graduated with a 1st Class Honors and a Graduation Gold Medal. In 2021, he earned a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Chicago, along with an M.A. in Classics. Other academic affiliations include(d): the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (Regular Member 2018-19, Summer Session 2016); the American Institute of Indian Studies (Sanskrit Summer Program); Leiden University (Summer School in Language and Linguistics 2018, 2017); Università Ca’ Foscari & Venice International University (Advanced Seminar in the Humanities 2018-19); Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (Vedic Mythology 2019); Koç University Istanbul (ANAMED Program in Ancient Anatolian Languages 2016).
Claudio’s current book project, Poetics of Unease, stems from his dissertation work at the University of Chicago. The monograph starts from the fact that many of the world’s oldest literary traditions (Greek, Akkadian, Sumerian, Avestan, Vedic) define humankind as a laboring class, in contrast to the leisure of the divine classes. The book will investigate how this mythological template established class ideologies that continue to have an impact today, and offers a deep literary history of the emergence of certain kinds of labor struggles.
Other projects include work on premodern and modern receptions of ancient works (Pasolini on Aeschylus, forthcoming; Late Assyrian reactions to earlier political propaganda; Middle Irish responses to the Classics, under review); projects on the history of philology, mythology, and caste in India; and work on U.S. poets from the 1960s and 1970s (the ethnopoets, N. H. Pritchard, and others).
Languages:
Modern
English and Italian (Native); French (Reading & Conversation); German, Spanish, Modern Greek (Reading & Research)
Premodern & Ancient
Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Avestan, Hittite (Advanced); Sumerian, Akkadian, Old Norse, Old English, Medieval French (Working Knowledge); Old Irish, Old Javanese, Bugis (Beginner).
Work With Students
Claudio has advised B.A. Theses in the departments of Comparative Literature and Classics, on topics ranging from curse tablets to the New York School of poets, Baudelaire to Japanese comics, Roman coinage to Queer reading of Greek lyric poetry, and feminism in the Bible to the commercialization of martial arts.
Teaching
Department of Comparative Literature
- Forgeries and Flippancies: Fake Pasts / Real Futures. Winter 2023
- Affect at the Close: Capitalism, Climate Change, Creating Alternatives. Self-designed course. Winter 2022
- Mythologies of Labor. Self-designed course. Winter 2022
- Against Interpretation: Philology at the Crossroads. Self-designed course. Winter 2021
- Comparative Mythology: Methods and Madness. Self-designed course. Winter 2020
- B.A. Thesis Seminar, Comparative Literature. Preceptor. AY 2019-2020
Department of Classics
- Greek 201: Plato: Diotima and Aspasia. Self-designed course. Autumn 2020.
- Greek 10123 Intensive Introductory Greek. Summer 2020.
- Latin 103. Spring 2020.
- Humanities Core
- Readings in World Literature: Epic. Autumn 2022. (2 Sections)
- Readings in World Literature: Epic. Autumn 2021. (2 Sections)
- B.A. Thesis Seminar, Classics. Preceptor. AY 2017-2018
Publications
- Book chapter: "John Berryman's 'Poundian Inheritenace' and the Epic of 'Synchrisis'" in John Berryman: Centenary Essays (Bern: Peter Lang, 2017).
- News: Claudio presented his work on Lycophron's Alexandra at the 2017 Ezra Pound International Conference at the University of Pennsylvania. His presentation was reported on by the Pennsylvania Gazette at http://thepenngazette.com/finally-an-epic-at-penn/.
- For a full list of publications and conference presentations request a CV.
Service
- Assistant Coordinator. Rhetoric and Poetics Workshop (Fall 2019, Winter 2020)
- Non-Fiction Staff Member Chicago Review (Spring 2017 to Spring 2018)
- Founder and Convener of the University of Chicago Finnegans Wake Reading Group (www.fwuofc.wordpress.com) (Spring 2016 to June 2017).