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Dr Federica Pich

Dr Federica Pich

  • Position: Associate Professor
  • Areas of expertise: Medieval and Renaissance literature and art; the reception of Petrarch in the Renaissance; Ariosto; lyric poetry; the relationship between lyric and narrative; paratexts; iconotextuality; memory
  • Email: F.Pich@leeds.ac.uk
  • Phone: +44(0)113 343 3589
  • Location: 1.47 Michael Sadler Building

Profile

I joined the University of Leeds as Lecturer in Italian in 2012 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2018.

I hold an Italian first degree (laurea) in Modern Literature from the University of Pisa and a Diploma in Modern Philological Studies from the Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa), where I completed a PhD in Italian Studies (2006) and held a Postdoctoral Fellowship (2006-2008). I was an Early Career Researcher at the Scuola Normale (2008-2011) before being appointed at Leeds.

In 2016 I was Andrew W. Mellon Visiting Professor at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London.

Responsibilities

  • Co-Director, Leeds Centre for Dante Studies

Research interests

My research interests focus on four main areas:

  • Medieval and Renaissance literature and its relationship with visual arts;
  • Petrarch and the lyric tradition in the Renaissance;
  • the reception and exegesis of lyric poetry in the Italian Renaissance, including the study of paratexts, reading practices and literary representations of reading; 
  • ‘iconotextuality’ in Renaissance, modern and contemporary contexts.

I am currently Co-Investigator in the project Petrarch Commentary and Exegesis in Renaissance Italy (c. 1350-c. 1650), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and carried out in collaboration with Prof. Simon Gilson (Principal Investigator, University of Oxford) and Dr Guyda Armstrong (Co-Investigator, University of Manchester), alongside two Postdoctoral Fellows, Dr Giacomo Comiati (Oxford) and Dr Lorenzo Sacchini (Leeds). The project (2017-19) aims to reconstruct the corpus of Italian Petrarch commentary and exegesis, creating a freely available and searchable on-line database, listing all the commentaries and other exegesis on Petrarch produced in Italy between 1350 and 1650. 

I am a member of the Advisory Board of the project Is There a Reader in This Text? A Literary History of Reading in Italy from the Age of Print to the Digital Revolution (2017-19), led by Dr Giovanna Rizzarelli at the Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa).

<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>

Qualifications

  • PhD in Italian Studies
  • Diploma in Modern Philological Studies
  • BA and MA in Modern Literature

Professional memberships

  • Member of the Standing Committee of the Leeds International Medieval Congress
  • Member of the Advisory Board of 'The Italianist'
  • Member of the Editorial Board of 'Arabeschi'
  • Affiliated researcher of the Artists’ Writings and Publications Research Centre at Leeds

Student education

I am the Italian Year Abroad Tutor and the coordinator of Final Year Projects and Final Year Translation Projects in the Italian subject area.

From level 1 to level 3, I teach mainly medieval and Renaissance topics, including Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio. 

Research groups and institutes

  • Italian
  • Leeds Centre for Dante Studies
<h4>Postgraduate research opportunities</h4> <p>We welcome enquiries from motivated and qualified applicants from all around the world who are interested in PhD study. Our <a href="https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/research-opportunities">research opportunities</a> allow you to search for projects and scholarships.</p>