Dr Nicolò Crisafi

Dr Crisafi joined Pembroke College as a Teaching and Research Fellow in Italian, and Director of Studies of Modern Languages in September 2021. He researches medieval Italian literature, with a special focus on the works of Dante Alighieri and venturing into the writings of Petrarch and Boccaccio.

Dr Crisafi's interests lie in narrative theory, the role of the reader(s), the relation between language and affect, and the intersection between narrative forms and worldviews. His monograph Dante’s Masterplot and Alternative Narratives in the ‘Commedia’, (Oxford: OUP, 2022), explores paradoxes, detours, and representations of the future as alternatives to the dominant narrative of the Commedia: the teleological ‘masterplot’.

His current project ‘Possibility and the Utopian Imagination in the Poetic Practice of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio’, started while a fellow at ICI Berlin (2018–2020), investigates the narratives of possibility and their political implications in the late middle ages.

Dr Crisafi is happy to answer any questions relating to Modern and Medieval Languages at Pembroke. Please also see the University course page on Modern and Medieval Languages, and the MMLL Faculty web page.