Education
2025 - to date PhD South Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago
2021 - 2024 Assistant to the Chair of Indian Studies, Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, University of Zurich
2018 - 2020 M.A. History and Oriental Studies, University of Bologna
2013 - 2016 B.A. Asian Languages, Markets and Cultures, University of Bologna
Bio
My primary research interests revolve around the practice of literary borrowing and reuse of imagery, phrasing, and plot structures from earlier works, by authors of Sanskrit kāvya. Specifically, I focus on this tendency in mahākāvyas centered on historical figures and events. While addressing the genre-specific nature of this form of intertextuality – the use of iterative literary material to inform historically conditioned narratives – I aim to explore broader aspects of authorial culture, historical consciousness, and the theory and practice of writing and reading in Sanskritic South Asia.
Research interests
South Asian pre-modern literary cultures ad comparative literary studies; Sanskrit grammar (Vyākaraṇa); Indian philosophy (in particular Navya Nyāya and Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika); South Asian epigraphy and paleography; Carnatic music and ethnomusicology; Arabic, Persian and Chinese translations from and into Sanskrit.
Publications
‘Poeticising history, historicising poetry. On literary borrowing in late medieval historical-biographical Sanskrit kāvya.’ In: Bhūtārthakathane… Sarasvatī. Reading Poetry as a History Book, eds. M. Franceschini, Ch. Livio & L. Wojtczak, Unior Press, Forthcoming 2025.
Conferences, workshops and teaching
2025
“Grammatica notabiliora as intertextual markers. On an application of Aṣṭādhyāyī 3.1.60-66 borrowed from earlier works into Gaṅgādevī’s Madhurāvijaya”. Paper presentated at “The LINGUINDIC Conference: Modern Linguistics and Ancient India”, University of Oxford.
2023
“Introduction to Pāṇini’s grammar”. 12-hour Sanskrit revision course. Taught at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, University of Zurich, Spring 2023.
2022
“Poeticizing history, historicizing poetry: poetic borrowing as a narratological device in South Indian historical kāvya”. Invited paper presented at the “Śivadharma” Project International Conference “Bhūtārthakathane…Sarasvatī: Reading Poetry as a History Book”, University of Bologna.
“Citazioni e riprese nella poesia classica indiana: il caso della poetessa Gaṅgādevī” [Citations and borrowings in classical Indian poetry: the case of the poetess Gaṅgādevī]. Invited guest lecture at University of Bologna.
2019
“Nāgārjuna’s Pratyayaparīkṣā in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā”. Presentated at the “Seven Day Workshop on Reading Buddhist Mādhyamaka Texts”, ICPR Center for Buddhist Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata.