Dr. Aiste Kiltinaviciute
I am a medievalist who examines Dante and the transcultural and transmedial reception of premodern Italian literature from the perspectives of cognitive literary studies, sensory history, and affect studies. Her research interests include dream and visionary literature, the illuminations and illustrations of Dante’s Comedy, and the interconnections between English and Italian literary traditions.
After completing her PhD in Italian at the University of Cambridge (2022), she worked at Vilnius University, the University of Cambridge, University College Cork, and the John Rylands Research Institute.
Aistė co-directs the Centre for Dante Studies in Ireland at University College Cork.
Publications:
‘‘‛E caddi come corpo morto cade’: Fainting Fits, Swooning Spells, and Near‑Death Experiences between Dante’s Vita nova and Commedia,’ Italian Studies, forthcoming in 2026.
‘19th‑century Italian Women Writers Imagining Dante Alighieri’s Wife,’ Dante Studies, Forum ‘Women Scholars in Dante Studies,’ ed. Gaia Tomazzoli, forthcoming in 2026.
‘Dreamitation: Waking Visions, Body Doubles, and Authorial Self‑Fashioning from Boccaccio’s De casibus to Lydgate’s Fall of Princes,’ Exemplaria, special issue ‘Medieval Dreams: Between Perception and Cognition,’ ed. Mikhail Lopatin and Meghan Quinlan, forthcoming in 2026.
‘«I remember the saying of Dant»: le citazioni pseudo‑dantesche di Robert Greene nell’Inghilterra elisabettiana,’ in Dante ibrido, ed. Daragh O’Connell, Elsina Caponetti, Dario Galassini (Florence: Cesati), forthcoming in 2026.
‘Botticelli: Purgatorio IX,’ in Dante Depicted: A Commentary on Image, Text, and Exegesis around the ‘Commedia’ (2024), Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz ‑ Max‑Planck‑Institut. Link: https://dante.khi.fi.it/botticelli?chapter=purgatorio-ix.
‘(Extra)ordinary Sensation and Visionary Perception in Dante’s Purgatorio 15 and 17,’ Italian Studies, 78.3 (2023), 274‑91. Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00751634.2023.2260694.
‘Vita nova XXIX [19.4–19.7],’ in Dante’s Vita nova: A Collaborative Reading, ed. Zygmunt Barański and Heather Webb (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2023), 269‑77.
‘Rapture and Visionary Violence in Dante’s Purgatorio 9,’ Annali d’Italianistica, 39 (2021), 247‑72. Link: https://annali.org/volume-39-2021/.
‘Sensation (Un)bound: Literary Synaesthesia and Cross‑Sensory Perception in Dante’s Purgatorio 24,’ Bibliotheca Dantesca: Journal of Dante Studies, 3 (2020), 86‑106. Link: https://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/5339.