Antonio De Nizza is PhD Candidate in Classics at the Department of Historical and Classical Studies (IHK) of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.
After gaining his Bachelor’s degree in Classical Humanities at the University of Pisa and a Specialized 1st Cycle Diploma in Philology, Linguistics and History of Classical Antiquity at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, he got his Master’s degree in Classical Philology and Ancient History at the University of Pisa in 2018, discussing his thesis On the track of Philaenis. Erotic literature and Women’s Writing in Ancient Greece, which has been awarded a prize (1000 EUR) by the board of Tuscan universities (Florence, Pisa, Siena, Scuola Normale Superiore, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Istituto di Alti Studi di Lucca) in the competition ‘Analysis and Challenge against Gender Stereotypes’ (3rd edition, 2019), funded by the Region of Tuscany.
His PhD project Philaenis and colleagues. A hidden chapter of Ancient Greek erotic literature and its Roman echoes, under the supervision of Professor Thea Selliaas Thorsen (NTNU) and Professor Stephen Harrison (University of Oxford), aims at examining in depth the figure and work of Philaenis of Samos, the woman author of the erotic treatise Περὶ ἀφροδισίων, notorious throughout Antiquity, and her reception in Rome.
The project challenges on philological grounds the general hyper-sceptical tendency to deny both the historical existence of Philaenis and her authorship, focusing on gender stereotypes and biases still vital in the contemporary scholarly debate on Philaenis and other women authors of Antiquity.
