Dr. Giulia Colli
Research Assistant (Leibniz research group „Ancient Aesthetics“)
Department of Classics
University of Heidelberg
Marstallhof 2-4
D-69117 Heidelberg
Germany
Office: Sandgasse 7, ZG 006
giulia.colli@uni-heidelberg.de
Research interests and projects
Research interests
- Greek Tragedy and its Transmission
- Interpolation, Forgery, and Pseudepigraphy in Ancient Texts
- Ancient Literary Criticism and Aesthetics
- Character and Characterization in Greek Literature
- The Theory of Appropriateness (τὸ πρέπον) in Ancient Poetics
- History of Classical Scholarship
Major research projects
- I am preparing for publication my PhD dissertation on the typology of interpolation in ancient Greek tragedy. The book offers a systematic survey of the most probable cases of interpolation in the texts of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, classified according to the motivations underlying each intervention. By approaching the interpolator as an authorial and creative agent, the study illuminates the needs, interests, and cultural horizons of those who engaged with the tragic text throughout antiquity, and whose interventions paradoxically contributed to its survival.
- My postdoctoral project at the University of Heidelberg investigates ancient literary criticism as preserved in the scholia to Homer and the tragedians, intending to reconstruct the aesthetic and literary criteria by which ancient critics read and judged these texts. Particular attention is paid to the overlapping of aesthetic and ethical concerns in ancient critical discourse. Underlying the project is a sustained reflection on how ancient modes of engaging with literary texts relate to – and at times decisively diverge from – our own.
Education
Table
2025-2028 | Research Assistant (postdoc), Heidelberg University. Working as part of Prof. Jonas Grethlein’s Leibniz-funded research group on Ancient Aesthetics |
2020–2024 | PhD in Ancient Studies, University of Pisa, Italy |
2023 | Visiting PhD Student, University of Bristol, Department of Classics & Ancient History, UK |
2017–2020 | MA in Classical Philology, Literature, and Transmission, University of Bologna, Italy |
2018–2019 | Erasmus+ Exchange Student, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Institut für Klassische Philologie, Germany |
2014–2017 | BA in Classics, University of Bologna, Italy |
Publications
- G. Colli, Speaking Maxims. Scholarly judgment on characters’ γνωμολογεῖν in the ancient scholia to Homer and tragedy, «Classical Quarterly» (forthcoming).
- G. Colli, Intellettuali a confronto tra il Prometeo Incatenato e il Protagora di Platone, «Philologia Philosophica» (forthcoming)
- G. Colli, A Lifelong Loyalty Robert Böhme’s Aeschylus Correctus, In: M. Nimis-F. Chenet, Eschilo: testo, scena, tradizione, Venezia: Lexis Supplements, 2026, 159-84.
- G. Colli, Sulle tracce di Didimo: a proposito di due scolii didimei alla Medea di Euripide e dell’interpolazione di un verso memorabile, «Lexis» 42 n.s. (2024), 2, 465-82.
- G. Colli, Sull’origine dei versus iterati non autentici nelle tragedie euripidee. Alcune riconsiderazioni, in: M.C. Cabani- E. Di Pastena- M. Tulli (edd.), Interazioni e contaminazioni, Pisa: ILLA 2023, 143-57.