Dr Matthew Treherne

Senior Lecturer in Italian
University Teaching Fellow, 2010-12
Co-Director of the Leeds Centre for Dante Studies

Tel: +44 (0)113 343 7846
Fax:+44 (0)113 343 3634
Email: m.treherne@leeds.ac.uk

Biography

I graduated in Italian and French from Cambridge University, where I later completed an MPhil in European Literature, and a Diploma in Management Studies. I went on to work in London as a business strategy consultant, and co-founded and co-managed a translation company. I returned to Cambridge in 2001 to do a PhD on liturgy in Dante and Tasso. I was a lecturer in Italian at Cambridge for the year 2004-05, before moving to Leeds in 2005. Dante and Tasso are the primary focus of my research, although I have also worked on the American novelist Toni Morrison, and pastoral drama. I recently completed a manuscript on Dante's use of the sacraments and liturgy in the Commedia, and am now beginning a new research project on the relationship between culture and economic change in late medieval Italy.

In 2007 I co-founded the Leeds Centre for Dante Studies with my colleague Claire Honess, with the aim of supporting research, teaching and public understanding of Dante. We are currently running a major research project on Dante's theological thought, as well as planning an international conference on Dante in France, in collaboration with Prof. Russell Goulbourne in the Department of French at Leeds, for September 2010. Building on our research activity, we also run a rich programme of activities for undergraduate and postgraduate students, and for the public.

I have a strong teaching interest in the visual arts, and won the Faculty of Arts Development Teaching Prize in 2007 for my work in this area. In 2007 I received a University Teaching Fellowship developmental award, and in 2010 became a full University Teaching Fellow.

Teaching

Research and selected publications

Edited volumes

• Dante's "Commedia": Theology as Poetry (co-edited with Vittorio Montemaggi) (University of Notre Dame Press, forthcoming March 2010)

'The scholars represented in this interdisciplinary collection explore the poem’s claims to function as a text embodying theological truth and, more particularly, as a poetic representation of the experience of the mystical. Their efforts comprise a landmark in modern Dante studies.' — Steven Botterill, University of California, Berkeley

• Forms of Faith in Sixteenth-Century Italy (co-edited with Abigail Brundin) (Ashgate, 2009)

Articles

• 'Figuring In, Figuring Out: Narration and Negotiation in Toni Morrison's Jazz', Narrative, 11 (May 2003), 199-212
• 'Ekphrasis and Eucharist: The Poetics of Seeing God’s Art in Purgatorio X', The Italianist 26 (2) (2006), 177-95
• 'Pictorial Space and Sacred Time: Tasso's Le lagrime della beata vergine and the Experience of Religious Art in the Counter-Reformation', Italian Studies 26 (1) (2007), 5-25; download article here.
• 'Dante', in The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 2005 (London: Maney, 2007)
• 'Dante', in The Year's Work in Modern Language Studies 2006 (co-authored with Vittorio Montemaggi) (London: Maney, 2008)
• 'Art and Nature Put to Scorn: On the Sacramental in the Purgatorio', in Art and Nature in Dante (Dublin, forthcoming)
• 'Problems of Pastoral Tragicomedy: Il pastor fido and its Early Critical Reception', in Early Modern Tragicomedy (eds Raphael Lyne and Subha Mukherji) (Rochester NY: Boydell and Brewer, 2007), pp. 28-42
• 'Liturgy as a Mode of Theological Discourse in Tasso's Late Poetry', in Forms of Faith, pp. 233-54

Study Guides

• Dante, 'Purgatorio' (for University of London External Programme, 2006)
• Dante, 'Inferno' (co-authored with Vittorio Montemaggi, for University of London External Programme, 2006)

Reviews

I have written for the Times Literary Supplement on medieval and Renaissance Italian literature.

Editorial work

I was assistant editor of Italian Studies (2005-08), and am reviews co-editor of Renaissance Studies.

Teaching Projects

• Analysing Paintings: An Online Introduction to Formal Analysis
• National Workshop on Teaching Medieval and Early-Modern Culture; Cambridge and Leeds (23rd May and 31st November 2008)
• National Workshop on Teaching Visual Arts; St Catharine's College, Cambridge, 23rd November 2007
• Faculty of Arts Cross-Disciplinary Podcasting Project
• Italian Enterprise Scheme
• Leeds Dante Podcast
• Student-led alumni relations programme for the School of Modern Languages and Cultures (funded by the Leeds for Life foundation)
• Leeds Centre for Dante Studies National Essay Prize
• Leeds Centre for Dante Studies National Study Days
• Students as Scholars: research-led teaching project

Collaboration and organisation

• Discovering Dante: A Season of Public Events (2009)
• Leeds Centre for Dante Studies Research Programme
• Reviewing Dante's Theology
• UK Network for the Study of Medieval Italian Culture
• The Culture of Renaissance Venice: public lecture series, October-November 2008
• Art and Literature in Siena, 1250-1600: public lecture series, October-November 2007
• Leeds Series in Dante Studies 2006-07
• Forms of Faith: the influence of religious change on artistic, literary and musical culture in sixteenth-century Italy: International conference held in Leeds, March 30-31 2007
• Dante's 'Commedia': theology as poetry: International conference held in Cambridge, December 2003

• Elected Member of the Executive Committee (representing Literary Studies) for the University Council of Modern Languages
• Honorary Secretary of the Society for Italian Studies
• Elected Member of the Council of the Society for Renaissance Studies
• Member of the Literary and Culture Special Interest Group at the HE Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies

Research supervision

I am able to supervise research on: Dante and medieval literature; Tasso and Renaissance literature.