Julene Abad Del Vecchio

I am currently a Lecturer in Classical Literature and Culture at Manchester, my alma mater. Before taking up a lectureship at UoM, I worked as the Postdoctoral Research Associate on the Ancient Letter Collections Project (Durham/Glasgow/Manchester), a project on which I remain actively involved, and Lecturer at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (2022-2023).

My main research area is the Latin literature of the 1st century AD, and the poetry of the Neapolitan poet Statius in particular. My book, The Dark Side of Statius' Achilleid: Epic Distorted (OUP, 2024), offers a thorough reconsideration of the more 'serious' themes at the heart of this fascinating epic poem, Statius' last. The monograph explores central aspects of this composition that lend themselves to epic/tragic readings.

Some of my publications have focused on the presence and significance of the Amazons in Statius, aspects of the language of the Achilleid, the use of wordplay in Ovid's Metamorphoses, and a recently published co-edited special issue on Egypt in Imperial Latin literature with the journal Arethusa.

Following my interest in ancient epistolography, I have co-edited a special issue of the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library on the Aldine Edition of the Ancient Greek epistolographers. I am also intrigued by the reception of classical literature within the works of the dramatists of the Spanish Golden Age (especially Tirso de Molina and Calderón de la Barca).

Current research projects include several chapters on Statius, an article for PVS on the dynamics of the Venus and Vulcan scene in Aeneid 8, and a nascent project on perceptions of grief and loss in Latin literature.

At Manchester, I teach a varied range of subjects, such as the first-year course on Homer's Odyssey, and other courses in Latin language and literature (Grief and Loss: Coping with the Romans; Ekphrasis in Latin Texts). 

MA (UoM); PhD (UoM, 2019); FHEA