Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics
Raised Faculty Building
University of Cambridge
Sidgwick Avenue
Cambridge
CB3 9DA
United Kingdom
Dr Aistė Kiltinavičiūtė is Affiliated Lecturer at the Faculty of Modern & Medieval Languages & Linguistics and Research Fellow at Vilnius University.
Aistė completed her PhD in Italian at the University of Cambridge under the direction of Prof. Heather Webb in October 2022. Her thesis, ‘Sensory Perception in Dante’s Dreams and Visions,’ analyses the representation of sensory deprivation and excess in Dante’s dreams and visions in the Commedia and Vita nuova from the perspectives of cognitive literary studies and the history of the senses. The thesis argues that by challenging contemporary theories of rapture and altered states of consciousness, Dante influenced the developing Italian dream vision tradition and the understanding of the human body in visionary states.
Previously, Aistė studied for her MPhil in European, Latin American and Comparative Literatures and Cultures (ELAC) at King’s College, Cambridge, and completed her BA (Hons) in English at Wolfson College, Cambridge.
Aistė specialises in medieval Italian literature and culture with a particular interest in Dante studies and early Italian lyric poetry. Her research focuses on corporeality and embodiment as represented in medieval and early modern literary, theological, visual, and philosophical sources. She examines how analysing these representations might contribute to recent debates in the history of the senses and the history of emotions.
Her broader research interests include visionary writing, the illuminations and illustrations of the Commedia, and the interconnections between English and Italian literary traditions.
Scholarships/Prizes:
2022: Vilnius University Foundation Research Grant, Vilnius University.
2020: The Italian Studies Library Research Award, University of Notre Dame.
2018-2021: The Vice-Chancellor’s & Selwyn Sykes Postgraduate Research Scholarship, University of Cambridge.
2017-2018: Cambridge AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) Studentship, University of Cambridge.
Teaching:
ITC1: Translation from and into Italian
ITA3: Introduction to Italian: Texts and Contexts
IT3: Italian Cinema
IT4: Autobiography and Self-Representation in Italian Culture
Paper 1: Practical Criticism and Critical Practice (Faculty of English)
Aistė also teaches an interdisciplinary course that introduces students reading English to Italian literature in the original and in translation.
‘Vita nova XXIX: the “Nineness” of Beatrice and the Subtlety of Interpretation,’ in Rereading Dante’s Vita nova, ed. Zygmunt Barański and Heather Webb (Notre Dame University Press, 2023), forthcoming.
‘Rapture and Visionary Violence in Dante’s Purgatorio 9,’ Annali d’Italianistica 39 (2021), 247‑72.
‘Sensation (Un)bound: Literary Synaesthesia and Cross-Sensory Perception in Dante’s Purgatorio 24,’ Bibliotheca Dantesca: Journal of Dante Studies, Vol. 3 (2020), 86-106.
Luigi Pirandello’s Uno, Nessuno e Centomila: An Interlinear Translation (Interlinear Books, 2020).
Conference Papers:
‘Reading and Misreading Dante across Distance: Dante Translations and Reception in Lithuania, 1938 – present,’ the 6th Annual Cambridge AHRC International Conference ‘Across Distance,’ the Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC DTP, September 2021.
‘Materialità e immaterialità sulla cornice degli iracondi («Purgatorio» 15 e 17),’ Congresso Dantesco Internazionale ‘Alma Dante’ 2021, Ravenna, Italy, September 2021.
‘Audible Sweetness: The Multisensory Sound of Dante’s dolcezza,’ the 34th Irish Conference of Medievalists, Queen’s University Belfast, June 2021.
‘Reimagining the Dream Poet: Dante’s Afterlife in the Kelmscott Chaucer,’ Conference ‘Dante’s Afterlives,’ University of Oxford and University of Leeds, June 2021.
‘Sensory Illusions in Dante’s Dream of the Siren (Purgatorio 19),’ the Virtual American Association of Italian Studies Conference, May 2021.
‘The Body and the Senses in Dante’s Dreams,’ the 56th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 2021.
(With George Rayson) ‘Purgatorio 15: Are You Drunk? Visionary Metapoetics,’ ‘Canto per Canto: Conversations with Dante in Our Time,’ New York University and the Dante Society of America, February 2021.
Other Activities and Roles:
The Cambridge Game and Play Research Network, co-founder and convener (with Elena Violaris).
Affect/Sensation/Emotion in Medieval France and Italy (research group).
