Peerawat Chiaranunt
Background:
I found my love for the humanities through the ‘Great Books’ curriculum at St. John’s College (Santa Fe, NM), where I earned my bachelor’s in 2017. I then proceeded directly to postgraduate studies, first at Yale Divinity School (M.A.R., Religion & Literature, 2019), then at the University of Notre Dame (M.A., Italian, 2021).
Research:
My doctoral thesis explores Dante Alighieri’s engagement as a poet and thinker with the mystery of divine creation, understood with reference to the exegetical, philosophical, and literary elaborations of Genesis that flourished throughout the long Middle Ages. The aim of this investigation is to arrive at a deeper understanding of how Dante’s practices as an author interacted with (and developed alongside) his preoccupations with the origins of the cosmos, as well as related issues such as time, space, matter, nature, order, and being.
In addition to medieval Italian literature in its philosophical and theological contexts, I also cultivate interests in the history of Neoplatonism, the intellectual culture of the Italian Renaissance/Baroque, and the premodern dialogue between ‘science’ and ‘religion’.
My formation as a scholar here at Oxford would not be possible were it not for the generosity of the Clarendon Fund and the Bounden Scholarship at Jesus College.
Publications:
“Inferno 7: Virgilian Genesis,” in Le tre corone: Rivista internazionale di studi su Dante, Petrarca, Boccaccio, IX (2022), 107-126.
Presentations:
“Natural Philosophy and Theology in Convivio IV.21 and the Quaestio,” Leeds International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds (July 5-7, 2022)
“Sì come l’occhio debole al sole: Variations of a Scholastic Topos,” Annual Dante Workshop, Rome Global Gateway, University of Notre Dame (May 11-13, 2022)
“The Hexameron from Brunetto to Dante,” A Centenary Celebration of New Voices in UK and Irish Dante Studies, Universities of Cambridge and Oxford (November 12-13, 2021)
“Monteverdi’s Canzoniere: The Petrarchan Framework of the Selva morale et spirituale,” Institute of Sacred Music Colloquium, Yale University (November 28, 2018)
