Scholars@Duke

• Background
• 

  Education, Training, & Certifications

  • Ph.D., Columbia University 2005
  • M.Phil., Columbia University 2002
  • B.A., Columbia University 1999
• 

  Duke Appointment History

  • Associate Professor of Romance Studies, Romance Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2013 - 2020
  • Assistant Professor of Romance Studies, Romance Studies, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2005 - 2013
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  Leadership & Clinical Positions at Duke

  • Chair of Romance Studies, 2020-
• Recognition
• 

  In the News

  • AUG 26, 2021

    Duke University Libraries

    Dante's World Is Bigger Than Hell

  • MAY 25, 2021

    May Books: Martin Eisner “Dante's New Life of the Book: A Philology of World Literature”
• 

  Awards & Honors

  • Lily Auchincloss Rome Prize, American Academy in Rome (Medieval Competition) 2013-14. American Academy in Rome. December 2013
  • Rome Prize, American Academy in Rome (Renaissance Competition). American Academy in Rome. 2013
  • Rome Prize. American Academy In Rome. 2013
  • Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of Romance Studies. Unknown. April 2008
  • Institute of Advanced Study, Member. Unknown. 2008
  • Franklin Grants. American Philosophical Society. 2007
  • School of Historical Studies/ Members. Institute for Advanced Study. 2007
• Expertise
• 

  Subject Headings

  • Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321. Divine comedy
• 

  Global Scholarship

  • Expertise

    • Italy (Country) 

  • Research

    • Italy (Country) 
• Publications & Artistic Works
• 

  Selected Publications

  • Books

    • Eisner, Martin. Dante's New Life of the Book A Philology of World Literature. Oxford University Press, USA, 2021.
    • EISNER, M. A. R. T. I. N., and Chair of Romance Studies and Professor of Italian Duke University Martin (Chair of Romance Studies and Professor of Italian Eisner. Dante's New Life of the Book A Philology of World Literature. Oxford Textual Perspectives, 2021.
    • Eisner, Martin, and David Lummus, eds. A Boccaccian Renaissance Essays on the Early Modern Impact of Giovanni Boccaccio and His Works. University of Notre Dame Press, 2019.
    • Eisner, Martin, Valerio Cappozzo, and Timothy Kircher, eds. Boccaccio and His World. Special Issue of Heliotropia, vol. 15, 2018.
       Link to Item
    • Eisner, Martin. Boccaccio and the Invention of Italian Literature: Dante, Petrarch, Cavalcanti, and the Authority of the Vernacular. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

  • Academic Articles

    • Eisner, M. “Machiavelli in paradise: How reading dante and ovid shaped the prince.” Pmla 134, no. 1 (January 1, 2019): 35–50. https://doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2019.134.1.35.
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    • Eisner, Martin. “Dante's Ballata: The Personification of Poetry and the Authority of the Vernacular in the Vita Nuova.” Mediaevalia 39, no. 1 (2018): 299–318. https://doi.org/10.1353/mdi.2018.0010.
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    • Eisner, Martin. “A Singular Boccaccio: Defending and Defining Poetry in the Decameron and Genealogie.” Quaderni D Italianistica 38 (2017): 179–99.
       Link to Item
    • Eisner, M. G. “Boccaccio e l’invenzione della letteratura italiana.” Le Tre Corone 1 (2014): 11–26.
       Open Access Copy
    • Eisner, M. “In the labyrinth of the library: Petrarch's Cicero, Dante's Virgil, and the historiography of the Renaissance.” Renaissance Quarterly 67, no. 3 (January 1, 2014): 755–90. https://doi.org/10.1086/678774.
       Full Text  Open Access Copy
    • Eisner, M. G. “The Word Made Flesh in Inferno 5: Francesca Reading and the Figure of the Annunciation in Dante’s Commedia.” Dante Studies, 2013.
       Open Access Copy
    • Eisner, M. G. “Eroticizing Theology in Day Three and the Poetics of the Decameron.” Annali D’Italianistica 31 (2013): 207–24.
       Open Access Copy
    • Eisner, M. G. “A Singular Boccaccio: Defending and Defining Poetry in the Decameron and Genealogie.,” 2013.
    • Eisner, Martin G. “The Return to Philology and the Future of Literary Criticism: Reading the Temporality of Literature in Auerbach, Benjamin, and Dante.” California Italian Studies, December 2011.
       Open Access Copy
    • Eisner, M., and M. Schachter. “Libido Sciendi: Apuleius, Boccaccio and the History of Sexuality.” Pmla, May 2009.
    • Eisner, Martin. “Petrarch Reading Boccaccio: Revisiting the Genesis of the Triumphi.” Edited by Teodolinda Barolini and H Wayne Storey, 2007.

  • Book Sections

    • Eisner, M. G. “Dante and the Author of the Decameron: Love, Literature, and Authority in Boccaccio.” In The Oxford Handbook to Chaucer, edited by Suzanne Akbari and James Simpson. Oxford University Press, 2020.
    • Eisner, Martin. “The Language of Women in the World of God: Vernacularization.” In Wiley-Blackwell  Companion to World Literature, 2020.
    • Eisner, Martin. “Vernacularization and World Literature: The Language of Women in the World of God.” In A Companion to World Literature, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118635193.ctwl0055.
       Full Text
    • Eisner, M. “Boccaccio’s Renaissance.” In Boccaccio and the European Literary Tradition, 45–55. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2014.
    • Eisner, M. “Boccaccio's Renaissance.” In Boccaccio and the European Literary Tradition, edited by P. Boitani and E. Di Rocco, 45–55. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2014.
    • Eisner, Martin. “The Tale of Ferondo’s Purgatory (III.8).” In The Decameron: Third Day, edited by Pier Massimo Forni and Francesco Ciabattoni, 153–73. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014.
       Link to Item
    • Eisner, Martin G. “Giovanni Boccaccio "Commedia" and "Dante Alighieri".” edited by Choon Leong Seow, Hermann Spieckermann, Paul Mendes-Flohr, Bernard McGinn, Hans-Josef Klauck, and Eric Ziolkowski. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008.
    • Eisner, Martin G. ““Giovanni Boccaccio” "Commedia" and "Dante Alighieri".” In The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, edited by Choon Leong Seow, Hermann Spieckermann, Paul Mendes-Flohr, Bernard McGinn, Hans-Josef Klauck, and Eric Ziolkowski. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008.
    • Eisner, M. “Chapter Five : Petrarch Reading Boccaccio: Revisiting the Genesis of the Triumphi.” In Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition, 31:131–46, 2007.
    • Eisner, Martin. “Dante and the Spectrum of Medieval Vernacular Poetry.” In.” In Approaches to Teaching Dante, edited by Christopher Kleinhenz and Kristina Olson. New York: Modern Language Association, n.d.

  • Book Reviews

    • Eisner, Martin. “Reading Dante in Renaissance Italy: Florence, Venice and the “Divine Poet.” Simon Gilson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. xiv + 434 pp. $120.” Renaissance Quarterly. Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2019. https://doi.org/10.1017/rqx.2019.464.
       Full Text
    • Eisner, Martin. “Boccaccio: A Critical Guide to the Complete Works. Victoria Kirkham, Michael Sherberg, and Janet Levarie Smarr, eds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. xix + 556 pp. $50.” Renaissance Quarterly. Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2015. https://doi.org/10.1086/683948.
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    • Eisner, M. G. “Rev. of Bonnie Mak, How the Page Matters.” Renaissance Quarterly, 2013.
    • Eisner, M. G. “Rev. of Rhiannon Daniels, Boccaccio and the Book.” Renaissance Quarterly, 2010.
    • Eisner, M. G. “Rev. of Carol Lansing, Power and Purity.” H Italy., 2010.
    • Eisner, Martin. “Rhiannon Daniels. Boccaccio and the Book: Production and Reading in Italy 1340–1520. Italian Perspectives 19. London: Legenda, 2009. xi + 229 pp. $89.50.. ISBN: 978–1–906540–49–4.” Renaissance Quarterly. Cambridge University Press (CUP), 2010. https://doi.org/10.1086/655234.
       Full Text  Open Access Copy
    • Eisner, Martin G. “Review of Vincenzo Traversa, ed. and trans. Giovanni Boccaccio, Theseid of the Nuptials of Emilia (Teseida delle nozze di Emilia).” Heliotropia, 2008.
    • Eisner, Martin G. “Review of Prue Shaw, ed. Dante: Monarchia on CD-ROM.” The Medieval Review, 2008.
• Teaching & Mentoring
• 

  Recent Courses

  • ITALIAN 190FS: Focus Topics in Italian Literature and Culture 2021
  • ITALIAN 338S: Boccaccio's Decameron 2021
  • ITALIAN 338SP: Boccaccio's Decameron - Preceptorial 2021
  • ITALIAN 742S: Boccaccio's Decameron 2021
  • MEDREN 190FS: Special Topics in Focus 2021
  • MEDREN 338S: Boccaccio's Decameron 2021
  • ROMST 791: Independent Study 2021
  • HISTORY 253: Dante's Divine Comedy: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise 2020
  • HISTORY 405: What Machiavelli Really Says 2020
  • HISTORY 743: What Machiavelli Really Says 2020
  • ITALIAN 393: Research Independent Study 2020
  • ITALIAN 481: Dante's Divine Comedy: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise 2020
  • ITALIAN 483: What Machiavelli Really Says 2020
  • ITALIAN 743: What Machiavelli Really Says 2020
  • LIT 483: What Machiavelli Really Says 2020
  • LIT 743: What Machiavelli Really Says 2020
  • MEDREN 473: What Machiavelli Really Says 2020
  • POLSCI 483: What Machiavelli Really Says 2020
  • POLSCI 752: What Machiavelli Really Says 2020
  • RELIGION 262: Dante's Divine Comedy: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise 2020
  • ITALIAN 89S: First Year Seminar in Italian 2019
  • ITALIAN 493: Research Independent Study 2019
  • ITALIAN 584S: Boccaccio Studies 2019
  • ITALIAN 791: Special Readings 2019
  • LIT 89S: First-Year Seminar 2019
  • MEDREN 89S: First-Year Seminar 2019
• Scholarly, Clinical, & Service Activities
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  Presentations & Appearances

  • “Boccaccio in Venice: The 1363 Mission to Petrarch.” Boccaccio Veneto: Cultural crossing in the Medieval Mediterranean.". June 1, 2013  2013
  • “Boccaccio’s Open Book: Chigi L V 176 and the Invention of Italian Literature.”. June 1, 2013  2013
  • Mediating Dante: Boccaccio and the Transformation of a Modern Author.. May 1, 2013  2013
  • Boccaccio and the Authority of Literature. October 1, 2011  2011
  • The Codex and the Canon: Boccaccio and the Making of Dante, Petrarch, and Cavalcanti. October 1, 2011  2011
  • The ‘Careless’ Scribe: Boccaccio’s Chigi Codex and the Invention of Italian Literature. April 1, 2011  2011
  • “Boccaccio on Dante and Truth in Ferondo’s Purgatory (Decameron III.8),” Lectura Boccaccii single-speaker session. MLA. January 1, 2011  2011
  • “Boccaccio’s Experiments with the Material Book.” Material Philology and the Neo-Latin Text.. October 1, 2010  2010
  • “A Singular Boccaccio.” Triennial International Boccaccio Conference. April 1, 2010  2010
  • Petrarch’s Influence on Dante: The Multiple Temporalities of Literary History. April 1, 2009  2009
  • World Literature without Philology?: Rethinking the Shape of Literary History with Auerbach and Dante.”. April 1, 2008  2008
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  Service to the Profession

  • External Reader, Digitial Philology. December 3, 2013  2013
  • External Reader, Exemplaria Spring 2013. December 3, 2013  2013
  • External Reader, University of Chicago Press. 2012  2012
  • External Reader for University of Toronto Press. December 4, 2011  2011
  • External Reader for Yale University Press. March 19, 2008  2008

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