Dr Giovanna Di Martino

My work explores the translation, adaptation, and performance of ancient Greek and Roman drama, particularly in the early modern period. I have a strong interest in practice-based research and co-lead several collaborative projects, including Translating Ancient Drama and Performing the Classics under Fascism at the APGRD, and Erasmus Intensive Programmes on Classical Reception and the Performing Arts (2023 and 2025). Her research combines philology, performance, and reception studies to examine how classical texts have shaped and been shaped by different cultural and political contexts.

Greek tragedy; Greek comedy; classical reception; early modern theatre; translation studies; performance practice; dramaturgy; theatre history; Fascism and classical antiquity; philology; intermediality

I teach across ancient Greek and Latin languages and literature, with a particular focus on Greek drama and its reception. At UCL, I have delivered undergraduate modules on tragedy, comedy, and translation, and contributed to MA teaching on reception and translation studies. I also developed a new interdisciplinary module, Dramaturgy, Ancient and Modern, which launched in 2025. At Oxford, I taught a wide range of tutorials and reading classes across literature and language papers, Tragedy, Epic, Ancient and Classical French Tragedy, Greek Core, Greek Tragedy, Aristophanes’ Political Comedy, Homer, Virgil, Early Greek Hexameter Poetry, and Medieval and Renaissance Latin Hexameter Poetry. I was regularly invited to contribute to the MSt module Methods in Reception, and worked closely with students on interdisciplinary projects combining Classics with music, dance, queer theory, and translation studies.

Full Publications: Dr G Di Martino June 2025

Selected Publications:

G. Di Martino, ‘Translation, Classical Antiquity and the Choice of Aeschylus between the 18th and 19th Centuries, in Italy and Beyond’, in P. Kurtz and L. Loporcaro (eds.), Plus ça change? Continuity and Discontinuity in Philology before and after 1800 (forthcoming 2026)

G. Di Martino, ‘The Reception of Aeschylus in Modern Times: Translation’, in A. Markantonatos & A. H. Sommerstein (eds.), Brill’s Companion to Aeschylus, Leiden: Brill (forthcoming 2026)

G. Di Martino, ‘Mediterraneanism, Greek Tragedy, and the Fascist Empire at the Roman Theatre of Sabratha: 1937–1938’, in S. Agbamu, E. Giusti (eds.), Classics and Italian Colonialism, Berlin: De Gruyter (forthcoming July 2025)

G. Di Martino, C. Dudouyt (eds.), Translating Ancient Greek Drama in Early Modern Europe: Theory and Practice (17th–18th Centuries), Berlin: De Gruyter (forthcoming June 2025)

G. Di Martino, ‘Practice Research, Performance Pedagogy, and Early Modern Aristophanes: Building (on) the Script(s)’, in Memory and Performance, Skenè Vol. 10 No. 2 (2024): 167–213. Link

G. Di Martino, ‘Introduction. (Mis)Remembering Greece and Rome in Early Modern Performance’, in Memory and Performance, Skenè Vol. 10 No. 2 (2024): 5–11. Link

F. Bortoletti, G. Di Martino, E. Refini (eds.), Memory and Performance. Classical Reception in Early Modern Festivals, Skenè: Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies Vol. 10 No. 2 (2024). Link

F. Bortoletti, G. Di Martino, E. Refini (eds.), Memory and Performance. Classical Reception in Early Modern Festivals, Skenè: Journal of Theatre and Drama Studies Vol. 10 No. 1 (2024). Link

G. Di Martino, ‘Constructing a Hellenic Modernism: Aeschylus at the Ancient Theatre of Syracuse (1914–1930)’, in A Hellenic Modernism, Classical Receptions Journal 16.1 (2024). Link

G. Di Martino, E. Ioannidou, S. Troiani (eds.), A Hellenic Modernism: Greek Theatre and Italian Fascism, Classical Receptions Journal 16.1 (2024). Link

G. Di Martino, ‘The Living Archive: Archiving and Documenting Classical Performance during Fascism,’ in (Re)Living Greece and Rome, Fascism 12.2 (2023): 183–205. Link

G. Di Martino, ‘Translating Ancient Greek Tragedy in 16th-century Italy’, in Translating Ancient Greek Drama in Early Modern Europe (2023), 137–158.

G. Di Martino, E. Baudou, ‘Early Modern Iphigenias and Practice Research’, in Translating Ancient Greek Drama in Early Modern Europe (2023), 255–292.

E. Ioannidou, G. Di Martino, and S. Troiani (eds.), (Re)Living Greece and Rome: Performances of Classical Antiquity under Fascism, Fascism: Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies 12.2 (2023): 107–331. Link

M. Bastin-Hammou, G. Di Martino, C. Dudouyt, L. Jackson (eds.), Translating Ancient Greek Drama in Early Modern Europe. Theory and Practice (15th–16th Centuries), Berlin: De Gruyter (2023).

F. Macintosh and G. Di Martino, ‘Archiving and Interpreting Greek Theatre: the archive as engine room and digital hub’, FuturoClassico 7 (2021). Link

G. Di Martino, Translating and Adapting Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes in America, Verona: Skenè (2020). Link