Lepori, Filippo
Trained in classical languages since high school,
I graduated with a BA in Classics from University of Pisa in 2019 and an MA in Classics and Ancient History from University of Pisa in 2022. My BA dissertation focused on Homeric formularity and oral composition (Thesis’ title: Some aspects of formularity in the Telemachy). During my MA, I got interested in the Historical Anthropology of the Ancient World, focusing on the connection between forms of expression, i.e., the ways in which a text has been composed and transmitted, and Realien described in literary texts. For this reason, for my MA dissertation (Thesis’ title: Between rituals and formulas: sacrifice and orality in the Iliad) I decided to study the connection between formulas and ritual actions in the Iliadic descriptions (type-scenes) of sacrifice, in order to study the sacrificial practices and the different forms of civilization as represented in the Iliad, on the one hand, and the formulaic composition of the Homeric poems, on the other.
During my MA, I spent a term as a trainee at the Faculté des lettres of the University of Lausanne. In that period, I participated in the Iliadoscope project, which aims to develop an IT tool in order to study the manuscript Genavensis Graecus 44 (Iliadoscope (unil.ch)). Simultaneously, I took part in the EuporiaEdu project (University of Pisa and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice), which aims to develop and test Euporia, a digital annotation system, for the teaching of classical languages in high schools (EuporiaEDU: didattica digitale del greco antico – LAMA – Laboratorio di Antropologia del Mondo Antico (unipi.it)). Moreover, since 2020 I have been a member of the Laboratorio di Antropologia del Mondo Antico, University of Pisa. Lastly, before joining the department of Archaeology and Ancient History at Uppsala University in 2022 as a PhD student in Classical Archaeology and Ancient History, I taught Italian and Latin language and literature in a high school for six months.
My PhD project deals with Homeric sacrifice and aims to investigate all the sacrificial practices as represented in the Iliad and in the Odyssey. As a starting point, I will analyze the Homeric sacrificial descriptions (type-scenes) establishing contact between formulas and ritual actions on the basis of iteration and variations; afterwards, I will compare Homeric evidence with many external materials (archaeological, epigraphical, iconographical and written evidence) in order to reconstruct all the Homeric sacrificial practices in a systematic way and to achieve a full understanding of Homeric sacrifice.
My main fields of interests are Ancient Greek Literature, Historical Anthropology of the Ancient World, Greek Civilization, Ancient Greek History, Homeric Formularity, Greek Sacrifice and Ancient Greek Religion. Further research interests of mine are Digital Humanities, History of Culture and Teaching classics in high schools.