Dr Bryan Brazeau

Senior Teaching Fellow (Liberal Arts)
Departmental Study Abroad Coordinator, Liberal Arts
Digital Pedagogy Lead, School for Cross-Faculty Studies
Phone: +44 (0) 24 765 22764
Room: R3.31
Ramphal Building, Library Road,
University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL
Qualifications
- Ph.D.: Italian Studies (New York University, 2015)
- M.A.: Italian Studies (New York University, 2010)
- B.A.: Western Society and Culture: Liberal Arts College (Concordia University, Montreal, 2008)
- Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA)
- Fellow of the Warwick International Higher Education Academy (WIHEA)
About
I joined the School for Cross-faculty Studies in September 2017. I joined Warwick in 2015 as Research Fellow in Italian Studies on the project Aristotelianism in the Italian Vernacular, funded by the European Research Council. I have taught all levels of Italian language and culture from the middle ages to present day, along with classical Greco-Roman epic poetry, medieval and renaissance French literature, early modern English epic, and renaissance Latin. I have also designed an introductory course to the Digital Humanities.
I have been passionate about interdisciplinary Liberal Arts education since my undergraduate degree at the Liberal Arts College of Concordia University in Montréal, Canada, where I was born and raised. During the course of this degree, I developed an interest in early modern Spanish and Italian literatures. In 2008, I moved to New York where I studied Italian at New York University, obtaining my M.A. in 2010 and my Ph.D. in 2015 with a dissertation project on changing definitions of heroism in sixteenth-century Latin and vernacular Christian epics written in Italy.
My research focusses primarily on early modern Italian literature (Jacopo Sannazaro and Torquato Tasso), philosophy, and poetic theory. I also work on Dante and medieval philosophy, book history, and the visual reception of renaissance art in the early twentieth century. I will soon (March 2020) be publishing an edited collection of essays on new perspectives in the study of early modern poetics—The Reception of Aristotle's Poetics in the Italian Renaissance and Beyond—which emerges from a conference and graduate workshop that I organized at the Newberry Library in March 2017.
Teaching and research interests
- Italian renaissance epic (Boiardo, Ariosto, Tasso)
- Christian epic
- Early modern poetics
- Counter-Reformation culture
- History of emotions and affect theory
- Dante and medieval philosophy
- Early modern reception of Dante and Petrarch (in Italy, France, England, and Spain)
- Digital humanities
- Translation studies (particularly early modern English translations of Italian works)
- Language and literature pedagogy
Selected publications
Edited collections
Peer-reviewed articles and chapters
- ‘Soul to Squeeze: Castelvetro and Early Modern Emotional History’ in The Reception of Aristotle's Poetics in the Italian Renaissance and Beyond, edited by Bryan Brazeau, 201-226. London: Bloomsbury, 2020.
- ‘Building a Mystery: Giorgio De Chirico and Italian Renaissance Painting,’ The Italianist
39.1 (2019): 20-43. - ‘My Own Worst Enemy: Translating Hamartia in Sixteenth-Century Italy,’ Renaissance and Reformation 41.4 (2018): 9-42.
- ‘London Calling: John Harington’s Exegetical Domestication of Ariosto in Late Sixteenth- Century England,’ History of European Ideas 42.5 (Reading Publics in Renaissance Europe, 2016): 640-650.
- 'Emotional Rescue: Heroic Chastity and Devotional Practice in Iacopo Sannazaro’s De partu Virginis,' California Italian Studies 5(1) (The Sacred in Italian Culture, 2015): 225-246.
- 'Who Wants to Live Forever? Overcoming Poetic Immortality in Torquato Tasso's Gerusalemme conquistata,' MLN 129, No.1 (Italian Issue, 2014): 42-61.
- 'I fight auctoritas, auctoritas always wins: Siger of Brabant, Paradiso X and Dante’s Textual Authority,' in Dante and Heterodoxy: The Temptation of Radical Thought in the 13th century, ed. by Maria Luisa Ardizzone (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2014), 106-125.
In press (various stages)
- ‘‘Defying Gravity: Lucrezia Marinella and Prose Epic’ accepted by Classical Receptions Journal. Publication anticipated in 2020. 9,370 words.
-
‘Take Me Down to the Paradise City: An Ecological Approach to Paradise Spaces in Renaissance Epic’ (under review).
- —, and Anne Boemler, 'Tears in Heaven: Tracing the Contours of a Pan-European Transconfessional Genre' (under review).
Online publications and podcasts
- 'Schools of Athens: Liberal Arts and Global Challenges', GLOBUS (Feb. 2018)
- Vernacular Aristotelianism in the Renaissance Database 2.0 (Legacy migration)
- Warwick Centre for the Study of the Renaissance Podcast
- Aristotle in the Italian Vernacular, Project Website and Podcast
- Aristotele e Venezia, Exhibition Website
-
Guide to Medieval and Early Modern Research in Italian Studies
Fellowships, awards, and grants
Teaching fellowships
- July 2020 — Liberal Arts Digital Bridging Materials For Rising Second-Year Students. Warwick International Higher Education Academy (WIHEA) Project Grant.
- June 2020 — with Rebecca Stone, Student Perceptions of Digital Assessment in the Faculty of Arts. Warwick International Higher Education Academy (WIHEA) Project Grant.
- January-May 2019—A Sustainable Serenissima: Water, Fire, and the Future of Venice. Warwick Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning (IATL) Strategic Project Grant.
Research fellowships
- September 2019—Warwick-Newberry Early Career Fellowship
For research at the Newberry Library in Chicago. - August 2016—Warwick-Newberry Transatlantic Fellowship
For research at the Newberry Library in Chicago - June 2016—Warwick Humanities Research Centre Summer Fellowship
For archival research in Florence and Milan, Italy - June 2015—FRQSC* Postdoctoral Research Startup Grant
*Fonds de Recherche du Québec, Société et la Culture
Event-related fellowships
- September 2016—Warwick Humanities Research Fund; The Bibliographic Society
Funding to organize ‘Contexts of Early Modern Literary Criticism’ symposium (March 2017).
Student advice and feedback hours
During Term 2 (2020-2021) my office hours are:
Mondays 11:00-12:00
Tuesdays 15:00-16:00
Please click here to sign up for an appointment slot if you'd like to meet during the times above. Please note that all appointments will be on MS Teams unless you explicitly require a face-to-face meeting.
You can, of course, email me at any time or try to contact me on Teams for any non-urgent matters.
Microsoft Teams is provided free to all members of the University. To download it, and for guidance, please see: Information on Teams
Teaching
- IP101: Liberal Arts: Principles and Praxis
- IP102: Science, Society, and the Media
- IP303: A Sustainable Serenissima: Water, Fire, and the Future of Venice♠
- IP304: Posthumous Geographies I: Underworlds (T1)♦
- IP305: Posthumous Geographies II: Paradises(T2)♦
- IP313: The Quest I: Departure and Enchantment (T1)♥
- IP312: The Quest II: Exile and Homecoming(T2)♥
♠ This module is currently not offered for AY 2020-2021, though it will be offered as an intensive module in June 2021 as part of the Warwick-Monash AISP.
♦ These modules are offered in alternating academic years (2019-2020, 2021-2022, 2023-2024).
♥ These modules are offered in alternating academic years (2020-2021, 2022-2023, 2024-2025).
Recent and upcoming talks
"Classicizing Translation or Modernizing Redux? Vernacular to Latin Translations of Early Modern Christian Epics," to be presented at the triennial meeting of the International Association for Neo-Latin Studies (August, 2021).
"The Serenissima from Spectacle to Spectre: The Image of Venice from James Bond to Assassin’s Creed," to be presented at the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association (January, 2021).
"Games Without Frontiers: Multilingualism and Interdisciplinarity in Problem-Based Learning," presented at Warwick-Monash MITN (Migration, Identity, and Translation Network) (June, 2020).
"Field-Based Teaching at Warwick in Venice: Challenges and Opportunities," presented at Warwick Education Forum, University of Warwick (July, 2019)
“La migrazione al database VARI 2.0 e pensieri per il futuro,” presented at I Confini dell’Aristotelismo Volgare, Palazzo Pesaro Papfava (Warwick in Venice). (March, 2019).
Engagement
Key Texts in the Renaissance: Love, Friendship, and Connection. Community Reading Group Organiser (2020-2021).
Foundational Texts for the Renaissance, Reading Group Convenor (2019-2020): Saint Augustine, City of God.
Student Perception of Digital Assessment in the Faculty of Arts, Co-Director (2020).