Julene Abad Del Vecchio

I am a Lecturer in Classical Literature and Culture at Manchester. After working as the Postdoctoral Research Associate on the Ancient Letter Collections Project (Durham/Glasgow/Manchester), and Lecturer at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David (2022-2023), I returned to my alma mater in January 2024.

My main research area is the Latin literature of the 1st century AD, and the poetry of the Neapolitan poet Statius in particular. My forthcoming book, The Dark Side of Statius' Achilleid: Epic Distorted (OUP, 2024), offers a reconsideration of the more 'serious' themes at the heart of this fascinating epic poem, exploring central aspects of this composition that lend themselves to epic and tragic readings.

Some of my recent publications have focused on the presence and significance of the Amazons in Statius, aspects of the language of the Achilleid, as well as themes of motherhood in the same poem, and the use of wordplay in Ovid's Metamorphoses.

I am also intrigued by the reception of classical literature within the works of the dramatists of the Spanish Golden Age (especially Tirso de Molina and Calderón de la Barca). I have also edited with A. Sarri a special issue of the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library on the Aldine Edition of the Ancient Greek Epistolographers.

Current research projects include a co-edited special issue on Egypt in Imperial Latin literature, a piece on Venus and Vulcan in Aeneid 8, and a nascent project on grief and loss in Latin literature.