Dr. Klazina Staat
Postdoc in Latin literature at Ghent University (2019-2023), PhD in literature and linguistics (Ghent University, 2019), Ma in Classics and Ancient Civilizations (VU University Amsterdam, 2013), Ba in Art History (University of Amsterdam, 2014).
Coordinator of the research network RELICS-Researchers of European Literary Identity, Cosmopolitanism and the Schools. Member of the editorial board of JOLCEL-Journal of Latin Cosmopolitanism and European Literatures.
Research interests: Latin in the European tradition, late antiquity and the early middle ages, Latin and Greek hagiography and patristics, travel literature, medieval art and books, iconographic and book historical analysis, ancient and modern literary theory.
Current research project (FWO junior postdoctoral fellowship 2019-2023): 'Tours on Paper. Literary Explorations of the Travel Guide Book (Itinerarium) in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages'. The project involves a literary-historical analysis of Latin narratives of pilgrims to the Holy Land, Rome, and Constantinople, with attention to their literary form and appearance in the medieval book. The wider aim is to investigate how the travel writings contributed to and benefitted from the shaping of a universal Christian world view in Latin medieval Europe. The research project is funded by the Flemish Research Foundation FWO (Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek - Vlaanderen).
PhD project (2014-2018), 'In Good Faith. Belief and Credibility in Late Antique Latin Hagiographical Narratives about Chaste Couples', focusing on the narrative and rhetorical strategies employed in hagiographical stories to inspire and thematize belief. The project was part of the research project 'Novel Saints: Studies in Ancient Fiction and Hagiography' at Ghent University, supervised by Koen De Temmerman and funded by the European Research Council (ERC).
Future research project (nine months in 2021-2022): 'Total Devotion in Ascetic Hagiography (4-6th cent. CE)', focusing on the narrativity and emotional attraction of stories about secret saints within the emerging Christianity of late antiquity. It is part of the research project 'Total Devotion – passions and plots in radical religion in the ancient world' at the University of Southern-Denmark (SDU) in Odense, supervised by Laura Feldt and funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark.