Education:

• PhD Columbia University, 2005
• BA Columbia University, 1999

Research Interests:

Professor Eisner has a B.A. in Italian (1999) and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature (2005) from Columbia University. His research and teaching focus on medieval Italian literature, particularly the works of Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch. He is in the process of completing his first book, tentatively entitled “The Poetics of Mediation: Boccaccio and the Cultivation of Italian Literature in the Age of Manual Reproduction,” which analyzes Boccaccio’s transcriptions of the vernacular works of Dante, Petrarch, and Cavalcanti in what is now the Vatican's Chigi L V 176. His next book project, "Rematerializing Literary History: The Afterlives of Dante’s ‘Vita Nuova’" continues to integrate philological materials into literary criticism, but takes a diachronic rather than synchronic approach in its analysis of the material tradition of Dante's first book, from its earliest manuscripts to the most recent editions and adaptations. He is also the author of published and forthcoming articles on Petrarch and Boccaccio. His other research interests include medieval lyric poetry, the European novella tradition, and material philology/textual theory/book history. His courses on Dante and Boccaccio are taught in English, but with discussion sections for students who can read the text in Italian as well. In the Spring 2010, he will teach a seminar for undergraduates and graduate students on The Materiality of Literature (RS150S/200S). For more further details, please see his webpage.

1. M. Eisner and M. Schachter. "Libido Sciendi: Apuleius, Boccaccio and the History of Sexuality." PMLA  (Accepted, May, 2009).  [abs]
2. Martin G. Eisner. "“Giovanni Boccaccio”." The Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception Ed. Choon Leong Seow, Hermann Spieckermann, Paul Mendes-Flohr, Bernard McGinn, Hans-Josef Klauck, and Eric Ziolkowski. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008.
3. Martin G. Eisner, "Review of Vincenzo Traversa, ed. and trans. Giovanni Boccaccio, Theseid of the Nuptials of Emilia (Teseida delle nozze di Emilia)". Heliotropia 5 (2008).
4. Martin G. Eisner, "Review of Prue Shaw, ed. Dante: Monarchia on CD-ROM". The Medieval Review  (2008).