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Nicolò Sassi, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor
Theological Studies

Courses Taught

Rise of Christianity; Medieval Imagination; Intro to the New Testament; Theories and Methods in the Study of Religion; Late Ancient Syriac

Education

Ph.D., Religious Studies, Indiana University Bloomington, 2022
M.A., Religious Studies, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, 2016 
M.A., Music Performance, Conservatorio Santa Cecilia, 2014 
B.A., Philosophy, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, 2014 

Research Interests

  • Ancient and Medieval Eastern Christian Literatures (Byzantine, Syriac, Ethiopic, Coptic, Arabic)
  • Critical and Literary Theory (Postcritique, Worldmaking, Deconstruction)

Publications and Media Placements

Monographs

  •  In prep. Wayfaring Tales and the Religious Imagination: Transformative Textual Encounters in the Medieval Christian East (forthcoming with Edinburgh University Press, 2026)
Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles and Book Chapters 
  • In prep. “Imagining Animals in Late Ancient Syriac Christianity: The Contribution of Pseudo-Dionysius’ On the Celestial Hierarchy and the Physiologus”, in D. Pallis (ed.), Dionysius the Areopagite and the Christian Tradition: The Biblical and Patristic Legacy in the Dionysian Corpus (Brill: forthcoming 2027)
  • In prep. “The Cannibal Nun Poem in Marcianus Graecus 524: Intertextuality as Companionship in Byzantium”, in G. Gollo and C. Dumitru (eds.), Reading through the Lines: Variations and Functions of Intertextuality in Byzantine Literature (Routledge: forthcoming 2027)
  • 2025: “Elsewheres of Worldmaking: On the Possibilities of Personification in the Progymnasmata of Nikephoros Basilakes (12th c.)”, Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies 16.1 (2025), 65-88.
  • 2024: “Circulation of Hagiographical Tales Along the Incense Route: Storytelling as Technology of Enchantment”, in S. Constantinou – A. Andreou (ed.), Storyworlds in Short Narratives: Approaches to Late Antique and Early Byzantine Tales (Brill: Leiden 2024), 131-156.
  • 2024: “The End of the World Happens Within: The Mystical Eschatology of the Syriac Book of Secrets (6th c.)”, in I. Sanmartín – F. Peña (ed.), Expecting the End of the World in Medieval Europe: an Interdisciplinary Study (Routledge 2024), 63-82.
  • 2022: “On De Mystica Theologia I 997 A: Rhetorical Strategies as Technologies of Mystagogy in Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite”, Medioevo Greco 22 (2022), 123-132.
  • 2021: “Towards a New Edition of the Book of Hierotheos”, Studia Patristica 125 (2021), 157-163.
  • 2019: “The Corpus Areopagiticum and the Book of the Holy Hierotheos”, Bisanzio nello spazio e nel tempo. Costantinopoli e la Siria. Atti della XIV Giornata di Studi dell’AISB (Roma, Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 10-11 novembre 2017), a cura di S. Ronchey e F. Monticini, Roma, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 307 (2019), 197-217.
  • 2019: “Intertextuality, Isiac Features, and the shaping of the Sacred Feminine in Trimorphic Protennoia (NHC XIII, 1)”, Studia Orientalia Electronica 7 (2019), 82-95.
  • 2018: “Le fonti del lessico teologico delle Epistole dello Pseudo-Dionigi Areopagita”, Lexicon Philosophicum 6 (2018), 69-115.
  • 2017: “Le fonti del lessico teologico del De Mystica Theologia dello Pseudo-Dionigi Areopagita”, Textual Cultures 11.1-2 (2017), 130-171.
  • 2016: “Mystical Union as Acknowledgment: Pseudo-Dionysius’ Account of Henosis”, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 56.4 (2016), 771-784.  
Book-length Translations 

  • 2021: S. Ronchey, Hypatia. The True Story. 268 p. (Italian to English; De Gruyter, Berlin-New York 2021). 
Book Reviews 
  • 2020: M. Edwards, Aristotle and Early Christian Thought, Journal of Early Christian Studies 28.1 (2020), 159-161.
  • 2019: G. Mushayabasa, Translation Technique in the Peshitta to Ezekiel 1-24: A Frame Semantics Approach, Symposia. The Journal of Religion 10 (2019), 52-53.