WS 2026/27
Thesis topic: ‘Translating Epic Women from Greco-Roman Antiquity: A Digital Diachronic Study of Representation of Epic Women in Early Modern to Contemporary Translations.'
Contact details at the University of Würzburg:
Nachwuchsgruppe Sustainability in Translation
Emil-Hilb-Weg 23
Campus Hubland Nord
97074 Würzburg
Email Ms Yildiz
Principal supervisor:
Co-supervisors:
Prof. Dr. MaryAnn Snyder-Körber
Prof. Dr. Mareike Schumacher (Univ. Regensburg)
Class at the Graduate School: “Digital Humanities"
Doctoral candidate at the Graduate School from the winter semester 2026/27.
Abstract:
This dissertation project examines how female characters in Greco-Roman epic are represented across translations over time, especially through gendered language, agency, sexuality, morality, and paratextual framing. The dissertation investigates how specific modes of translation of female characters in Greco-Roman epics contribute to the sustainability of these myths. Moreover, it explores how digital corpus-based methods reveal diachronic patterns in said translation history, showing how translations reshaped the representation of women across historical periods.
The main corpus of this project consists of selected female characters and relevant sections from Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” and their English translations from the early modern period to the 21st century. Both digital and non-digital approaches will be used to analyse the corpus, incorporating both close reading of sections and distant reading of the corpus as a whole.
