Alessandra Migliara

Alessandra Migliara is a philologist specializing in Greek language and literature. Her research explores ancient Greek literature through philology, narratology, cognitive approaches, and visual culture, with particular interests in the fantastic, fictionality, and the relationship between texts and human imagination.

Her first book project, The Art of the Unreal: Fantastic Narratives in Ancient Greek Culture, examines how Greek authors and audiences conceptualized and engaged with the impossible, from Homeric epic to imperial prose fiction. Developing from her dissertation, the project approaches the fantastic as a narrative mode that crosses genres, including epic, drama, and prose narrative. It investigates how authors construct impossible worlds, negotiate expectations of plausibility, and invite audiences to take pleasure in deliberate departures from reality. The project also considers how visual art and theatrical performance shape the experience of the unreal.

Her broader research interests include imperial prose literature (especially Lucian and the Greek novel), fragmentary narratives preserved on papyri, ancient performance, and the contemporary reception of Greek drama. Her work on modern performances of tragedy examines how productions engage with gender, collective agency, migration, and political protest, particularly in Italian and modern Greek theater. A separate project investigates eye-shaped votive offerings from the Athenian sanctuary of Asklepios in relation to the adjacent Theater of Dionysus, exploring connections among vision, healing, sacred space, and performance.

She spent two years as a fellow at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and her research has also received support from the Fondation Hardt and the CUNY Academy for the Humanities and Sciences. At Cincinnati, she teaches Greek and Latin literature and culture and serves as Greek and Latin language coordinator. 

PhD: The City University of New York (Classics)

MA: University of Catania (Classical Philology)

BA: University of Catania (Classics)

• Fantastic narratives in Greek and Latin literatures
• Ancient drama and performance
• Imperial prose narrative
• Literary and cognitive theories
• Reception studies
• Greek palaeography
• Ancient Greek and Latin languages pedagogy

Best Pre-Ph.D. Paper, Women’s Classical Caucus, 2023. Winning paper: “Dramatic Bodies and Collective Agency in Carlus Padrissa’s Bacchae.”

Doreen Canaday Spitzer Advanced Fellowship, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2022-2023.

Research Scholarship for Young Researchers, Fondation Hardt pour l’Étude de l'antiquité classique, 2023.

Lane Cooper Award, CUNY Academy for the Humanities and Sciences, 2022.

Philip Lockhart Fellowship, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2021-2022.