Olivia Holmes, visiting associate professor in the Romance Languages and Literatures Department, has taught at Yale University, Colby College, and Dartmouth College.
Originally from Alexandria, Virginia, Prof. Holmes received her bachelor's degree in English literature from Yale University, an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa, and her doctorate in Comparative Literature from Northwestern University.
Holmes specializes in Italian medieval literature, in particular Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio. Her first book, Assembling the Lyric Self: Authorship from Troubadour Song to Italian Poetry Book (University of Minnesota Press), won the American Association of Italian Studies Book Award in 2001. Her second book, Dante’s Two Beloveds: Ethics and Erotics in the “Divine Comedy,” was published by Yale University Press in 2008. She is currently starting a new project, tentatively titled Boccaccio and Exemplarity: Setting a Bad Example in the “Decameron.”
