Julie Van Pelt studied Classics (Latin and Greek Literature and Linguistics, 2010-2013) and Comparative Modern Literary Studies (2013-2014) at Ghent University. She obtained a PhD in Greek Literature from Ghent University in 2019 with a dissertation on the representation of disguise and performance in Byzantine Lives of Saints (cross-dressing saints, holy fools, and beggar saints; 4th-10th cent.).
Between 2014 and 2016 she held a research position as a PhD candidate in the ERC research project Novel Saints (directed by prof. dr. Koen De Temmerman), where she studied the continuation of ancient fictional narrative traditions into Greek late antique hagiography. Between 2016 and 2020, she was a PhD fellow of the FWO (Research Foundation - Flanders). In 2019 she was a summer fellow at Dumbarton Oaks. Since 2020 she is a postdoctoral fellow of the FWO (Research Foundation - Flanders). She also held a Fulbright scholarship and was a postdoctoral fellow of the Belgian American Educational Foundation (BAEF) at Georgetown University in 2021.
Her research focuses on fictionality, gender and magic in late antique and early medieval hagiography in Greek. She currently studies the narrative portrayal of magicians and literary strategies for distinguishing miracle and magic in this genre.
