Fiammetta Comelli is an FWO-funded PhD candidate at the Department of History of Ghent University, where she works under the supervision of Prof. Steven Vanderputten and Prof. Julie M. Birkholz on an interdisciplinary research project (Entanglements of the Long Tenth Century) at the intersection of Medieval History and Digital Humanities. Her research investigates how tenth-century hagiography functioned as a medium of local and translocal networking within the Lotharingian area, combining traditional historical methodologies with digital humanities approaches, particularly Social Network Analysis.
She previously obtained both her BA and MA degrees from the University of Milan under the supervision of Prof. Silvia Romani (co-supervisor: Prof. Paola Francesca Moretti). Her thesis in the History of Religions focused on human–animal relationships in myths and folkloric narratives of metamorphosis, from the Ancient world to the Middle Ages.
Her work primarily explores religion in the medieval world, examining both its historical manifestations and the theoretical and methodological issues involved in the academic study of religions through interdisciplinary perspectives drawn from sociology, anthropology, and political thought. Particular attention is devoted to forms of non-institutional religiosity, folklore, the continuity and transformation of pre-Christian traditions, and the reshaping of pagan beliefs within medieval societies.
A closely related area of research concerns Animal Studies and Environmental Studies, approached from an anthropological perspective that considers human–animal relationships and human interactions with the environment as active forces in the construction of cultural, social, religious, and political meanings. This interest also extends to landscape representations and travel narratives.
Her research further encompasses Classical Reception, including both the medieval reinterpretation of classical authors, figures, and ideas, and the long-term continuities of religious and cultural forms from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. She is also interested in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, particularly his creative reworking of ancient and medieval mythological, religious, folkloric, and literary traditions.
