Professor, School of Communication and Culture - English, Aarhus University, Denmark
During her Carlsberg Monograph Fellowship, Isabelle Torrance will be working on the project 'Greek Tragedy and Human Rights: The Case of Ireland'
This project posits a correlation between the agitation for human rights expressed in Irish adaptations of Greek tragedy (as theatre productions, films, novels) and increased social awareness leading to the implementation of legal or societal change. Topics addressed include the rights to indigenous language, to ownership of land, to bodily autonomy for women, to free expression of non-traditional gender identities, to equality as ethnic minorities, and to protection from abuse for children. Through methodology of a Human Rights-Based Approach, the project develops a new critical pathway in the field of classical reception studies.
Isabelle Torrance is a Carlsberg Monograph Fellow at AIAS, Professor of Classical Reception, and Director of the Centre for Irish Studies at the English Department, Aarhus University, Denmark. She has published extensively on the classical literature of Graeco-Roman antiquity and its reception (social and political functions) in different historical contexts and periods, and especially in Ireland. From 2019-2026 she was Principal Investigator on the ERC-funded project Classical Influences and Irish Culture which spanned the medieval period to the present day. She is a previous AIAS Marie Curie Co-Fund Fellow (2016-2019).
Project title: Greek Tragedy and Human Rights: The Case of Ireland
Area of research: Irish Literature, Classical Reception, Human Rights
Fellowship period: 1 Sep 2026 - Jul 2027
Fellowship type: Carlsberg Monograph Fellow
Contact: itorrance@cc.au.dk
This fellowship has received funding from The Carlsberg Foundation under the monograph fellowships.
