Professor Dr. Justin Steinberg

Biography

Professor Justin Steinberg has been a faculty member in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures since 2003. His scholarship focuses on medieval Italian literature, particularly the works of Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch, as well as early lyric poetry. His related interests encompass manuscript culture, material philology, reception studies, and the intersections of legal and literary culture, along with medieval political theory. He is currently engaged in a comparative study examining theological, legal, and literary aspects of poetic justice in Dante’s contrapasso, linked to modern interpretations, culminating in his forthcoming work entitled “Eye Eye: Poetic Justice Aeschylus Old Boy.” Steinberg's notable publications include "Dante Limits Law," which won the MLA's Howard R. Marraro Prize, and multiple translated works focusing on Dante's audience in late medieval Italy. His articles explore the legal dimensions of Boccaccio’s "Decameron" and Dante's constitutional interpretations. Beyond scholarship, Steinberg continues to actively teach courses in Italian literature and language, including multiple iterations of Dante's Divine Comedy.

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