Jane Tylus designated the Orrick Professor of Italian

Jane Tylus, recently named as the Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Italian, is a literary historian who specializes in late medieval and early modern European literature, religion, and culture, with secondary interests in 19th and 20th century fiction.

Tylus’ work has focused on the recovery and interrogation of lost and marginalized voices — historical personages, dialects and “parole pellegrine,” minor genres such as pastoral, and secondary characters in plays, poems, and epics. She has also been active in the practice and theory of translation.

A graduate of the College of William and Mary, Tylus earned her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. She previously taught at New York University, where she was the founding faculty director of the Humanities Initiative, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She joined the Yale faculty in July 2018 as a full professor of Italian, with a secondary appointment in the Department of Comparative Literature.

Tylus is the author, editor, or translator of 10 books, including “Writing and Vulnerability in the Late Renaissance,” “Siena: City of Secrets,” and “Early Modern Cultures of Translation.” Her current book project explores the ritual of departure in early modernity, especially how writers and artists sent their works into the world. She has served as general editor for the journal I Tatti Studies in the Italian Renaissance since 2013, and currently sits on the advisory committee for Publications of the Modern Language Association of America.

Tylus’ honors include the Award for Best Translation from the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and the Howard R. Marraro Prize for Outstanding Book in Italian Studies, among other awards. She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (Newberry Library) and the University of Wisconsin Institute for Research in the Humanities.