Lucas Amaya
My academic journey began with a BA in Classical Letters in 2009. My major topics were Latin Language, Linguistics, and Philology, and the minor, Pedagogy, History of Western Literature, and Ancient History. In 2010, I obtained a Public License to Teach Latin Language and Classical Literature and Portuguese Literature and Language from the University of Rio de Janeiro State (UERJ) - one of Brazil's top ten Letters Institutes. This achievement represents 4000 hours of classes, 200 hours of extra courses, 240 credits, and 11 internships.
In 2014, I earned my Master's degree, and in 2019, I was awarded a PhD with honours from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), one of Latin America's premier universities. My PhD was examined, revaluated, and recognised by the Universidade de Lisboa in 2022. During my doctoral studies, I was awarded the Humaniores Litterae as the most distinguished student in UFRJ's Classics Graduate Program in 2015 and 2016. This accolade secured me a scholarship from the Brazilian government to conduct part of my doctoral research abroad. Consequently, I attended the University of Exeter as a Visiting PhD Scholar between 2017 and 2018. I was then privileged to deliver seminars at the University of Leeds, the University of Newcastle, and the University of Exeter.
Upon completing my PhD, I succeeded in nine public competitions for positions in Public Universities. Since 2012, I have taught Latin Language and Literature, Classical Culture, and Ancient History at the undergraduate level, initially at UERJ and subsequently at UFRJ. In both public universities, I had students from all social classes and ethnicities in classrooms with 30 to 40 students each. Therefore, I'm used to working with multifaceted scenarios in which I have to find comprehensive ways to teach a varied body of undergraduate students. I have also taught Romance Philology and the History of Western Literature at Centro Universitário Celso Lisboa.
Parallel to my teaching career, I have published over ten articles in peer-reviewed academic journals and three book chapters between 2014 and 2024. I have presented numerous papers since 2009 in Portuguese and English. Between 2024 and 2025, I expect to publish at least three articles in the final composition stage before submission. Recently, I was welcomed as a fellow researcher at Durham University, working with the Durham Priory Library Recreated project. I have investigated medieval and Renaissance letter-writing manuals and ancient epistolary collections, examining Durham's social and educational growth in the late Middle Ages and its connections to the continent.
Looking ahead, I aim to continue and expand this research, examining the social and political aspects of the reception of ancient epistolary collections and the production of Latin prose and verse writing manuals. In doing so, I hope to enhance the interdisciplinary approaches that have recently been fruitful in universities across Europe and America. Ultimately, I aspire to bring greater attention and value to the Humanities, demonstrating their immeasurable social value and the importance of understanding our past to shape a better future.
Address: Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
In 2014, I earned my Master's degree, and in 2019, I was awarded a PhD with honours from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), one of Latin America's premier universities. My PhD was examined, revaluated, and recognised by the Universidade de Lisboa in 2022. During my doctoral studies, I was awarded the Humaniores Litterae as the most distinguished student in UFRJ's Classics Graduate Program in 2015 and 2016. This accolade secured me a scholarship from the Brazilian government to conduct part of my doctoral research abroad. Consequently, I attended the University of Exeter as a Visiting PhD Scholar between 2017 and 2018. I was then privileged to deliver seminars at the University of Leeds, the University of Newcastle, and the University of Exeter.
Upon completing my PhD, I succeeded in nine public competitions for positions in Public Universities. Since 2012, I have taught Latin Language and Literature, Classical Culture, and Ancient History at the undergraduate level, initially at UERJ and subsequently at UFRJ. In both public universities, I had students from all social classes and ethnicities in classrooms with 30 to 40 students each. Therefore, I'm used to working with multifaceted scenarios in which I have to find comprehensive ways to teach a varied body of undergraduate students. I have also taught Romance Philology and the History of Western Literature at Centro Universitário Celso Lisboa.
Parallel to my teaching career, I have published over ten articles in peer-reviewed academic journals and three book chapters between 2014 and 2024. I have presented numerous papers since 2009 in Portuguese and English. Between 2024 and 2025, I expect to publish at least three articles in the final composition stage before submission. Recently, I was welcomed as a fellow researcher at Durham University, working with the Durham Priory Library Recreated project. I have investigated medieval and Renaissance letter-writing manuals and ancient epistolary collections, examining Durham's social and educational growth in the late Middle Ages and its connections to the continent.
Looking ahead, I aim to continue and expand this research, examining the social and political aspects of the reception of ancient epistolary collections and the production of Latin prose and verse writing manuals. In doing so, I hope to enhance the interdisciplinary approaches that have recently been fruitful in universities across Europe and America. Ultimately, I aspire to bring greater attention and value to the Humanities, demonstrating their immeasurable social value and the importance of understanding our past to shape a better future.
Address: Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
less
InterestsView All (15)
Uploads
To limit this examination to something feasible, I will concentrate on a group of books catalogued in Durham’s chancery, called Le Spendement, in 1421. Among the 16 books a monk named John Fyshburn listed to be found there, we will delve into a specific manuscript (C.IV.25) that contains the book IV of Rhetorica Ad Herennium, Geoffrey of Vinsaulf’s Documentum de Arte et Modo Versificandi, a brief explanation on the parts of the letters, a treatise on preaching, and a tractatus dictaminis (TD from now onwards). The latter was written by a monk named William of Whallay, who penned this treatise to be used by young boys taught at the chancery. Then, I will propose a metaphor using Cicero’s triad to offer three distinct approaches to understanding the echoes of Ciceronian theories in late medieval Durham.
To comprehend ancient Rhetoric in practice in the Middle Ages, we need to establish some axioms. First, for us, ancient Rhetoric practices are perceivable only through the written versions of speeches delivered weeks or even months before their publication due to the time needed to amend imprecisions, rewrite passages that had failed during the initial delivery, and increase what was successful. Nonetheless, ancient Rhetoric should be heard, and, in some cases, the delivery should be seen, not read in silence and alone. Second, most western European people had a unique source of truth, moral precepts, and understanding: the Catholic church in the name of the Christian God. Even though they might not fully believe in it, it was a societal and legal requirement to accept and to declare such a creed; therefore, the speaker, the dictator, or the scribe were just channelling God’s words and interpreting them correctly, which should be followed unquestionably and permanently. Third, in the medieval world, writing was just established as the primary source of knowledge and daily bureaucratic activities, in which writing was preferably done in a second language, not the mother and vernacular language.
In that sense, we must look to letter-writing manuals to significantly understand the ancient Rhetoric in the Middle Ages. The practice of composing letters was used to compose all sorts of documents and speeches, and it was intertwined with Rhetoric, Grammar (mostly phonetics), and Poetry. Moreover, epistolography’s heavy influence on composing prose texts is directly connected to the development of Catholicism in late Antiquity, in which letter-writing was the most common and versatile genre of writing used for personal, professional, and political purposes.
To limit this examination to something feasible, I will concentrate on a group of books catalogued in Durham’s chancery, called Le Spendement, in 1421. Among the 16 books a monk named John Fyshburn listed to be found there, we will delve into a specific manuscript (C.IV.25) that contains the book IV of Rhetorica Ad Herennium, Geoffrey of Vinsaulf’s Documentum de Arte et Modo Versificandi, a brief explanation on the parts of the letters, a treatise on preaching, and a tractatus dictaminis (TD from now onwards). The latter was written by a monk named William of Whallay, who penned this treatise to be used by young boys taught at the chancery. Then, I will propose a metaphor using Cicero’s triad to offer three distinct approaches to understanding the echoes of Ciceronian theories in late medieval Durham.
To comprehend ancient Rhetoric in practice in the Middle Ages, we need to establish some axioms. First, for us, ancient Rhetoric practices are perceivable only through the written versions of speeches delivered weeks or even months before their publication due to the time needed to amend imprecisions, rewrite passages that had failed during the initial delivery, and increase what was successful. Nonetheless, ancient Rhetoric should be heard, and, in some cases, the delivery should be seen, not read in silence and alone. Second, most western European people had a unique source of truth, moral precepts, and understanding: the Catholic church in the name of the Christian God. Even though they might not fully believe in it, it was a societal and legal requirement to accept and to declare such a creed; therefore, the speaker, the dictator, or the scribe were just channelling God’s words and interpreting them correctly, which should be followed unquestionably and permanently. Third, in the medieval world, writing was just established as the primary source of knowledge and daily bureaucratic activities, in which writing was preferably done in a second language, not the mother and vernacular language.
In that sense, we must look to letter-writing manuals to significantly understand the ancient Rhetoric in the Middle Ages. The practice of composing letters was used to compose all sorts of documents and speeches, and it was intertwined with Rhetoric, Grammar (mostly phonetics), and Poetry. Moreover, epistolography’s heavy influence on composing prose texts is directly connected to the development of Catholicism in late Antiquity, in which letter-writing was the most common and versatile genre of writing used for personal, professional, and political purposes.