Emilia Di Rocco is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature at the Department of European, American and Interdisciplinary Studies, at Sapienza Università di Roma. In 2019 she was awarded the Fulbright Distinguished Chair Lectureship at Northwestern University, Department of Italian and French (spring term 2020). She has published many articles and books in Italy and abroad. Her latest publications include: Baciare la terra. Un topos letterario (2012), two monographic issues on the prodigal son in Western literature (Studium 2013, 2014) and Raccontare il ritorno. Temi e trame della letteratura (2017). Lately she edited Storie del Grande Sud. Per Piero Boitani (2017), Mondi di Fede e di invenzione. Intersezioni tra religioni e letteratura (2018 together with Elena Spandri) and Astonishment. Essays on Wonder for Piero Boitani (2019). Her current research interests include literature and theology, literature and the Bible, the rewritings of ancient myth in medieval and modern literature.

She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Fondazione Lorenzo Valla/Mondadori, Collana dei classici greci e latini where she is also Deputy Director of the Comparative Literature Research Group of the Fondazione Balzan Premi at the Fondazione Lorenzo Valla (Principal Investigator and Director of the Project: Piero Boitani). She is a member of the Medieval Academy of America Leeds IMC Programme Committee (2020-2024). She is Vice-President of the European Society of Comparative Literature/ Société Européenne de Littérature Comparée. She is a member of the Board of Editors of Nuova Informazione bibliografica and of Thersites. Journal for Transcultural Presences and Diachronic Identities from Antiquity to Date, of the Editorial Committee of Edizioni Studium and Marcianum Press where, together with Professors Fabio Pierangeli and Giuseppe Leonelli, she coordinates the humanities section. She writes for the Osservatore Romano, Nuova Informazioni Bibliografica and Indice dei libri del mese. She is the Editor in Chief of Status Quaestionis. Language, Text, Culture.