Floriana Marra

Floriana Marra is a Cotutelle PhD Student in Religious Studies and Philology and History of the Ancient World, jointly affiliated with CERES (Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany) and the University of Rome 'La Sapienza'. She also holds the position of Cultrice della Materia (Lecturer in Iranian Studies) at the University of Pisa. Her research focuses on Manichaean cosmology and its intersections with Iranian religious traditions, particularly Zoroastrianism, and the scribal practices of medieval Central Asian manuscripts.

• Education:
• PhD: Religious Studies (2021–ongoing), supervised by Prof. Kianoosh Rezania and Prof. Chiara Barbati.
• M.A.: History and Oriental Studies (2017–2019), University of Bologna, thesis on Central Asian lapidaries.
• B.A.: Humanities (2014–2017), University of Pisa, thesis on Hinduist iconography.
• Research Projects:
• FWF-funded project on scribal habits in Eastern-Christian manuscripts (2019–2020), Austrian Academy of Sciences.
• PhD project: 'The Manichaean Cosmos between Iranian and Heterogeneous Traditions of Knowledge'.
• Teaching:
• Recent courses at Ruhr-Universität include 'Introduction to Manichaeism' and 'Iranian Manichaeism'.
• Key Presentations:
• 'Manichaean Cosmogony and Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos' (2022, Aarhus).
• 'Religious Encounters in Manichaean Texts' (2022, Leiden).