Cyril Vettorato

Cyril Vettorato serves as Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature at the Institute for the History of Representations and Ideas in Modernities, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (ENS Lyon), with additional experience as Visiting Professor throughout the Americas during 2018-2019.

His academic formation includes:

• Graduation from École Normale Supérieure de Lyon (2002)
• Qualification as teacher of modern literature (2005)
• Doctorate in Comparative Literature from Paris-Sorbonne University (2015)

Professor Vettorato's research investigates the poetry of the African diaspora across Brazil, the Caribbean, and United States through multiple interconnected lenses: diaspora imaginaries that shape cultural memory, identity discourses expressed through literary forms, and performance poetry as embodied practice. His work reveals how oral traditions persist within written modernist frameworks, creating what he terms 'Diaspora of Voices'—a transnational circulation of expressive forms that sustains cultural continuity across geographic fragmentation. This approach bridges literary analysis with anthropological attention to performance contexts.

His seminal 2018 monograph 'Modern Poetry and Orality in the Black Americas – Diaspora of Voices' synthesizes decades of research into how Black Atlantic communities transform oral traditions into innovative poetic expressions. The work demonstrates recurring patterns where rhythmic structures, call-and-response techniques, and vernacular speech forms migrate across national boundaries through diasporic networks, creating shared aesthetic frameworks that transcend geographic separation.