Petra Schierl

Petra Schierl is a Lecturer in the Department of Latin Studies within the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Basel. She also holds affiliations with the Department of Classical Studies and Central Services at the university. She has held various academic appointments including acting professorships at LMU Munich, Humboldt University Berlin, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, and KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, demonstrating her active engagement across European academic institutions.

She received her venia docendi in Classical Philology from the University of Basel in 2014, with a habilitation thesis titled The Bucolic Deus: A Study of the Deified Benefactors in Vergil's Eclogues. Her doctoral degree, earned summa cum laude from LMU Munich in 2004, focused on a commentary of the fragments of Pacuvius’s tragedies. She also holds advanced degrees from Oxford University and studied at the University of Tübingen.

Petra Schierl's research centers on Latin literature from the Republic to late antiquity, with particular emphasis on tragedy, philosophical dialogue, bucolic poetry, epic, and panegyric. She investigates the works and reception of Cicero and Virgil, and explores the reception of antiquity in the early modern period, especially Pliny’s Naturalis historia and its influence on 16th-century natural science. Her work combines textual criticism, literary analysis, and cultural reception studies.

Her academic roles include research assistantships in DFG-funded projects on Roman tragic fragments and third-party funded research on Conrad Gessner’s De rerum fossilium. She has also curated exhibitions, such as one on Erasmus’s 1516 New Testament edition at the University Library of Basel.

• Senior Fellow at TU Dresden (2017)
• SNSF Fellowship for advanced researchers (2009–2010)
• Doctoral scholarship at LMU Munich (2000–2003)

Petra Schierl has served as a lecturer, acting professor, and visiting professor at multiple institutions, contributing to teaching and research in Latin philology. She has been involved in significant research projects and academic curation, reflecting a strong commitment to both scholarship and public engagement in classical studies.