Gustavo Fernandes Pedroso

I hold a BA in History from NOVA University Lisbon, and an MPhil in Cuneiform Studies from the University of Oxford. 
My interest in ancient Middle Eastern religion, literature, and languages led me to focus my research on the interconnection between these different topics. Therefore, my DPhil project examines the uses of poetic form in first-millennium BC Mesopotamian penitential prayers and righteous sufferer poetry, and in selected comparators of the Hebrew Bible, namely Psalm 25 and chapter 3 of Job. My research aims to provide a comparative analysis of these sources, studying how the different elements of the poetic form align with the compositions' rhetorical situation, i.e., their contexts and purposes of use. This way, I aim to show how the ancient poets designed their compositions to attain certain rhetorical goals. Thus my methodology incorporates elements from the fields of Assyriology, Biblical Studies, Rhetorical Criticism, and Literary Studies.
My doctoral research is supervised by Dr Frances Reynolds and Dr Laura Quick. I am a member of St John’s College and my research is generously funded by an Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC DTP-St John’s College Scholarship.