Research

Professor Corbett has two principal areas of research: Theology and the Arts (with specialisms in Dante studies, sacred music, and theological aesthetics) and Systematic and Historical Theology (with specialisms in medieval theology, Aquinas’ theology, and Catholic theology).

In his first three monographs, Prof. Corbett situated Dante’s philosophy (Dante and Epicurus, 2013), moral theology (Dante’s Christian Ethics, 2020), and dogmatic theology (Dante and Theology, forthcoming) in relation to their medieval contexts and historical reception.

In his next three monographs, he is taking an analogous approach to Aquinas. Prof. Corbett is currently working on his fourth monograph – Thomists at War and Catholic Theology (1879-2029) – which will provide a timely reappraisal of Catholic dogmatic theology from the Leonine renaissance in Thomistic studies inaugurated by Aeterni Patris (1879) to the growing revival of neo-scholastic Thomism in the lead up to its 150th anniversary (2029); in particular, it will contribute significantly to the ‘delayed dialogue’ between neo-scholasticism and the Communio school of thought.

Prof. Corbett has published widely on Theology and the Arts as a whole, and, in addition to Theology and Literature, he has a strong research profile in Theology and Music, including two substantial edited volumes Annunciations (2019) and Music and Spirituality (2025). In Systematic and Historical Theology, he regularly publishes in leading international journals in his areas of expertise, including Medium Ævum, New Blackfriars, The New Ressourcement, Nova et Vetera, and The Thomist.

He is also currently developing ongoing research collaborations on (1) the theological reception of Dante (as part of Dante Among Theologians); (2) the Medieval Reception of the Classics (especially Christianised re-readings); (3) an online Bible commentary tool (building on a pilot study with the School of Computer Science); and (4) the use of AI in Biblical Studies and Theology (and he is the only UK representative on the Vatican’s European AI Research Group (EuAIRG)).

Prof. Corbett has received many prestigious prizes and grants for his research, including the Società Dantesca Italiana bronze medal (2015); the ‘Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year’ (2020); and a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship (2023). His publications include:

Books (Monographs and Edited Volumes)
Journal Articles

  • ‘Loving Wisdom or Women? Matteo Romani’s Symbolic Interpretation of Beatrice in Dante’s Three Autobiographical Works (1858-1862)’, Dante Studies 143 (2025), forthcoming

  • ‘The Myth of Dante’s Thomism? Reading Dante and Aquinas with the Dominicans’, Rivista di Studi Italiani, special issue ‘Presenze tommasiane nella cultura artistico-letteraria italiana’, forthcoming
  • ‘Beatrice “is Not a Woman:” Symbolic and Realist Interpretations of Dante’s Beatrice in the 1930s’, Bibliotheca Dantesca, 6  (2023), 100-39
  • ‘The Invention of Ante-Purgatory: Sluggards and Excommunicates in Dante’s “Hopeful Limbo” (Purgatorio i-ix)’, LE TRE CORONE: Revista internazionale di studi su Dante, Petrarca e Boccaccio, 10 (2023), 41-65
  • ‘Interpreting Dante’s “Commedia”: Competing Perspectives’, Bibliotheca Dantesca, 4 (2021), 1-32
  • ‘Dante, Epicuro, e Firenze: Una rilettura contestuale del dialogo fra Cavalcante e Dante (Inf. X 52-72)’, Studi danteschi 83 (2018), 55-71
  • ‘TheoArtistry, and a Contemporary Perspective on Composing Sacred Choral Music’, Religions 2018, 9 (1), 7 (Special Issue: Music: Its Theologies and Spiritualities – A Global Perspective), doi: 10.3390/rel9010007
  • ‘Parallel Exempla: A Theological Reading of the Terrace of Pride (Purgatorio x-xii)’, LE TRE CORONE: Revista internazionale di studi su Dante, Petrarca e Boccaccio, 4 (2017), 73-96
  • ‘Peraldus and Aquinas: Two Dominican Approaches to the Seven Capital Vices in the Christian Moral Life’, The Thomist 79 (2015), 383-406
  • ‘MacIntyre, Dante and Modernity’, New Blackfriars, 96 (2015), 345-60
  • ‘The Christian Ethics of Dante’s Purgatory’, Medium Ævum, 83:2 (2014), 266-87
  • (and Heather Webb), ‘Three Paths in One Journey: A Vertical Reading of Inf. I, Purg., I, Par. I’, L’Alighieri 41 (2013), 63-81
Book Chapters
  • (and James MacMillan), ‘Tradition, Innovation, and Beauty in Sacred Music for Liturgy: A Theological and Compositional Perspective’, in The Oxford Handbook of Music and Christian Theology, ed. Steve Guthrie and Bennett Zon, 5 volumes, II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming)
  • ‘Creativity, Freedom, and the Artist’s Vocation’, in T&T Clark Handbook of Theology and the Arts, ed. Imogen Adkins and Stephen Garrett (London: T&T Clark, 2025), 445-56
  • ‘Purgatorio III-IV: Peraldus’s De Acedia, Dante’s Antepurgatory, and the Sub-vices of Sloth’, in ‘A piè del monte’: Rivisitando l’Antipurgatorio, ed. Zygmunt G. Barański and Theodore J. Cachey Jr (Ravenna: Longo, 2025), 75-96.
  • ‘Paradiso XXX’, in Lectura Dantis Andreapolitana, ed. by Claudia Rossignoli and Robert Wilson (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, forthcoming)
  • ‘Purgatorio XIX’, in Lectura Dantis Andreapolitana, ed. by Claudia Rossignoli and Robert Wilson (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, forthcoming)
  • ‘Editorial Introduction’, in Pierre Mandonnet, Dante the Theologian, ed. and trans. by George Corbett and Patricia Kelly (Turnhout: Brepols, Studia Traditionis Theologiae, 2025), 17-37
  • ‘Scholarly Approaches to Dante’s Philosophy and Theology (1921-2021): Kenelm Foster and a Cantabrigian Perspective’, in Now Feed Yourself: Anglo-American and Italian Scholarship on Dante, ed. by Zygmunt G. Baranski et al. (Oxford: Legenda, 2024), 231-53
  • (and Sarah Moreman), ‘Introduction’, in‘Music and Spirituality: Theological Approaches, Empirical Methods, and Christian Worship, ed. by George Corbett and Sarah Moerman (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2024), 1-11.
  • ‘Dante’s Other-wordly Surprises and This-worldly Polemic’, in Imagining the Medieval Afterlife, ed. by R.M. Pollard (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 286-302.
  • ‘Mary as a Model for Creative People: Establishing Theologian-Composer Partnerships with James MacMillan’, in Sacred Music for the Twenty-First Century, ed. by George Corbett (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2019), 31-43.
  • ‘Introduction’, in Annunciations: Sacred Music for the Twenty-First Century, ed. by George Corbett (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2019), 1-6.
  • ‘Moral Structure’, in The Cambridge Companion to Dante’s ‘Commedia’, ed. by Zygmunt G. Barański and Simon Gilson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 61-78.
  • (and Heather Webb), ‘Introduction’, in George Corbett and Heather Webb (eds), Vertical Readings in Dante’s Comedy (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2017), 1-9.
  • (and Heather Webb), ‘Introduction’, in George Corbett and Heather Webb (eds), Vertical Readings in Dante’s Comedy (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2016), vol. 2, 1-12.
  • ‘Pagan Dawn of a Christian Vision’, in George Corbett and Heather Webb (eds), Vertical Readings in Dante’s Comedy (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2015), vol. 1, 13-23.
  • (and Heather Webb), ‘Introduction’, in George Corbett and Heather Webb (eds), Vertical Readings in Dante’s Comedy (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2015), vol. 1, 1-11.
  • (and Robin Kirkpatrick), ‘ “E lascia pur grattar…”: Language, Narrative and Ethics in the Commedia’, in Dante the Lyrical and Ethical Poet. Dante etico e lirico,ed. by Zygmunt G. Barański and Martin McLaughlin (Oxford: Legenda, 2010), 56-69.
  • ‘Auden’s Imaginary Music’, in New Perspectives in British Cultural History, ed. by Rosalind Crone, David Gange and Katy Jones (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007), 232-43.

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