Demetrio Yocum’s research focuses on Medieval and Renaissance Italian literature with particular interest in theology and monasticism. He received his Laurea/B.A. from the University of Naples “L’Orientale” and his doctorate from La Sapienza University of Rome.
He coordinates the Opera del vocabolario italiano Program at Notre Dame, and performs a range of editorial tasks for the Devers Series in Dante and Medieval Italian Literature.
He also contributes entries to CALMA and MEL (SISMEL, Florence). He is the author of Petrarch’s Humanist Writing and Carthusian Monasticism. The Secret Language of the Self (Brepols, 2013), and co-editor of At the Heart of the Liturgy (Liturgical Press, 2014) and Carthusian Monasticism: History, Life, World, Texts (MIP-DeGruyter, 2025). His articles, book reviews, and translations have appeared in edited volumes and journals such as Annali d’Italianistica, California Italian Studies, Cistercian Studies Quarterly, Humanitas, Italica, Petrarchesca, and Religion and the Arts. He has translated works by Luigi Santucci (1918–99), and his most recent translations include: For a Missionary Reform of the Church (Paulist Press, 2017), and Mary of Magdala: Revisiting the Sources (Paulist Press, 2019). His book, Petrarch’s Penitential Psalms and Prayers (University of Notre Dame Press, 2024), has won the twenty-sixth annual Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Publication Award for a Manuscript in Italian Literary Studies by the Modern Language Association of America.
