Program

The Undivine Comedy: Thirty Years Later

October 21, 2022

At the Italian Academy, Columbia University

Casa Italiana Building, 1161 Amsterdam Avenue (South of 118th Street), New York, NY 10027

Morning Sessions (8:30 am – 12:30 pm)

8:30 am Opening Remarks

8:45 am-10:30 am Session 1: Inferno

  • Akash Kumar, Institutionalizing Difference and Loving It: Narrative and Alterity in the Commedia
  • Martin Eisner, Making a Miracle: Dante’s Invention of Beatrice
  • Kristina Olson, The Textual and Sartorial Protagonists of Pride: Nimrod, Arachne, and Geryon
  • Chair: Grace Delmolino

10:45 am-12:30 pm Session 2: Purgatorio

  • Grace Delmolino, Ulysses in Purgatory: Contrition and the Stakes of Penitential Law
  • Lina Bolzoni, Il ‘visibile parlare’ e l’educazione dello sguardo
  • Giuseppe Ledda, Prophetic Models and Structures in an Undivine Comedy
  • Chair: Martin Eisner

Afternoon Sessions (1:30 pm – 6:00 pm)

1:30 pm Opening Remarks from Barbara Faedda

1:30 pm-3:15 pm Session 3: Paradiso

  • F. Regina Psaki, The One and the Many: The Reader in the Actualization of the Comedy
  • Manuele Gragnolati, Textuality, Temporality, and Desire: The Paradoxical Pleasure of Dante’s Paradiso
  • Maria Luisa Ardizzone, Lontano, da dove. Constructing an “Undivine Comedy”
  • Chair: H. Wayne Storey

3:30 pm-4:45 pm Session 4: Overarching Reflections

  • Roberta Antognini, Translating the Undivine Comedy
  • H. Wayne Storey, The Intricate Weaving of The Undivine Comedy
  • Chair: Akash Kumar

4:45 pm-5:15 pm Session 5: Graduate Student Panel

  • Laura DiNardo
  • Louis Moffa
  • Joseph Romano
  • Chair: Kristina Olson

5:30 pm-6:00 pm Conclusions by Teodolinda Barolini