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2505 University Ave Stop A3700
Religious Studies - BUR 533
Guy P. Raffa
Associate Professor — PhD, Indiana University
Associate Professor, Department of French and Italian
E-mail: guyr@utexas.edu
Office: HRH 3.104A
Office Hours: (On leave in 2020-2021)
Dante Studies, Italian Literature and Culture, Public Scholarship, Digital Humanities
Guy Raffa's latest book, DANTE'S BONES: HOW A POET INVENTED ITALY, was published by Harvard University Press in May 2020.
*Reviewed in StrategyPage, Law & Liberty, The Wall Street Journal, AirMailWeekly, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly
*Excerpted in Literary Hub and Lapham's Quarterly
*Podcast interviews with NewBooksNetwork and Historically Thinking
His latest essay, "There's a Special Place in Dante's Inferno for Wafflers and Neutral Souls," was published in Zócalo Public Square.
For his new book project, tentatively titled Dante's American Inferno, he was awarded an NEH Public Scholars Fellowship and a College Research Fellowship for 2020-2021. The NEH program supports "the creation of well-researched nonfiction books in the humanities" by writers seeking "to communicate the significance of their research to the broadest possible range of readers."
Professor Raffa has taught at the University of Texas at Austin since 1991. He holds a B.S. in computer science and mathematics from Duke University and a Ph.D. in Italian Literature from Indiana University. His primary scholarly field is medieval Italian literature—Dante above all—with a secondary interest in modern Italian authors, particularly Italo Calvino and Umberto Eco. In addition to articles and book-essays, he has written three other books: Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry (Toronto, 2000), Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the "Inferno" (Chicago, 2007), and The Complete Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the "Divine Comedy" (Chicago, 2009). For his work on Dante's graveyard history and cultural legacy, he won a Humanities Research Award from the University of Texas and research fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
His award-winning Danteworlds project takes visitors on a multimedia journey through Dante's Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Highlighted in the New Yorker and the Los Angeles Times, the website was selected by EDSITEment! as "one of the best online resources for education in the humanities." As seen in this public lecture and this essay, Professor Raffa has built on the success of Danteworlds to show how digital scholarship advances the reciprocity of university research and teaching while making this work available for the benefit of society at large. He has been interviewed for articles in Slate and The Atlantic, and has published popular essays on a wide range of Dante-related topics, from medieval battles, the American Revolutionary War, the American Civil War, and Google, to Mad Men, marriage equality, Dan Brown, Baseball Beards, and racial justice.
CTI 344D • Dante
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM BEN 1.126
GCWr	(also listed as E 366D, EUS 347, ITC 348)
Dante: Spring 2020
The Divine Comedy offers a remarkable panorama of the late Middle Ages through one man's poetic vision of the afterlife. However, we continue to read and study the poem not only to learn about the thought and culture of medieval and early modern Europe but also because many of the issues confronting Dante and his age are no less important to individuals and societies today. Personal and civic responsibilities, governmental accountability, church-state relations, economics and social justice, Dante's influence on artists and other writers, benefits and limitations of interdisciplinarity—these are some of the themes that will frame our discussion of the Divine Comedy. Although you will read the poem in English, a bilingual edition will enable you to study and learn famous lines in the original Italian. The course is taught in English and contains flags for Writing and Global Cultures.
Danteworlds (http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/): In addition to detailed entries, audio recordings, and study questions, this Web site contains hundreds of images from works by Sandro Botticelli, an anonymous 16th-century artist, John Flaxman, William Blake, Gustave Dorè, and Suloni Robertson.
Through close reading, class discussion, and the use of Danteworlds, you are expected to identify and explain the significance of major characters, references, and ideas in Dante's Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise) and Vita Nuova. You will be tested on this ability in responses to study questions (a low-stakes writing assignment) and two in-class exams. An essay, which you will rewrite and expand based on my feedback, will assess your ability to support an interpretation of a specific aspect of Dante's poetry with detailed textual analysis and scholarly research. A peer-editing activity will help you to revise and edit your own work. I expect you to have read the assigned cantos and reviewed the corresponding material in Danteworlds (including the study questions) before class.
Required Texts: (you must use the editions of these texts ordered for the class)
Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso (Trans. Allen Mandelbaum)
Vita Nuova (Trans. Barbara Reynolds)
Recommended Text (also ordered for this class): The Complete Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the "Divine Comedy" (Raffa)
Canvas: We will use the CANVAS learning management system to organize and provide course content on-line. When you log in to Canvas (http://canvas.utexas.edu/) and select the course, you will have access to the syllabus, assignments, lecture presentations, grades, and a discussion forum. You will be required to submit most assignments on-line using Canvas. For assistance, consult the student tutorials (https://utexas.instructure.com/courses/633028/pages/student-tutorials) or contact support staff (https://utexas.instructure.com/courses/633028).
Assignments and Computation of Grade:
10%: 1500-word essay on the Inferno (credit for successful completion)
25%: Rewrite and expansion of this essay incorporating scholarly research (graded)
5%: Annotated bibliography of research sources (credit for successful completion)
5%: Peer-review (credit for successful completion)
10%: Responses to study questions in Canvas Discussion Forum (credit for successful completion)
30%: Two in-class examinations (graded: 15% each)
15%: Classwork and participation
Attendance Policy: Your attendance, which obviously influences your classwork and participation grade, is expected at all class meetings. You are expected to arrive on time to class and to stay for the entire lesson. Repeated late arrivals to—or early departures from—will count as absences. For every class that you miss (for whatever reason) after the fifth absence, your classwork and participation grade (on a 100-point scale) will be reduced by 5 points.
Late Work: Late work will lose a full letter grade for each day it is late except in the case of documented emergencies (e.g., serious illness, death in the family), religious holidays (see university policy below), or university-sponsored events (with prior notification).
Writing Flag: This course carries the Writing Flag. Writing Flag courses are designed to give students experience with writing in an academic discipline. In this class, you can expect to write regularly during the semester, complete substantial writing projects, and receive feedback from your instructor to help you improve your writing. You will also have the opportunity to revise one or more assignments, and you may be asked to read and discuss your peers' work. You should therefore expect a substantial portion of your grade to come from your written work. Writing Flag classes meet the Core Communications objectives of Critical Thinking, Communication, Teamwork, and Personal Responsibility, established by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
Global Cultures Flag: This course carries the Global Cultures flag. Global Cultures courses are designed to increase your familiarity with cultural groups outside the United States. You should therefore expect a substantial portion of your grade to come from assignments covering the practices, beliefs, and histories of at least one non-U.S. cultural group, past or present.
Grading and Plagiarism: All graded assignments will be marked on a 100 point scale and converted to letter grades consistent with university policy:
A (94-100) = 4.0, A- (90-93) = 3.67, B+ (88-89) = 3.3, B (84-87) = 3.0, B- (80-83) = 2.67, C+ (78-79) = 2.3, C (74-77) = 2.0, C- (70-73) = 1.67, D+ (68-69) = 1.3, D (64-67) = 1.0, D- (60-63) = 0.67, F (below 60) = 0.0
Plagiarism, intentional or not, will result in an automatic F on the assignment—the numerical grade (0-59) depending on the extent of the plagiarism and the quality of the non-plagiarized portion of the essay—as well as possible disciplinary action. For the definition of plagiarism, see: https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/rhetoric/RHE%20306/plagiarismcollusion.php
For the University's policy on academic integrity (including plagiarism), see: http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/conduct/academicintegrity.php
UGS 303 • Dante's Hell And Its Afterlife
GCWr	ID
Dante Alighieri may not have invented Hell but he created the most powerful and enduring vision of the underworld as a place of eternal punishment for lost souls in the afterlife. This course takes you on a journey down through the nine circles of Hell presented in Dante's Inferno. "Danteworlds," a book and award-winning Web site created here at UT, will help guide you by portraying infernal creatures and scenes and by explaining the medieval poem's vast array of references to religion, philosophy, history, politics, and other works of literature. Along the way, you will encounter adaptations and echoes of Dante's Inferno in selected literary, artistic, cinematic, and popular works, ranging from Sandro Botticelli's illustrations, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and a silent Inferno film to T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," Dan Brown's Inferno thriller, and Dante-inspired films, music, and video games.
Course themes, based on the Inferno and its resonance in modern culture, include moral values, emotional or psychological hell, religion and politics, oppression and injustice, attitudes toward gender and sexuality, and the risks and rewards of pursuing knowledge. In-class activities and a midterm examination will assess your knowledge of course readings, viewings, and lecture material. A class visit to the Blanton Museum will put Dante's achievement in dialog with early European art, and you will report on this year's UGS Lecture Series. You are required to keep an on-line class journal ("Dante Diaries") to record responses to the course material. You will work on information literacy, writing, and presentation skills to produce News from Hell (a team-based project) and to complete an individual research project on a creative work influenced by or resonating with Dante's Inferno.
Expectations and Objectives
To read—closely and critically—literary, artistic, cinematic, and other cultural texts. You are expected to prepare the assigned texts and review the corresponding material in Danteworlds (including the study questions) before class so that you can reap the greatest benefit from lectures and participate actively and substantively in class discussion.
To explain the significance of major characters, references, and ideas in Dante's Inferno and other course texts, images, viewings, and recordings.
To interpret and compare cultural works. You will develop these skills by showing how Dante's vision of Hell inspires or resonates with the vision of a later creative mind.
To develop and refine writing, research, and oral presentation skills.
CANVAS: We will use the CANVAS learning management system to organize and provide course content on-line. When you log in to Canvas (http://canvas.utexas.edu/) and select the course, you will have access to the syllabus, assignments, lecture presentations (pdf), grades, a discussion forum (for "Dante Diaries"), and multimedia modules (text, video, image, music) for each lesson. You will be required to submit most assignments on-line using Canvas (e.g., entries in your "Dante Diaries"). For help with Canvas, consult the student tutorials (https://utexas.instructure.com/courses/633028/pages/student-tutorials) or contact support staff (https://utexas.instructure.com/courses/633028).
iClickers: You must acquire an iClicker "personal response system" unit—iClicker has been ordered for the class (under the unique numbers for this class at the COOP), but if you already have an earlier version from another class, it should work for this class, too. Be sure to register your iClicker before the first class meeting, and to bring it to each TTH lecture. You must register your iClicker through the Canvas course website (not through the iClicker website)by using the Firefox or Chrome browsers (it won't work in Safari). When you log in to Canvas and select this course, select "i>Clicker" in the menu on the left hand side of the page. You will then see instructions for locating your Remote ID and registering your iClicker. [Note that "iClicker GO" (for use of computers or mobile devices in place of the remote) will not be activated for this class: you must bring your iClicker remote to class.]
Readings and Viewings
Required Texts (you must use the editions of these texts ordered for the class):
Dante Alighieri, Inferno (Bantam, 2004. ISBN = 0553213393). Paperback.
Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the "Inferno" (Chicago, 2007). Paperback or e-book.
Other readings (prose excerpts, poems, song lyrics, essays) will be posted on the Canvas course site (http://canvas.utexas.edu/).
Danteworlds Web site (http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu): In addition to entries, audio recordings, and study questions, this Web site contains numerous images from works by Sandro Botticelli, John Flaxman, William Blake, Gustave Dorè, and Suloni Robertson (a UT alumna).
Films and Film-Clips include: L'Inferno (1911 silent film; Francesco Bertolini, Adolfo Padovan, Giuseppe de Liguoro); Dante's Inferno (1935; Harry Lachman); A TV Dante (1989; Peter Greenaway, Raúl Ruiz); Deconstructing Harry (1997; Woody Allen); Dante's Inferno (2008; Sean Meredith, Sandow Birk, and Paul Zaloom); Sex and the City (2008; Michael Patrick King); Inferno (2016; Ron Howard).
On Reserve in the PCL: Copies of the Required Course Texts (Dante's Infernoand Danteworlds) and the following books: Dante's Inferno (illustrated by Sandow Birk; text adapted by Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders); Inferno(translated by Mary Jo Bang); Dante Now (edited by Theodore J. Cachey, Jr.); Dante: A Brief History (Peter Hawkins); Inferno Revealed: from Dante to Dan Brown (Deborah Parker and Mark Parker); Dante Encyclopedia (edited by Richard Lansing); Freedom Readers (Dennis Looney); Metamorphosing Dante (edited by Manuele Gragnolati); Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante (edited by Paget Toynbee)
Dante Web Sites
Danteworlds (the course Web site): http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu
Dante Today (Dante in contemporary culture): http://research.bowdoin.edu/dante-today/
Dartmouth Dante Lab (commentaries on the Divine Comedy): http://dantelab.dartmouth.edu
World of Dante: http://www.worldofdante.org
Princeton Dante Project: http://etcweb.princeton.edu/dante/index.html
Digital Dante: http://dante.ilt.columbia.edu
Attendance and Assignments
Attendance Policy: Your attendance is required at all lectures and discussion classes, including the Blanton Museum visit and organized class time in the library. You are expected to read or view the assigned material before class and to participate—through attentive listening and informed contributions—in interactive class activities and in discussion section meetings. You are expected to arrive on time and to stay for the entire lesson. Missed classes adversely affect your classwork and participation grade.
15%: Participation in Friday Discussion Classes. Come to discussion classes prepared, and remember that effective participation consists of respectful dialog and listening as well as informed speaking. For each discussion class that you miss for whatever reason after the third absence (excused or unexcused), your discussion class participation grade will decrease by 10 points on a 100 point scale.
10%: Lecture Attendance and Performance. You are expected to read or view the assigned material before lecture classes. Based on iClicker responses during the lectures, you will receive up to two points for each class lecture, one point for participation (i.e., attendance) and one point for performance (i.e., right answers to iClicker questions). You are responsible for using your own iClicker correctly. The lowest grade will be automatically dropped.
10%: News from Hell written report (2% for a full draft, 8% for the final, graded version).
10%: News from Hell oral newscast (full credit for successful completion of this group project).
1%: Successful, on-time completion of a library worksheet on background research for News from Hell.
25%: Research Essay (graded): a paper (1000-1500 words) relating the Infernoto another literary, artistic, cinematic, or popular work. You are not limited to course texts for this assignment, though you may choose to research a work / creator discussed in class. The paper will be completed and revised based on an instructor's review of your annotated bibliography and outline (with a working thesis) and on a peer review of a full draft of the paper.
3%: Peer Review: review of another student's draft (full credit for successful, on-time completion).
1%: Research Essay Outline and Annotated Bibliography (full credit for successful, on-time completion).
5%: Oral Presentation (graded): 5-7 minute presentation of your research for the essay.
15%: Midterm Examination (graded): short-answer questions on Dante's Infernoand other assigned texts, images, viewings, and recordings.
5%: "Dante Diaries": Seven times during the semester you will submit (on-line through Canvas) an entry in the course Discussion Forum. Entries may include answers to study questions, but other responses to course works or other Dante-related material are welcome as well. In one entry you will respond to the Fall Lecture Series (see below) and in another you will discuss artwork that you have viewed during a guided tour of the Blanton Museum. Each submitted entry must contain at least 200 of your words.
All UGS signature courses contain a Lecture Series requirement: To satisfy it, you will view an on-line video of this year's University Lecture Series and write a response in your Dante Diary.
Grading and Plagiarism: Assignments and final grades will be converted to letter grades consistent with university policy:
Excellent range: A+ (98-100), A (94-97), A- (90-93)
Above average / good range: B+ (88-89), B (84-87), B- (80-83)
Average range: C+ (78-79), C (74-77), C- (70-73)
Passing: D+ (68-69), D (64-67), D- (60-63)
Failing: F (below 60)
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM RLP 0.122
Dante: Fall 2019
ITC 348, same as E 366D, crosslisted with EUS 347
ITL 390K • Dante II
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM HRH 2.106C
Fall 2019 Dante II
ITL 390K, crosslisted with MDV 392M
Guy Raffa, Dept. of French and Italian, HRH 3.104A
Note: While the language of instruction is English, students are encouraged—and Italian Studies students are required—to read primary Italian texts in the original language.
This course focuses on Dante's Commedia—the Purgatorio and Paradiso above all—within late medieval literary, intellectual, and historical contexts by attending to his engagement with works by classical authors and medieval poets, philosophers, and theologians. The Danteworlds commentary and website will provide much of this background material and help guide your reading of the Commedia. We will supplement and complement this focus with discussion of Dante's earlier life and poetry (Vita nuova), his treatise on the vernacular (De Vulgari Eloquentia), and selections from the poet's other works (Inferno, Convivio, De Monarchia).
Given Dante's vital importance for teaching and research across disciplinary and temporal boundaries, the course is designed to work for motivated graduate students in various departments, programs, and schools, including Comparative Literature, Medieval Studies, English, History, Art History, Religious Studies, Music, and other language and literature programs in addition to Italian Studies. The class makeup will therefore help determine final decisions on course readings. However, all students are encouraged to (re)read or review the Inferno before the beginning of the semester.
Since a goal of the course is to become familiar with major voices in Dante Studies, our discussion of Dante's works will be informed by selected works of criticism (available on Canvas). Twice during the semester you are required to write a short response essay—both descriptive and analytical—to one of these critical works in relation to Dante's text(s). For the final project, you will present your research to the class and write a polished draft (12-15 pages minimum, with full documentation) of a full-blown research essay.
Required Texts: Inferno (Garzanti, 2008); Purgatorio (Garzanti, 2008); Paradiso (Garzanti, 2006); Vita nuova (Garzanti, 2009); De vulgari eloquentia (Cambridge, 1996).
Recommended: The Complete Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the Divine Comedy (Chicago, 2009)
Classwork and participation (including weekly Discussion Forum entries on Canvas): 30%
Two short essays (750-1000 words) on a critical text in dialogue with a primary work: 20%. Each student will write on one work from the first half of the course (Purgatorio) and one work from the second half of the course (Paradiso)
Research presentation and paper of 10-15 pages (2500-3750 words) with full documentation: 50%
Selected Critical Works on Canvas (with indication of assigned pages)
Singleton, Dante Studies I (84-98), Barolini, Dante's Poets (153-73); Musa, Advent at the Gates (85-109), Barolini, The Undivine Comedy (122-42), Wetherbee, The Ancient Flame: Dante and the Poets (161-88, 196-202), Musa, Advent at the Gates (111-28), Hawkins, Dante's Testaments: Essays in Scriptural Imagination (54-71, 159-79), Singleton, Dante Studies 2: Journey to Beatrice (15-38), Mazzotta, Dante's Vision and the Circle of Knowledge (34-55, 154-96), Barolini, Dante's Poets (57-84), Havely, Dante and the Franciscans (123-53), Schnapp, Transfiguration of History at the Center of Dante's "Paradise" (14-35), Raffa, Divine Dialectic (147-64, 178-86), Ascoli, Dante and the Making of a Modern Author (67-129), Cestaro, Dante and the Grammar of the Nursing Body (49-76), Moevs, Metaphysics of Dante's "Comedy" (147-67), Botterill, Dante and the Mystical Tradition (64-107), Freccero, Poetics of Conversion (245-57)
CTI 345 • Dante
Note: This course (ITC 348) counts toward the major in Italian.
Dante Alighieri may not have invented Hell but he created the most powerful and enduring vision of the underworld as a place of eternal punishment for lost souls in the afterlife. This course takes you on a journey down through the nine circles of Hell presented in Dante's Inferno. "Danteworlds," a book and award-winning Web site created here at UT, will help guide you by portraying infernal creatures and scenes and by explaining the medieval poem's vast array of references to religion, philosophy, history, politics, and other works of literature. Along the way, you will encounter adaptations and echoes of Dante's Inferno in selected literary, artistic, cinematic, and popular works, ranging from Sandro Botticelli's illustrations, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and a silent Inferno film to T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," Dan Brown's latest thriller, and Dante-inspired films, music, and video games.
iClickers: You must acquire an iClicker "personal response system" unit—iClicker has been ordered for the class (under the unique numbers for this class at the COOP), but if you already have an earlier version from another class, it should work for this class, too. Be sure to register your iClicker before the first class meeting (January 16), and to bring it to each TTH lecture. You must register your iClicker through the Canvas course website (not through the iClicker website)by using the Firefox or Chrome browsers (it won't work in Safari). When you log in to Canvas and select this course, select "i>Clicker" in the menu on the left hand side of the page. You will then see instructions for locating your Remote ID and registering your iClicker. [Note that "iClicker GO" (for use of computers or mobile devices in place of the remote) will not be activated for this class: you must bring your iClicker remote to class.]
C L 382 • Dante's Afterlives
(also listed as ITL 390K)
Dante's Afterlives (Fall 2018)
ITL 390K (36760), cross-listed with CL 382 (34150)
TTH 12:30-2 in HRH 2.106C
Guy P. Raffa, HRH 3.104A; guyr@utexas.edu; 232-5492
Office Hours: TTH 2-3 in HRH 3.104A
Note: While the language of instruction is English, Italian Studies students are required to read primary Italian texts in the original language.
Summarizing Dante's popularity in Italy in the early twentieth century, one critic amusingly observed that the medieval poet "was cooked in every sauce, served hot and cold, grilled and in gelatin, whole and ground, alone or with sides, with critical mayonnaise and historical croutons: there was something for all tastes, for strong stomachs and for dyspeptic ones, for women and for men, for kindergartners and for doddering academics." In this course we will seek intellectual nourishment at the banquet of Dante's legacy by closely examining a broad range of responses to the poet—the man and his works—from Giovanni Boccaccio's biography in the late Middle Ages to Roberto Benigni's performances of TuttoDante and Dan Brown's Inferno. Between the Dante-inspired works of Boccaccio and Brown, we will study various, often conflicting, versions of "Dante" in literature, art, film, politics, history, and popular culture. After establishing a foundation for Dante's influence by discussing his political treatise (Monarchia) and selected cantos of his Commedia (most from Inferno), we will embark on an interpretive journey tracing Dante's evolution from a regional to a national (then nationalist) figure before he attained the global status he enjoys today. Giuseppe Mazzini famously called Dante—Ugo Foscolo's "Ghibelline fugitive"—the "Prophet of the Italian Nation": we will accordingly examine appeals to Dante's authority in promoting the liberation and unification of Italy, but we will also consider his role as a beacon of liberty in the United States. Among other areas of inquiry, we will discuss Catholic interpretations of Dante as a neo-Guelph advocate of papal political power, nationalist appropriations of the poet for territorial expansion and military interventions, and recent representations of Dante as an icon of Italian culture on the world stage.
Touchstone texts in our tour of Dante's legacy across time, space, discipline, and culture will include: writings by Boccaccio, Alfieri, Foscolo, Mazzini, Byron, Leopardi, Carducci, Cordelia Ray, Longfellow, D'Annunzio, Marinetti, T. S. Eliot, Samuel Beckett, Primo Levi, Matthew Pearl, Dan Brown, and others; artwork by Botticelli, Blake, Flaxman, Doré, and Suloni Robertson; and films (and clips) by Francesco Bertolini(1911), Harry Lachman (1935), Spencer Williams (1944), Peter Greenaway and Raúl Ruiz (1989), Woody Allen (1997), Vincent Ward (1998), Sandow Birk (2008), and Michael Patrick King (2008).
Required Texts (at COOP): Dante, Inferno (Garzanti, 2008) and Monarchy (Cambridge, 1996)
Optional: The Complete Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the Divine Comedy (Chicago, 2009)
[Other sources and critical works will be posted on Canvas.]
Assignments and Computation of Grade
Short essay (750-1000 words) on a creative work studied this semester in relation to Dante: 15%
Discussion leader for a lesson on creative and critical works for your research paper: 15%
Research paper of 10-15 pages (2500-3750 words) with full documentation: 50%
Danteworlds Web site (http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu): In addition to entries, audio recordings, and study questions, this Web site contains numerous images from works by Sandro Botticelli, John Flaxman, William Blake, Gustave Dorè, and Suloni Robertson (a UT graduate).
Sources for Videos and Images
Canvas contains links to the following streaming videos: 1911 silent Inferno (set to music by Tangerine Dream), Harry Lachman's Dante's Inferno (1935), Spencer Williams's Go Down, Death! (1944), the 2008 Puppet Inferno based on the artwork of Sandow Birk, and A TV Dante (1989): Cantos 1 and 5 by Peter Greenaway, and Cantos 9-14 by Raúl Ruiz. In addition to containing entries with abridged commentary from The Complete Danteworlds, the Danteworlds Web site (DW: http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu) hosts galleries of artistic images (Botticelli, Vellutello commentary, Blake, Flaxman, Doré, Robertson) that you should consult as part of your preparation for the assigned Inferno cantos. I also encourage you to visit the "Dante Today" Web site for modern Dante sightings / citings as we proceed through the Inferno. Over 1000 images from Cornell University's Divine Comedy Image Archive are available on Shared Shelf Commons (http://www.sscommons.org/openlibrary/welcome.html), an open-access image library. For links to other on-line collections of Dante images, see the "World of Dante" Web site: http://www.worldofdante.org/gallery_main.html.
Other Dante Web Sites
Dartmouth Dante Project (commentaries on the Divine Comedy): http://dante.dartmouth.edu
Digital Dante (Columbia University): http://digitaldante.columbia.edu
World of Dante (University of Virginia): http://www.worldofdante.org
Dante On-Line (Società Dantesca Italiana): http://www.danteonline.it/italiano/home_ita.asp
1) Mastery of the course content through intensive study of a wide range of creative responses to Dante and his work. From Boccaccio to Benigni, Botticelli to Blake, Byron to Birk, Beckett to Brown (to list just the B's), we will look critically at Dante-inspired and Dante-related works across time, space, media, genres, disciplines, and cultural registers.
2) Systematic, targeted attention to research, writing, and oral communication skills to produce scholarly work fit for presentation at an academic conference and, with reasonable revision, for inclusion in a dissertation or for publication in a reputable venue.
3) To advance the reciprocity of scholarly and teaching excellence, we will explore pedagogical strategies and digital humanities projects to inform a potential undergraduate course on Dante's cultural legacy with knowledge of the material studied and researched this semester.
ITC 348 (36870), same as E 366D (35815)
Cross-listed with EUS 347 (36255) and CTI 345 (29505)
TTH 11-12:15 in CLA 0.122
Professor Guy Raffa, Dept. of French and Italian
E-mail: guyr@utexas.edu; Home Page: http://guyraffa.la.utexas.edu/
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM HRH 2.112
ITC 349, same as E 366D, crosslisted with EUS 347 and CTI 345
TTH 12:30-2 in HRH 2.112
Office Hours: TTH 10-11 in HRH 3.104A
Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso (Trans. Allen Mandelbaum); Vita Nuova (Trans. Barbara Reynolds)
Plagiarism, intentional or not, will result in an automatic F on the assignment—the numerical grade (0-59) depending on the extent of the plagiarism and the quality of the non-plagiarized portion of the essay—as well as possible disciplinary action. For the definition of plagiarism and the University's policy on it, see: http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/sjs/scholdis.php
Writing Center: For questions and feedback on writing, you are encouraged to meet with consultants at the Undergraduate Writing Center (PCL 2.330; for appointments and information, see http://uwc.utexas.edu/or call 471-6222).
All cell phones, tablets, laptops, and similar electronic devices must be turned off (or put in airport mode) and put away during class except if the instructor grants permission to use them for specific activities. Students who use devices in class without permission will be marked absent.
iClickers: You must acquire an iClicker "personal response system" unit—iClicker has been ordered for the class (under the unique numbers for this class at the COOP), but if you already have an earlier version from another class, it should work for this class, too. Be sure to register your iClicker before the first class meeting (January 16), and to bring it to each TTH lecture. You must register your iClicker through the Canvas course website (not through the iClicker website) by using the Firefox or Chrome browsers (it won't work in Safari). When you log in to Canvas and select this course, select "i>Clicker" in the menu on the left hand side of the page. You will then see instructions for locating your Remote ID and registering your iClicker. [Note that "iClicker GO" (for use of computers or mobile devices in place of the remote) will not be activated for this class: you must bring your iClicker remote to class.]
On Reserve in the PCL: Copies of the Required Course Texts (Dante's Inferno and Danteworlds) and the following books: Dante's Inferno (illustrated by Sandow Birk; text adapted by Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders); Inferno (translated by Mary Jo Bang); Dante Now (edited by Theodore J. Cachey, Jr.); Dante: A Brief History (Peter Hawkins); Inferno Revealed: from Dante to Dan Brown (Deborah Parker and Mark Parker); Dante Encyclopedia (edited by Richard Lansing); Freedom Readers (Dennis Looney); Metamorphosing Dante (edited by Manuele Gragnolati); Dictionary of Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante (edited by Paget Toynbee)
25%: Research Essay (graded): a paper (1000-1500 words) relating the Inferno to another literary, artistic, cinematic, or popular work. You are not limited to course texts for this assignment, though you may choose to research a work / creator discussed in class. The paper will be completed and revised based on an instructor's review of your annotated bibliography and outline (with a working thesis) and on a peer review of a full draft of the paper.
15%: Midterm Examination (graded): short-answer questions on Dante's Inferno and other assigned texts, images, viewings, and recordings.
C L 386 • Crtv Chaos: Galileo To Calvino
Meets W 12:00PM-3:00PM HRH 2.106C
(also listed as ITL 390L)
Creative Chaos from Galileo to Calvino: Fall 2017
ITL 390L, CL 386: W 12-3 in HRH 2.106C
Guy Raffa, Dept. of French and Italian
E-mail: guyr@utexas.edu; Home page: http://guyraffa.la.utexas.edu
"One could sketch a history of civilizations," writes Italian critic Cesare Segre, "according to the various ways in which they represent order and chaos to themselves." Italy has been a catalyst and cauldron for evolving theories and practices of chaos and order in literature, art, science, philosophy, and politics. This course examines selected works that attest to the cultural imagining of chaotic and order-driven values and their evolving relation to one another. Throughout the semester we will work inductively—at times abductively—to identify, develop, and refine models of chaos and order that arise from the works under consideration, to place these models into dialogue with contemporary theoretical ideas, and to assess their implications and significance.
Lessons for the first ten weeks of the course revolve around major works by Umberto Eco, Italo Calvino, and Primo Levi. After an introductory lesson establishing the conceptual foundation of the course, the following nine weeks are organized around three major novels—Umberto Eco's Il nome della rosa, Italo Calvino's Le città invisibili, and Primo Levi's Il sistema periodico—in conjunction with selected theoretical and critical works approaching the topic of chaos and order from various intellectual and disciplinary perspectives: mythology (Doob), astronomy (Galileo), anthropology (Turner), semiotics (Eco), philosophy of science (Serres; Calvino), chemistry (Primo Levi), cultural studies (Deleuze and Guattari), medicine (Rita Levi Montalcini), and literary theory (Hayles).
Course texts for the final five weeks will be determined and provided by students based on the direction of their research for the final paper. Individual research may explore in greater depth material introduced in the first part of the course or it may focus on other works, traditions, or disciplines that illuminate the imagining of chaos and order.
Required Texts: to ensure that we are on the same page, please use the editions ordered for the course.
Umberto Eco, Il nome della rosa (Bompiani; I grandi tascabili; 2013); The Name of the Rose
Primo Levi, Il sistema periodico (Einaudi tascabili; 2005); The Periodic Table
Italo Calvino, Le città invisibili (Mondadori; 1996); Invisible Cities
Critical and Theoretical Works (on Canvas) include selections from N. Katherine Hayles (Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary Literature and Science), Penelope Reed Doob (The Idea of the Labyrinth from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages), Umberto Eco ("Abduction in Uqbar"; Postscript to The Name of the Rose), Italo Calvino ("Two Interviews on Science and Literature"; "Esattezza"), Michel Serres ("Lucretius: Science and Religion"), Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari ("Rhizome"), Rita Levi Montalcini (Elogio dell'imperfezione), and Victor Turner ("Passages, Margins, and Poverty: Religious Symbols of Communitas").
10%: Discussion Forum entries (credit for on-time completion)
15%: Essay (750-1000 words) on a theoretical or critical text in dialogue with a primary work
15%: Discussion leader for a lesson on texts for your research paper
10%: Research paper draft and peer review (credit for on-time completion)
30%: Research paper of 10-15 pages (2500-3750 words) with full documentation
1) Mastery of the course content through close analysis of a wide range of primary, critical, and theoretical works across temporal and disciplinary boundaries.
2) Systematic, targeted attention to research, writing, and oral communication skills to produce scholarly work fit for presentation at an academic conference and, with expansion and revision, for inclusion in a dissertation or for publication in a reputable scholarly venue.
3) Advance the reciprocity of scholarly and teaching excellence by exploring pedagogical strategies to inform a potential undergraduate course on chaos and order with knowledge of the material studied and researched this semester.
4) Partial preparation for the modern portion of the Comprehensive Exams through the study of major works by Umberto Eco, Italo Calvino, and Primo Levi.
5) Develop familiarity with significant critical and theoretical concepts—including postmodernism(s) and "chaos studies"—in relation to these texts.
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM CLA 0.122
Through close reading, class discussion, and the use of Danteworlds, you are expected to identify and explain the significance of major characters, references, and ideas in Dante's Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise) and Vita Nuova. You will be tested on this ability in responses to study questions (a low-stakes writing assignment) and two in-class exams. An essay, which you will rewrite based on my feedback, will assess your ability to support an interpretation of a specific aspect of Dante's poetry with detailed textual analysis and scholarly research. A peer-editing activity will help you to revise and edit your own work. I expect you to have read the assigned cantos and reviewed the corresponding material in Danteworlds (including the study questions) before class.
Recommended Text: The Complete Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the "Divine Comedy" (Raffa)
Canvas: We will use the CANVAS learning management system to organize and provide course content on-line. When you log in to Canvas (http://canvas.utexas.edu/) and select the course, you will have access to the syllabus, assignments, lecture presentations (pdf), grades, and a discussion forum (for posting responses to study questions). You will be required to submit most assignments on-line using Canvas.
25%: Major rewrite of this essay incorporating scholarly research (graded)
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM CAL 100
MDV 392M • Dante II
Dante II
ITL 390K (36850), crosslisted with MDV 392M (41020)
W 12-3 in HRH 2.106C
HRH 3.104A; 232-5492
Home page: http://guyraffa.la.utexas.edu
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM BEN 1.106
TTH 2-3:15 in BEN 1.106
E-mail: guyr@utexas.edu; Home Page: http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~guyr
Optional Text: The Complete Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the "Divine Comedy" (Raffa)
Canvas: We will use the CANVAS learning management system to organize and provide course content on-line. When you log in to Canvas (http://canvas.utexas.edu/) and select the course, you will have access to the syllabus, assignments, lecture presentations (pdf), grades, and a discussion forum (for posting responses to study questions). You will be required to submit most assignments on-line using Canvas. For help with Canvas, consult the student tutorials (http://edutech.ctl.utexas.edu/students/) or contact support staff (https://utexas.instructure.com/courses/633028).
GCWr
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM GAR 3.116
FLAGS: GC | Wr
TTH 11-12:15 in GAR 3.116
Office Hours: TH 12:45-1:45, W 11-12, and by appointment in HRH 3.104A; phone: 232-5492
Attendance Policy: Your attendance, which obviously influences your classwork and participation grade, is expected at all class meetings. You are expected to arrive on time to class and to stay for the entire lesson. Repeated late arrivals to—or early departures from—will count as absences. For every class that you miss (for whatever reason) after the fifth absence your final course grade (on a 100-point scale) will be reduced by 3 points up to a maximum of 15 points.
ITL 390K • Dante's Afterlives
ITL 390K (39449), crosslisted with CL 382 and MDV 392M: W 12:30-3:15 in HRH 2.106C
Office Hours: TH 12:45-1:45, W 11-12, and by appointment
Course Conducted in English; Reading Knowledge of Italian Required
Summarizing Dante's popularity in Italy in the early twentieth century, one critic amusingly observed that the medieval "was cooked in every sauce, served hot and cold, grilled and in gelatin, whole and ground, alone or with sides, with critical mayonnaise and historical croutons: there was something for all tastes, for strong stomachs and for dyspeptic ones, for women and for men, for kindergartners and for doddering academics." In this course we will seek intellectual nourishment at the banquet of Dante's legacy by closely examining a broad range of responses to the poet—the man and his works—from Giovanni Boccaccio's biography in the late Middle Ages to Roberto Benigni's performances of TuttoDante and Dan Brown's Inferno. Between the Dante-inspired works of Boccaccio and Brown, we will study various, often conflicting, versions of "Dante" in literature, art, film, politics, history, and popular culture. After establishing a foundation for Dante's influence by discussing his political treatise (Monarchia) and selected cantos of his Commedia (most from Inferno), we will embark on an interpretive journey tracing Dante's evolution from a regional to a national (then nationalist) figure before he attained the global status he enjoys today. Giuseppe Mazzini famously called Dante—Ugo Foscolo's "Ghibelline fugitive"—the "Prophet of the Italian Nation": we will accordingly examine appeals to Dante's authority in promoting the liberation and unification of Italy, but we will also consider his role as a beacon of liberty in the United States. Among other areas of inquiry, we will discuss Catholic interpretations of Dante as a neo-Guelph advocate of papal political power, nationalist appropriations of the poet for territorial expansion and military interventions, and recent representations of Dante as an icon of Italian culture on the world stage.
Touchstone texts in our tour of Dante's legacy across time, space, discipline, and culture will include: writings by Boccaccio, Alfieri, Foscolo, Mazzini, Byron, Leopardi, Carducci, Cordelia Ray, Longfellow, D'Annunzio, Marinetti, T. S. Eliot, Samuel Beckett, Primo Levi, Matthew Pearl, Dan Brown, and others; artwork by Botticelli, Blake, Flaxman, Doré, and Suloni Robertson; and films (and clips) by FrancescoBertolini(1911), Harry Lachman (1935), Spencer Williams (1944), Peter Greenaway and Raúl Ruiz (1989), Woody Allen (1997), Vincent Ward (1998), Sandow Birk (2008), and Michael Patrick King (2008).
Class preparation and participation: 15%
Two brief papers (3-5 pages) on assigned material: 20%
Oral research presentation (the basis for a conference presentation): 10%
Research paper of 18-25 pages with full documentation (the basis for a scholarly article): 50%
Sample syllabus for an undergraduate course on Dante's legacy: 5%
Dante Today (Dante in contemporary culture): http://learn.bowdoin.edu/italian/dante
3) To advance the reciprocity of scholarly and teaching excellence, we will explore pedagogical strategies to inform a potential undergraduate course on Dante's cultural legacy with knowledge of the material studied and researched this semester.
GCWr	(also listed as E 322, EUS 347, ITC 349)
ITC 349, same as E 322, crosslisted with EUS 347 and CTI 345
A (94-100) = 4.0, A- (90-93) = 3.67, B+ (88-89) = 3.3, B (84-87) = 3.0, B- (80-83) = 2.67, C+ (78-79) = 2.3, C (77) = 2.0, C- (70-73) = 1.67, D+ (68-69) = 1.3, D (64-67) = 1.0, D- (60-63) = 0.67, F (below 60) = 0.0
Writing Center: For questions and feedback on writing, you are encouraged to meet with consultants at the Undergraduate Writing Center (FAC 211; for appointments and information, see http://uwc.utexas.edu/or call 471-6222).
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM MEZ 1.118
ITC 349 (37360) and E 322 (35700), cross-listed with EUS 347 and CTI 345
TTH 11-12:15 in MEZ 1.118
Office Hours: TTH 1:30-2:30 and by appointment in HRH 3.104A; phone: 232-5492
The Divine Comedy offers a remarkable panorama of the late Middle Ages through one man's poetic vision of the afterlife. However, we continue to read and study the poem not only to learn about the thought and culture of medieval and early modern Europe but also because many of the issues confronting Dante and his age are no less important to individuals and societies today. Personal and civic responsibilities, governmental accountability, church-state relations, economics and social justice, Dante's influence on artists and other writers, benefits and limitations of interdisciplinarity—these are some of the themes that will frame our discussion of the Divine Comedy. Although you will read the poem in English, a bilingual edition will enable you to study and learn famous lines in the original Italian. The course is taught in English and carries the writing flag and the global cultures flag.
Through close reading, class discussion, and the use of Danteworlds, you are expected to identify and explain the significance of major characters, references, and ideas in Dante's Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise) and Vita Nuova. You will be tested on this material in discussion postings (a low-stakes writing assignment) and two in-class exams. An essay, which you will revise and expand based on feedback, will assess your ability to engage scholarly research and support an interpretation of a specific aspect of Dante's poem with detailed textual analysis. A peer-editing activity will help you to revise and edit your own work. You are expected to have read the assigned cantos and reviewed the corresponding material in Danteworlds (including the study questions) before class meetings.
Required Texts: Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso (Trans. Allen Mandelbaum); Vita Nuova (Trans. Barbara Reynolds). Please note: you must use these translations.
5%: Five times during the semester you will post an entry to a discussion forum on Canvas. Entries may include answers to study questions, but other responses to Dante's poem are welcome as well. Each submitted entry must contain at least 200 of your own words. Entries, worth 1 point each, will receive full credit for successful, on-time completion.
15%: 1000-word essay on the Inferno
25%: Significant revision and expansion of this essay (based on teacher feedback) that incorporates material from Purgatorio and / or Paradiso and scholarly research. 1500-2000 words.
5% Peer-editing (full credit for successful, on-time completion)
30%: Two short-answer examinations (15% each)
20%: Classwork and participation. You are expected to read the assigned material before class meetings and to participate—through attentive listening and informed contributions—in class activities and discussion.
Attendance Policy: Your attendance, which obviously influences your classwork and participation grade, is required at all class meetings. You are expected to arrive on time and to stay for the entire lesson. Repeated late arrivals to—or early departures from—will count as absences. For every class that you miss (for whatever reason) after the fourth absence, your final course grade (on a 100-point scale) will be reduced by 3 points up to a maximum of 15 points.
Late Work: There are no make-up exams—and other graded assignments will lose a full letter grade for each day they are late—except in the case of documented emergencies (e.g., illness, death in the family), religious holidays, or university-sponsored events (with prior notification).
Canvas: We will use the CANVAS learning management system to organize and provide course content on-line. When you log in to Canvas (http://canvas.utexas.edu/) and select the course, you will have access to the syllabus, assignments, lecture presentations, grades, and a discussion forum. You will be required to submit most assignments on-line using Canvas. For help with Canvas, consult the student tutorials (http://edutech.ctl.utexas.edu/students/) or contact support staff (https://utexas.instructure.com/courses/633028).
Writing Flag: Writing Flag courses are designed to give students experience with writing in an academic discipline—in this case, literary criticism and humanities research. You will write regularly during the semester, complete substantial writing projects, and receive feedback from your instructor to help you improve your writing. You will have the opportunity to revise and expand an essay, and you will read and discuss your peers' work. A substantial portion of your grade will therefore come from your written work. Writing Flag classes meet the Core Communications objectives of Critical Thinking, Communication, Teamwork, and Personal Responsibility, established by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
Global Cultures Flag: Global Cultures courses are designed to increase your familiarity with cultural groups outside the United States. You should therefore expect a substantial portion of your grade to come from assignments covering the practices, beliefs, and histories of at least one non-U.S. cultural group, past or present—in this case Europe (Italy in particular) in the late Middle Ages as represented in Dante's Divine Comedy.
Grading: All assignments will be graded on a 100 point scale and converted to letter grades consistent with university policy:
Plagiarism, intentional or not, will result in an automatic F on the assignment as well as possible disciplinary action. For the definition of plagiarism and the University's policy on it, see: http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/sjs/scholdis.php
Dartmouth Dante Project (commentaries on the Commedia): http://dante.dartmouth.edu
ITL 390L • Crtv Chaos: Galileo To Calvino
Creative Chaos from Galileo to Calvino
Note: While the language of instruction is English, students are expected to read the primary Italian texts in the original language.
"One could sketch a history of civilizations," writes Italian critic Cesare Segre, "according to the various ways in which they represent order and chaos to themselves." Italy itself has been a catalyst and cauldron for evolving theories and practices of chaos and order in literature, art, science, philosophy, and politics. This course examines selected works across time and disciplines—from Galileo's reflections on heavenly bodies to Primo Levi's responses to Nazi-Fascism and the Shoah—that attest to the imagining of chaotic and order-driven values and their relation to one another in Italian cultural production. Throughout the semester we will work inductively—at times abductively—to identify, develop, and refine models of chaos and order that arise from the works under consideration, to place these models into dialogue with contemporary theoretical ideas, and to assess their implications and significance.
The course is divided into two parts. In most of the semester, weeks 1-10, the class will work together on a sequence of five interrelated units: 1) "Classical and Medieval Catalysts" (weeks one and two) identifies paradigms of chaos and order in foundational texts by Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Cicero, Augustine, Boethius, and Bernardus Silvestris; 2) "Ordering Heaven and Hell" (week three) looks at how Dante and Galileo complicate the traditional privileging of order over chaos in their otherworldly visions; 3) we leap several centuries in "A Semiotics of Chaos and Order" (weeks four through six) but maintain (postmodern) contact with the Middle Ages through a close reading of Umberto Eco's Il nome della rosa; 4) Primo Levi's Il sistema periodico, on the other hand, combines scientific elements to create the "Ethics of Chaos and Order" that we discuss in weeks seven and eight; 5) Italo Calvino's Le città invisibili (weeks nine and ten) perhaps best embodies the "Dialectic of Chaos and Order" at the heart of this course, including the postmodern reconsideration of such traditionally chaotic notions as dissonance, imperfection, turbulence, and unpredictability.
Course texts for the final five weeks will be determined and provided by students based on the direction of their research for the final paper. Individual research may explore in greater depth material introduced in first part of the course or it may focus on other works, traditions, or disciplines that illuminate the imagining of chaos and order in Italian studies.
Required Texts: Umberto Eco, Il nome della rosa (Bompiani; I grandi tascabili; 2013); Primo Levi, Il sistema periodico (Einaudi tascabili; 2005); Italo Calvino, Le città invisibili (Mondadori; 1996). Selections (on Canvas) from Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Cicero, Augustine, Boethius, Bernardus Silvestris, Dante, and Galileo.
Critical and Theoretical Works (on Canvas) include selections from N. Katherine Hayles, Chaos Bound: Orderly Disorder in Contemporary Literature and Science; Penelope Reed Doob, The Idea of the Labyrinth from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages; Ilya Prigogine and Isabelle Stengers, Order out of Chaos; Edward Lorenz, The Essence of Chaos; Benoit Mandelbrot, The Fractal Geometry of Nature; and essays by Umberto Eco ("Abduction in Uqbar"), Michel Serres ("Lucretius: Science and Religion"), Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari ("Rhizome"), Rita Levi Montalcini (from Elogio dell'imperfezione), Victor Turner ("Passages, Margins, and Poverty: Religious Symbols of Communitas"), and Luisa Muraro and Adriana Cavarero (from Diotima: Il pensiero della differenza sessuale).
Short essay (3-5 pages) on a theoretical or critical text in dialogue with a primary work: 15%
Discussion leader for a lesson on texts for your research paper: 15%
2) Systematic, targeted attention to research, writing, and oral communication skills to produce scholarly work fit for presentation at an academic conference and, with reasonable revision, for inclusion in a dissertation or for publication in a reputable scholarly venue.
3) To advance the reciprocity of scholarly and teaching excellence, we will explore pedagogical strategies to inform a potential undergraduate course on chaos and order with knowledge of the material studied and researched this semester.
Spring 2014 Dante II
ITL 390K (37580), crosslisted with MDV 392M (41745): TTH 2-3:30 in BEN 1.106
Guy Raffa, Dept. of French and Italian, HRH 3.104A; 232-5492
This course is the second half of a two-semester sequence focused on Dante's Commedia and his other works. This semester we will read the second half of the Purgatorio (cantos 18-33), the Paradiso, books 2 and 4 of the Convivio, the De vulgari eloquentia, and the Eclogues. Placing our close reading of these texts within a series of literary, intellectual, and historical contexts, we will attend to Dante's engagement with works by classical authors (Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Statius, Cicero) and other medieval poets, philosophers, and theologians. The Danteworlds commentary and the complementary Web site (http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu) will provide much of this background material and help guide your reading of the Commedia. Since a goal of the course is to become familiar with major voices in Dante Studies, our discussion of Dante's works will be informed by selected works of criticism (available on Canvas).
Twice during the semester you are required to write a short response essay—both descriptive and analytical—to one of these critical works. For your final research paper (25-30 pages, with full documentation) you are encouraged to revise and expand your paper from Dante I. You are expected to attend class regularly, to be well prepared, and to participate actively in class discussion.
Required Texts: Purgatorio (Garzanti, 2008); Paradiso (Garzanti, 2006); Convivio (Garzanti, 2005); De vulgari eloquentia (Cambridge, 1996).
Two 750-1000 word critical responses (10% each): 20%
Research project (paper and presentation): 50%
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM UTC 3.102
E 322 • Dante
GC	(also listed as ITC 349)
ITC 349 (37585), Same as E 322 (35687)
TTH 12:30-1:45 in Parlin 201
Office Hours: TTH 1:45-3:15 in HRH 3.104A; phone: 232-5492
The Divine Comedy offers a remarkable panorama of the late Middle Ages through one man's poetic vision of the afterlife. However, we continue to read and study the poem not only to learn about the thought and culture of medieval and early modern Europe but also because many of the issues confronting Dante and his age are no less important to individuals and societies today. Personal and civic responsibilities, governmental accountability, church-state relations, economics and social justice, Dante's influence on artists and other writers, benefits and limitations of interdisciplinarity—these are some of the themes that will frame our discussion of the Divine Comedy. Although you will read the poem in English, a bilingual edition will enable you to study and learn famous lines in the original Italian. The course is taught in English.
Through close reading, class discussion, and the use of Danteworlds, you are expected to identify and explain the significance of major characters, references, and ideas in Dante's Divine Comedy (Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise) and Vita Nuova. You will be tested on this ability in two exams. Take-home essays will assess your ability to support an interpretation of a specific aspect of Dante's poetry with detailed textual analysis. I expect you to have read the assigned cantos and reviewed the corresponding material in Danteworlds (including the study questions) before class.
Two in-class examinations (30% each): 60%
Two take-home essays (15% each): 30%
Class work (including journal entries and / or quizzes): 10%
Regular attendance is required: No student who misses more than 6 classes (3 weeks) for any reason can complete the course with a passing grade.
REQUIRED TEXTS: Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso (Trans. Allen Mandelbaum)
Grading and Plagiarism: All assignments will be graded on a 100 point scale and converted to letter grades consistent with university policy:
ITL 390K • Dante I
Meets T 3:30PM-6:30PM BEN 1.108
Dante I (Fall 2013)
ITL 390K, crosslisted with MDV 392M: T 330-630 in BEN 1.108
This course is the first half of a two-semester sequence focused on Dante's Commedia and his other works. This semester we will read the Inferno, the Vita nuova, two books of the Convivio (1 and 3), the Monarchia, and the first half of Purgatorio. Placing our close reading of these texts within a series of literary, intellectual, and historical contexts, we will attend to Dante's engagement with works by classical authors (Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Statius, Cicero) and medieval poets, philosophers, and theologians. The Danteworlds commentary and the complementary Web site (http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu) will provide much of this background material and help guide your reading of the Commedia.
Since a goal of the course is to become familiar with major voices in Dante Studies, our discussion of Dante's works will be informed by selected works of criticism (available on Blackboard or in a course packet). Twice during the semester you are required to write a brief response—both descriptive and analytical—to one of these critical works. Other graded assignments include a take-home exam and a substantial research project consisting of a paper and a formal presentation to the class. For the paper, you are required to write a significant draft (15+ pages, with full documentation) that you will likely expand and revise in the spring semester. You are expected to attend class regularly, to be well prepared, and to participate actively in class discussion.
Required Texts: Inferno (Garzanti, 2008); Purgatorio (Garzanti, 2008); Vita nuova (Garzanti, 2009); Convivio (Garzanti, 2005); Monarchy (Cambridge, 1996)
Take-Home Exam: 20%
Meets W 12:00PM-3:00PM MEZ 1.208
Dante's Afterlives (Spring 2013)
Summarizing Dante's popularity in Italy in the early twentieth century, one critic amusingly observed that the medieval poet "was cooked in every sauce, served hot and cold, grilled and in gelatin, whole and ground, alone or with sides, with critical mayonnaise and historical croutons: there was something for all tastes, for strong stomachs and for dyspeptic ones, for women and for men, for kindergartners and for doddering academics." In this course we will seek intellectual nourishment at the banquet of Dante's legacy by closely examining a broad range of responses to the poet—the man and his works—from Giovanni Boccaccio's biography in the late Middle Ages to Roberto Benigni's recent performances of TuttoDante. Between the Dante-inspired works of Boccaccio and Benigni, we will study various, often conflicting, versions of "Dante" in literature, art, film, politics, history, and popular culture. After establishing a foundation for Dante's influence by discussing his political treatise (Monarchia) and selected cantos of his Commedia (most from Inferno), we will embark on an interpretive journey tracing Dante's evolution from a regional to a national (then nationalist) figure before he attained the global status he enjoys today. Giuseppe Mazzini famously called Dante—Ugo Foscolo's "Ghibelline fugitive"—the "Prophet of the Italian Nation": we will accordingly examine appeals to Dante's authority in promoting the liberation and unification of Italy, but we will also consider his role as a beacon of liberty in the United States. Among other areas of inquiry, we will discuss Catholic interpretations of Dante as a neo-Guelph advocate of papal political power, nationalist appropriations of the poet for territorial expansion and military interventions, and recent representations of Dante as an icon of Italian culture on the world stage.
Touchstone texts in our tour of Dante's legacy across time, space, discipline, and culture will include: writings by Alfieri, Foscolo, Mazzini, Byron, Leopardi, Carducci, Cordelia Ray, Longfellow, D'Annunzio, Marinetti, T. S. Eliot, Samuel Beckett, Mussolini, Primo Levi, Matthew Pearl, Karen Russell, and others; artwork by Botticelli, Blake, Flaxman, Dorè, and Suloni Robertson; and films (and clips) by FrancescoBertolini(1911), Harry Lachman (1935), Spencer Williams (1944), Peter Greenaway and Raúl Ruiz (1989), Woody Allen (1997), Vincent Ward (1998), Sandow Birk (2008), and Michael Patrick King (2008).
[Other sources and critical works will be posted on Blackboard or gathered in a packet.]
Three 500-1000 word critical response essays: 15%
Term paper of 15-25 pages with full documentation (the basis for a scholarly article): 50%
Meets MW 11:00AM-12:00PM PAR 301
ITL 326K • Intro Itl Lit: Mid Ages-18th C
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM HRH 2.112
Introduction to Italian Literature (Middle Ages - 18th Century): Spring 2011
ITL 326K: TTH 2-3:15 in HRH 2.112
Prof. Guy Raffa, Dept. of French and Italian
Office Hours: TTH 10-11 in HRH 3.104A; phone: 471-6390
E-mail: guyr@uts.cc.utexas.edu; Home Page: http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~guyr
In this course we will read and discuss selected works from the Middle Ages and early modern period. All reading, writing and discussion will be in Italian. Since love is a central, unifying theme of many course texts, we shall consider several of its nuances and representations: spiritual love; adult sexual and emotional intimacy; family relationships; friendships; group solidarity; and love of one's homeland. In addition to selections from Dante's Inferno and Boccaccio's Decameron, we will read and discuss works by Francesco d'Assisi, Angela da Foligno, Caterina da Siena, Giacomo da Lentini, Guido Guinizzelli, Guido Cavalcanti, Cecco Angiolieri, Compiuta Donzella, Francesco Petrarca, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Vittoria Colonna, Niccolò Machiavelli, Gaspara Stampa, Galileo and Virginia Galilei. We will strategically use materials from contemporary Italian culture—including popular music (Ferro, Nek, Giorgia, Alexia, Jovanotti) and Pasolini's film adaptation of the Decameron—to put these works of early Italian literature into dialogue with more recent representations and issues.
Two exams: 50%
Two essays: 25%
Preparation and participation (including quizzes): 25%
Dante Alighieri, Inferno (Garzanti, 2008)
Francesco Petrarca, Poesie (Bonacci, 1996)
Course packet (I.T. Copy, 512 W. MLK Blvd; phone: 476-6662)
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM BUR 136
GC	(also listed as EUS 347, ITC 349)
Instructor: Raffa
ITL 390L • Umberto Eco And Italo Calvino
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM GAR 0.120
Prerequisite: Graduate standing is required.
Calvino and Eco: Fiction, Theory, and Criticism
The responses of Umberto Eco and Italo Calvino to the interrelations of author, reader, and text, and the future of literature and literary studies show that in a cultural moment favorable toward multi-disciplinarity at least two general directions coexist: an encounter with multiple discourses of knowledge in order to mark more clearly their boundaries, and a belief that new epistemological configurations arise from the interplay--and even contamination--of different lines of inquiry. We shall explore the important contribution of these two Italian writers to contemporary literary and intellectual debate by examining selected creative, critical, and theoretical texts. Not satisfied only to show how their theory and fiction "reflect" one another, we shall also attend to the ideological assumptions and implications of Eco's and Calvino's works.
In addition to the texts in the bookstores, there will be a number of works on reserve in the PCL, including secondary sources essential for your research paper of substantial proportions (15-25 pp. with full documentation). This paper will account for 60% of your grade, with the remaining 40% evenly divided between class participation and two short response essays (2-4 pp.). Although class discussion will be in English, texts will be available in both Italian and English.
Calvino: Lezioni americane (Mondadori, ISBN = 9788804485995), Tutte le cosmicomiche (Mondadori, ISBN = 9788804520467), Se una notte d'inverno un viaggiatore (Mondadori, ISBN = 9788804482000), Visconte dimezzato (Mondadori, ISBN = 9788804370871)
Eco: Nome della rosa (Bompiani, ISBN = 9788845246340), Isola del giorno prima (Bompiani, ISBN = 9788845246449), Interpretation and Overinterpretation (Cambridge, ISBN = 9780521425544), Six Walks in the Fictional Woods (Harvard, ISBN = 9780674810518)
On Reserve / Blackboard: selections from Uses of Literature, Limits of Interpretation, Role of the Reader, Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM MEZ 2.122
ITL 326K (attached)
EUS 347 • Dante
(also listed as ITC 349)
Please check back for updates.
ITL 390K • Medieval Visions And Creations
ITC 349 • Dante-W
ITL 326K
In this course we will read and discuss selected works from the Middle Ages and early modern period. All reading, writing and discussion will be in Italian. Since love is a central, unifying theme of many course texts, we shall consider several of its nuances and representations: spiritual love; adult sexual and emotional intimacy; family relationships; friendships; group solidarity; and love of one's homeland. In addition to selections from Dante's Inferno and Boccaccio's Decameron, we will read and discuss works by Francesco d'Assisi, Angela da Foligno, Caterina da Siena, Giacomo da Lentini, Guido Guinizzelli, Guido Cavalcanti, Cecco Angiolieri, Compiuta Donzella, Francesco Petrarca, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Vittoria Colonna, Niccolò Machiavelli, Gaspara Stampa, Galileo and Virginia Galilei. We will use materials from contemporary Italian culture, including popular music and film, to put these works of early Italian literature into dialogue with more recent representations and issues.
Dante Alighieri, Inferno (Rizzoli edition, 2001)
Giovanni Boccaccio, Dieci novelle dal Decameron (Guerra Edizioni Guru, 1997)
Course packet
Grading Policy:
2 Exams: 50%
2 Papers: 25%
Participation: 25%
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM HRH 3.102A
Meets TTH 12:30PM-2:00PM HRH 3.102A
EUS 305 • Intro To European Studies-W
Meets TTH 2:00PM-3:30PM BAT 302
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
understand the significance of "United Europe" as a historical necessity and a historical accident, and how various political entities and social problems work for or against that unification
frame arguments about Europe in terms of the needs and experiences of three post-war generations' politics and experiences
find and assess current event and scholarly sources pertaining to the study of contemporary Europe, justifying their pertinence and quality with references to today's research norms.
Scholars often claim that "Europe does not exist." Yet the continent is there, home to a bewildering puzzle of
many different histories, nations, cultures and languages, with more than 450 million people now living in the European Union -- a Union that argues whether it can stay together as part of the "Eurozone" or even expand eastward to include supposedly "non-Christian" countries like Turkey. As the political, social and economic relationships among the member states of that European Union shift on an official level, Europe and European identities have constantly to be (re)defined and renegotiated, and "average Europeans" seek to understand the relationships between official accounts of "their" situations, the histories they were taught in school and by their families, and their everyday experiences.
What, then, does it mean to study a Europe that is in flux this way? This course cannot answer that question straightforwardly, because US scholars in the social sciences and humanities who claim allegiance to "European Studies" all use different disciplines' strategies for understanding "Europe."
To resolve that problem in another way, this course will start by introducing several earlier attempts to make a more united, and presumably more peaceful and prosperous, "Europe" out of the nation-states on the continent. Each "imagined" Europe, as we shall see, was proposed to correct problems with the nation-states -- to change politics and everyday lives in particular ways.
A recent history of post-World-War-II Europe by Tony Judt will anchor the class' original work on Europe and its member nations. Judt tells the continent's story from the point of view of the era's global power politics, and then situates individual European states within them. Judt's text, then, provides accounts of Europe from the top-down and points to moments when those official accounts diverge for particular states and when they place individuals and groups who do not fit the national stereotypes under pressure.
The historical account of Europe as seen from the point of view of world politics is an interesting counterpoint to the evolution of European government since World War II, as realized in the Council of Europe and the European Union. The next part of the course will introduce the evolving structure of European governance as a precursor to discussion of case studies about what this "Europeanization" does to individuals, groups, and nation-states.
In the transition from official Europe to Europe's culture, the class will present resources and desiderata for researching issues in the European Studies context. The largest section of the course is devoted to a workshop on issues in contemporary Europe. In each case, readings form official sources are juxtaposed with news sources, writings from think tanks, and academic writing. The purpose of using official sources is to give students a springboard for juxtapositions between the "European" points of view and national ones that they research as the semester goes on.
Assignments in this course are designed to introduce students to the materials, research strategies, and forms of professional communication that they will encounter later in specific disciplines' versions of European studies. The assignments build on each other to help each learner acquire a body of skills and knowledge that will aid in their personal studies of Europe and in their major courses.
This course is the introductory core course for a concentration or major in European Studies at UT, but it requires no prerequisites except for the willingness to work in collaboration with others and to engage in a discovery process rather than seeking "right" answers.
ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING:
305 Course Description, 1
Chapter review = 10%
Webpage: 5 tasks (one in two parts) assigned in syllabus to situate your country = 10%
(2 points each: one for submitting it on time, one for correctness)
Source Analysis Assignment = 10%
Three one-hour online tests @ 10% each = 30%
Policy Brief= 20%
Final Evaluative Book Review of Postwar = 20%
READINGS: BOOK TO BUY
Tony Judt. Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. New York: The Penguin Press, 2005. ISBN 978-1-59420-065- 3. [[ORDERED AT COOP]]
READINGS: PDFed materials on Class Canvas Site
Michel de Certeau, Luce Giard, and Pierre Mayol. The Practice of Everyday Life, Vol. 2: Living and Cooking. Trans. Timothy J. Tomasik. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998, plus two pages from Volume 1.
Jonathan W. Garlough. "Weighing in on the Wine Wars." William and Mary Law Review 46/4 (2005): Article 13.
Richard Goff, et al. The Twentieth Century and Beyond: A Global History. 7th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2008 (excerpts). Tony Judt, A Grand Illusion?: An Essay on Europe. New York: New York UP, 2011 [orig. 1996]. ISBN 978-0-8147-4358-4. Ruth Keeling. "The Bologna Process and the Lisbon Research Agenda: the European Commission's expanding role in higher
education discourse." European Journal of Education, Vol. 41, No. 2 (2006)
Magdalini Kolokitha. "It's the End of the 'University' as we know it." Unpublished speech: First RESUP International
Conference. Paris 1st, 2nd and 3rd February 2007."European Agenda for the Integration of Third-Country
Nationals." N. P.: European Commission, 2011.
"Migration and Integration in Europe: State of the Research." ESRC Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS).
Oxford: Oxford University, 2008.
WEB-BASED READINGS ON SYLLABUS
Many readings are parts of websites. Generally, an excerpt from Wikipedia is present for its readibility, but WIkipedia is only usable as a point of comparison, not as "official" materials, which need to be found on official websites for governments and entities. The online archives of the various European Agencies, moreover, contain reference materials that are straightforwardly considered government documents. Use Wikipedia to steer you toward the right names and issues, especially in an area like European Studies, which present a dizzying array of names, dates, and quotations. Use websites that stem from the organizations themselves for quoting and for authoritative definitions in your written work; use scholarly literature for definitive work on your final projects.
CLASS WEBSITE: Canvas Learning System
BANDWIDTH: You will need enough bandwidth to post newslinks with commentary 5 times during the semester
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM JES A209A
Meets MWF 11:00AM-12:00PM BAT 104
Meets MWF 2:00PM-3:00PM CBA 4.330
ITC F349 • Dante-W
Meets MTWTHF 11:30AM-1:00PM BEN 210
Italian Literature in Translation. Three lecture hours a week for one semester. May be repeated for credit when the topics vary. Prerequisite: Upper-division standing.
Meets TTH 11:00AM-12:30PM MEZ 202
Meets MTWTHF 10:00AM-11:30AM BEN 210
Dante's Bones: How a Poet Invented Italy (Harvard University Press, 2020)
Dante, whose Divine Comedy gave the world its most vividly imagined spiritual afterlife, has endured an extraordinary physical life beyond the grave. The year 2021 will mark the 700th anniversary of his death. Exiled in death as in life, Dante has hardly rested in peace over the centuries. Like a saint's relics, his bones have been stolen, recovered, reburied, exhumed, examined, and worshiped. Above all, they have been exploited: Claims to his physical remains, this book shows, are also political, religious, or artistic claims to the authority of Italy's greatest poet.
Actors in this graveyard history range from Lorenzo de' Medici, Michelangelo, and Pope Leo X to the Franciscan friar who hid the bones, the stone mason who accidentally discovered them, and the opportunistic sculptor who accomplished what Florentine princes, popes, and politicians could not: allow Dante's native city of Florence to repatriate a precious relic of the poet it had banished.
Dante's Bones narrates for the first time the complete course of the poet's physical afterlife, from his death and burial in 1321 to a computer-generated reconstruction of his face in 2006. Recovering and assembling the pieces of Dante's lively skeletal history, this book closely examines a wide variety of archival and published sources across multiple fields, including literature, religion, architecture, art history, physical anthropology, and political and military history. Besides creative and scholarly works, it draws on scientific reports, diplomatic documents, popular materials (newspapers, magazines, films, videos), and eyewitness accounts in letters, diaries, and memoirs.
This graveyard history illuminates and is illuminated by the history of Italy. As the highlighted portion of Dante's dead body has diminished—from a skeleton to bones to fragments, finally to dust—his cultural legacy has expanded from the city to the nation to the world. A political and literary hero for Renaissance Florence, the poet was transformed from Italy's father and prophet into a nationalist champion during two world wars and Mussolini's fascist dictatorship before becoming the one-name global icon we know today.
"an excellent book for anyone with an interest in Dante, the arc of Italian history, or merely an historical adventure well told." — StrategyPage (September 15, 2020)
"it's an intensively researched, gripping story of Dante's lively bones that also tells a brisk history of modern Italy." — Law & Liberty (July 23, 2020)
"has a deep acquaintance with Italian antiquarian lore, supported by immaculate prose craftsmanship." — Wall Street Journal (May 29, 2020)
"In fiction and in fact, Dante Alighieri has been influencing the world order for centuries. Just how he's achieved global-icon stature is the subject of Guy P. Raffa's fascinating, comprehensive new book." — AirMailWeekly (May 23, 2020)
"Pulling together many threads of Dante's story, Raffa offers an engaging, informative, and original account of the material culture of the poet's epic body of work. Highly recommended." — Library Journal (May 1, 2020)
"devotes this fascinating study to how the treatment of Dante's remains over the centuries has reflected his centrality to Italian history and culture. . . . In tracing the history of Dante's bones, Raffa also provides an illuminating exploration of Italian nationalism and political thought." — Publishers Weekly (March 13, 2020)
Dante Alighieri changed literature forever by reimagining the afterlife, and Dante's Bones now captures Dante's afterlife in a way that has never been done. Adeptly guiding us through medieval politics as well as modern science, Guy Raffa achieves the elusive accomplishment of vividly bringing Dante to life through his death. — Matthew Pearl, author of The Dante Club and The Dante Chamber
Dante's Bones is at once a vivid retelling of Dante's fortunes in the centuries following his death and an important work of historical scholarship. Guy Raffa's deft prose illuminates the enduring contest over the great poet's mortal remains, providing a remarkable instance—by turns comical, deadly serious, and always captivating—of the appropriation of literary genius for political and cultural purposes. — Albert Ascoli, author of Dante and the Making of a Modern Author
Dante's Bones is an enormous gift to readers and scholars of the poet and Italian history. With intensive scholarship in a wide variety of fields as his loom, Raffa has woven a fascinating tapestry out of 700 years of guarding, stealing, hiding, maintaining, studying, celebrating, debating, and claiming the material form and symbolic meaning of Dante's remains. — Arielle Saiber, author of Measured Words: Computation and Writing in Renaissance Italy
The Complete Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the "Divine Comedy" (University of Chicago Press, 2009, second printing in 2011).
Seamlessly combining a major work of scholarship with extensive pedagogical features, this multi-purpose book is a valuable resource for researchers, teachers, students, and other ambitious readers of Dante's Divine Comedy. The poem's earliest commentators and Giovanni Boccaccio's public lectures on it in the fourteenth century inaugurated a tradition—interpreting and explicating the Comedy in piecemeal fashion (from individual verses to a single canto)—that has been carried on by Dante scholars down to the present. Based on original research and written in lively prose, The Complete Danteworlds contributes to this tradition with a new scholarly commentary that covers the entire Divine Comedy. It does so, moreover, in a highly innovative way: unique among Dante commentaries, the entries in this book are conceived and arranged according to the geography of Dante's afterlife: rather than line by line notes, the over 240 entries in The Complete Danteworlds follow the path traveled by Dante and his guides as they descend through the circles of Hell, climb the terraces of Mount Purgatory, and traverse the spheres of Paradise. This geographical organization, truer to Dante's visual imagination than a purely textual ordering, has born fruitful scholarly results by providing new information and critical insights on topics that received only partial or scattered treatment in earlier commentaries. Published by a top-tier university press and widely reviewed in academic journals, The Complete Danteworlds combines the best qualities of a monograph and a textbook by embodying the productive reciprocity of original research and innovative pedagogy.
In his superbly written and always engaging presentation of the three realms of the afterlife Guy Raffa displays the rare ability to see, as it were, both the forest and the trees, capturing the grand outlines and shape of Dante's poem as well as identifying and providing incisive commentary on its myriad components—people, places, events, themes. Not only will first-time readers of the Comedy appreciate Raffa's meticulous overview, but seasoned scholars will also profit from his many critical insights. Danteworlds will have a major impact on the ways we read, teach, and study the Comedy. - Christopher Kleinhenz (Carol Mason Kirk Professor Emeritus of Italian, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
The commentary and structure of the guide constitute a very impressive work of scholarship in that it admirably fulfills its goal of presenting Dante's poem in all of its complexity without reductionism. - Peter Bondanella (Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature, Film Studies, and Italian, Indiana University)
Dante Studies are in safe hands when such energy and creativity is brought to bear on the Comedy. . . . This book deserves a wide audience, both inside and outside the academy. - Notes and Queries
Under the author's skillful guidance, the world of Dante's creative output is lucidly explored and engagingly presented. - Forum Italicum
Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the Inferno (University of Chicago Press, 2007)
This is the first guide to Dante's Inferno to take readers on a geographic journey through the poet's underworld—not canto by canto but circle by circle, similar to how Dante and Virgil proceed in their infernal descent. The heart of Danteworlds is an original commentary arranged according to the physical layout of Dante's Hell. Each chapter (or "region") of the book, from the "Dark Wood" down to the ninth circle of Hell, begins with a summary of the action and contains detailed entries followed by significant verses and useful study questions. The entries, based on a close examination of the poet's sources (biblical, classical, and medieval) in addition to the most up-to-date scholarship, treat the characters and creatures encountered by Dante on his journey as well as a vast array of references to religion, philosophy, history, politics, and literature. For news of people and events from Dante's time and place, Danteworlds provides information and entertaining anecdotes drawn from the poem's earliest commentators. The book's critical methodology is grounded in the conviction that there is no substitute for revisiting and analyzing the primary sources (in the original languages) from the ancient world to the late Middle Ages that fired Dante's imagination and for examining closely how he fashioned this material into a literary masterpiece.
Guy Raffa provides lucid, concise information on all the major persons, deities, and creatures encountered in the course of his journey. - Deborah Parker (Professor of Italian, University of Virginia)
Throughout, Raffa finds ways to provide context and clues that encourage the reader to return to Dante's poem for a fresh look. The book, therefore, is not only useful for first-time readers, but also for those who regularly teach the Comedy to such readers. - The Medieval Review
. . . it does a remarkable job of conveying a great deal of information as well as a lively sense of the richness, interest, and relevance of the Inferno. - Speculum
Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry (University of Toronto Press, 2000)
Divine Dialectic: Dante's Incarnational Poetry offers a fresh reading of Dante's major literary works—the Vita nuova and the Divine Comedy—by combining central tenets of incarnational theology and dialectical thought. Recognizing Dante as a poet who paradoxically embraces both opposition and reciprocity, this book shows how Dante challenges such conventional dichotomies as human desire and divine love, artistic fame and spiritual humility, sacrifice and triumph, and political action and philosophical contemplation. Divine Dialectic ultimately argues that Dante crosses textual and theological boundaries to promote the paradoxical union of contradiction and resolution as a way of reading his poem and, by extension, the world itself.
This book is commendable for being daring and Dantean in the truest sense of the word. - Renaissance Quarterly
Lucid, erudite, and thought provoking, this is an important contribution to Dante studies that will be obligatory reading for advanced students and scholars of the Commedia. - Choice
This is a book, though, not just for Dante Scholars. Anyone interested in medieval Christianity will find it informative and enriching. - Christianity and Literature
This impressive book, Guy Raffa's first, shows from the outset a genuinely remarkable degree of scope and ambition. . . . This is an important contribution to the field that will compel its readers to reconsider some of their most cherished preconceptions about the workings of Dante's mind and poetry. . . . He leaves his readers permanently indebted to him, both for a compelling general interpretation of Dante's major works and for countless illuminating observations of textual detail that enlarge our readerly understanding. - Symposium
The reviewer read every page of this book with keen interest and found it to be one of the most satisfying works of criticism on Dante that he knows. . . . It achieves a remarkable level of readability and grace, comprehensiveness and control, telescoping whole fields of scholarship in ways that focus their exact pertinence for specific points in Dante's text. It deserves to become a widely read and highly esteemed work of American Dante criticism. - Letteratura Italiana Antica
Academic Articles and Essays
"Battleship Dante Alighieri (1908-1928)." Forthcoming in Dante Studies. Anticipated publication date: March, 2021.
"Dante's Political Life." Bibliotheca Dantesca 3 (2020). 25 pp. https://repository.upenn.edu/bibdant/vol3/iss1/1/
"Dan Brown's Infernal Riddle." Dante Notes. Dante Society of America. March 22, 2018. https://www.dantesociety.org/node/128
"Fragments of Freedom: Dante's Relic in the Re-United States." California Italian Studies 6.1 (2016). http://escholarship.org/uc/item/1ps8s9kd
"What Rod Dreher Ought to Know about Dante and Same-Sex Love." Electronic Bulletin of the Dante Society of America. November 2, 2015. Reprinted in PopMatters, January 22, 2016.
"Bones of Contention: Ravenna's and Florence's Claims to Dante's Remains." Italica 92.3 (2015): 565-81.
"Calvino's Scientific Humanism," in Approaches to Teaching the Works of Italo Calvino, ed. Franco Ricci. New York: MLA, 2013. 37-41.
"A Beautiful Friendship: Dante and Vergil in the Commedia." MLN 127.1 (Supplement) (2012): 72-80.
"Eco's Scientific Imagination," in New Essays on Umberto Eco, ed. Peter Bondanella. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 34-49.
"'Io amo New York': Calvino's Creatively Chaotic City," in Science and Literature in Italian Culture from Dante to Calvino, ed. Pierpaolo Antonello and Simon A. Gilson. Oxford: Legenda, 2004. 276-91.
"Dante's Poetics of Exile," Annali d'italianistica 20 (2002): 73-87.
"Usury," "Greeks," and "Five Hundred Ten and Five." The Dante Encyclopedia. New York and London: Garland, 2000.
"Carlo Levi's Sacred Art of Medicine," Annali d'Italianistica 15 (1997): 203-20.
"Dante's Mocking Pastoral Muse," Dante Studies 114 (1996): 271-91.
"Eco and Calvino Reading Dante," Italica 73.3 (1996): 388-409.
"Dante's Beloved Yet Damned Virgil," in Dante's "Inferno": The Indiana Critical Edition, ed. Mark Musa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995. 266-85.
"Enigmatic 56's: Cicero's Scipio and Dante's Cacciaguida," Dante Studies 110 (1992): 121-34.
"Love's Duplicity in the Vita Nuova," Italian Culture 10 (1992): 15-26.
"From Two's to Three's in Inferno II," Lectura Dantis 10 (1992): 91-108.
"La bestialità ne Il Decameron e due strutture contrapposte," The Rackham Journal of the Arts and Humanities (1991-92): 35-42.
"There's a Special Place in Dante's Inferno for Wafflers and Neutral Souls." Zócalo Public Square. August 31, 2020.
"Medieval Facial Hair in Major League Baseball." Not Even Past. Ed. Joan Neuberger. October 8, 2018.
"George Washington in Cambridge and the Birth of a Nation." Process: A Blog for American History. Organization of American Historians. February 22, 2017.
"Longfellow's Great Liberators: Abraham Lincoln and Dante Alighieri." Not Even Past. Ed. Joan Neuberger. January 18, 2017.
"Danteworlds: Digital Humanities as Public Scholarship." Thinking in Public: Public Scholarship at the University of Texas at Austin. Ed. Joan Neuberger. Sept. 9, 2016.
"Dante at Arms." MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History 28.4 (2016): 86-89.
"Dante and Don: The Word Made Flesh and the Word Made Cash." PopMatters, Sept. 2, 2015. Reprinted as "Happy Birthday to Dante and Don" in Life & Letters: College of Liberal Arts Magazine (Fall 2015): 31-32.
"Dante's Hell and Its Afterlife." Signature Course Stories: Transforming Undergraduate Learning. Ed. Lori Holleran Steiker. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015. 43-45.
"What the Head of Hiring at Google Doesn't Understand About Skills." The Chronicle of Higher Education. "The Conversation." May 28, 2014. Reprinted in The Chronicle Review. June 20, 2014: B2.
Danteworlds Website
Welcome to Danteworlds: A multimedia journey--combining textual commentary, artistic images, and audio recordings--through the three realms (Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise) of Dante's Divine Comedy. This site contains, in addition to an abridged version of the original commentary in The Complete Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the Divine Comedy and Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the Inferno, Italian recordings of selected verses and a vast gallery of images depicting characters and scenes from the Divine Comedy. Like the books, the Danteworlds Web site is structured around a geographic representation of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise--the three worlds of Dante's Divine Comedy.
Danteworlds is "an invaluable resource for specialists and novices alike," writes E. S. Hierl (Harvard University) in Choice Reviews Online, "the sort of multimedia experience that those in the digital humanities strive for" (August, 2010). The subject of an interview on the home page of the University of Texas at Austin, Danteworlds was selected for inclusion on EDSITEment in 2008 as "one of the best online resources for education in the humanities," and was featured in the literary blogs of the New Yorker (Jan. 8, 2009) and the Los Angeles Times (Jan. 14, 2009).
AWARDS, GRANTS, AND HONORS
2007 Gold Award, Innovative Instructional Technology Awards Program
2007 UT-Austin nominee, Chancellor's Council Innovations in Education Awards
2003 Silver Award, Innovative Instructional Technology Awards Program
2003 Liberal Arts Instructional Technology Grant
"Danteworlds: DHing the Scholar-Teacher in the Piazza," FL@DH: Foreign Languages in the Digital Humanities," University of Texas at Austin, February 6, 2016.
"Dante's Web: Research and Teaching in the Virtual Piazza," Modern Language Association, Austin, Texas, January, 2016.
"Barking up a Different Tree: A Digital Humanities Complement to Distant Reading," American Association of Italian Studies, Boulder, Colorado, March, 2015.
"Danteworlds: A Multimedia Journey through Dante's Divine Comedy," Humanities Lecture Series, University of Texas at Austin Continuing Education, October, 2004.
"Danteworlds: A Visual Journey through Dante's Afterlife," Iona College, April, 2004.
Invited Lectures (Selected)
"Translating Dante's Body," Dante Society of America, University of Oregon, Eugene, May 6, 2017.
"Dante's Immortal Remains: From Florentine Martyr to Global Icon," Annual Dante Lecture, Center for Renaissance Studies, Newberry Library, Chicago, November 15, 2013.
"Dante and the Popular Imagination: A Historical Perspective," Dante Society of America, MLA, Los Angeles, January 8, 2011.
"Romancing the Tomb: Dante's Bones and Italian History," Annual Dante Lecture, Yale University, October 20, 2010.
Presentations and Classes
"Dante's Bones: The Divine Poet and the Idea of Italy." Oscher Lifelong Learning Institute, University of Texas at Austin, February 8, 2017.
"Dantemania: Looking Back Today for a Better Tomorrow." University Lecture Series, Bass Concert Hall, University of Texas at Austin, September 29, 2014. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKCoLNCmBPw)
"Dante's Inferno," St. Michael's Catholic Academy, Austin, Texas. January 27, 2014.
"Dante's Inferno," Lyndon B. Johnson High School, Austin, Texas, February 7, 2005.
"Dante, A Poet for All Times," Digital Speakers Bureau, The Center for European Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. May 2015. (http://www.digitalspeakersbureau.com/speakers/guy-raffa/)
"Dante's Bones," Humanities Research Award, College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin. April 2013. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySsCFBjBZRk)
Danteworlds