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Dantedì: A Day with Dante

March 25, 2021
4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. EDT
Location: Online Zoom Webinar

Established in 2020, Dantedì is the Italian national day dedicated to poet and writer Dante Alighieri. March 25 was chosen as it is recognized by scholars as the day the poet started his journey in the afterlife in the Divine Comedy.

This event explored how Dante's work has been received worldwide. Through a lecture on “Radical Dante” Dennis Looney discussed how Dante represents a world that appears at first reading to be so properly ordered - cosmologically, morally, and aesthetically - and yet at critical junctures time and again the poet raises questions about that assumed order, posing repeatedly radical challenges to the notion of order itself. In the second part of the event, Deborah Parker discussed adaptations of Dante by writers, artists, and politicians from China, Japan, Africa, South America, and the United States. Introductions were provided by Emanuele Amendola, director of the Italian Cultural Institute, and Anna de Fina, chair of the Italian Department at Georgetown University. Gianni Cicali, associate professor in the Department of Italian at Georgetown University, served as a respondent. Francesco Ciabattoni, Term Professor in Italian Literature at Georgetown University, moderated the event.

This event was co-sponsored by Embassy of Italy and Italian Cultural Institute in Washington, DC, Georgetown University Italian Department, Georgetown Humanities Initiative, and the Doyle Engaging Difference Program.

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