Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey

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ITAL 6665

Mediterranean & Dante's DC

The Mediterranean Signature of Dante’s Divina Commedia

The course will explore Dante’s Commedia in a contemporary key, with special reference not only to classical and Christian culture and traditions, but also to the medieval, pan-Mediterranean, medieval cultural context from which it emerged. We will be reading selected cantos, as well as some of Dante’s other works, in relation to the wider, interactive network of intellectual and spiritual traditions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism. In so doing, we aim to reveal the poet’s modernity: his synthesis of the three traditions, proposing to his readers an “interpretive” journey that is imaginatively, intellectually and spiritually engaged.

Required Texts: Dante Alighieri, Tutte le opere (Divina Commedia, Vita Nuova, Rime, Convivio, De vulgari eloquentia, Monarchia, Egloghe, Epistole, Quaestio de aqua et de terra)/. Introduzione di Italo Borzi. Commenti a cura di Giovanni Fallani, Nicola Maggi e Silvio Zennaro. (Roma: Newton Compton Editori, 2015) (Tascabile, ibs.it)
Cardini, Franco. L’invenzione del nemico. Palermo: Sellerio, 2006. (Tascabile ibs.it; Tascabile Amazon USA)
Dante and Islam. Ed. J. Ziolkowski. New York: Fordham Univ. Press. 2014. (Kindle USA; Tascabile Amazon USA)
Subject:
Italian
Department:
Italian
Division:
Language School
Requirements Fulfilled:
Civ Cul & Soc Literature

Sections in Summer 2017 Language Schools

Summer 2017 Language Schools, Mills 6 Week Session

ITAL6665A-L17 Lecture (Zupan)
ITAL6665B-L17 Lecture (Bolduc)