Dear all,

It is my pleasure to invite you to Dante celebrations at Cambridge and Oxford on 12-13 November, which will take place in a hybrid format.

A Centenary Celebration of New Voices in UK and Irish Dante Studies 

12 November 2021, 10.45 AM - 7 PM, Selwyn College, University of Cambridge

13 November 2021, 11 AM – 4 PM, Taylor Institute, University of Oxford

Coordinated by Heather Webb (University of Cambridge) and Simon Gilson (University of Oxford) with collaboration from UCL, KCL, UCC, University of Warwick, University of St Andrews, and University of Leeds.

This two-day event, hosted at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford on 12-13 November 2021, intends to showcase the voices of early career scholars, including current and recent PhD students, and to celebrate all that is new in UK and Irish Dante Studies. Panels will include topics such as inclusion and exclusion in Dante; British and Irish remediations of Dante; Dante, religion, and dialogue; Dante spaces / spaces for Dante; and more.

 

Please join us virtually on 12 and 13 November.

For the Cambridge day, there are two separate registration links for the conference and the evening reception.

Zoom registration - conference: https://bit.ly/3bwPknI

Zoom registration - evening reception with Uzma Hameed: https://bit.ly/3pVXIFT

For the Oxford day, please register here: https://bit.ly/3GNnL7Z.

 

PROGRAMME

(all times GMT)

Cambridge Day (12 November)

10.45-12.00 Panel I: Inclusion and Exclusion in Dante: Genders, Races, Poetics (chair: Heather Webb)

·       Frey Kalus, '‘Learn, Inner Man, to Look upon Your Inner Woman’: Transgender Poetics in Dante and Rilke'

·       Katherine Powlesland, 'Women’s Voices Present and Absent in the Commedia'

·       Aistė Kiltinavičiūtė, ‘in mezzo di molte donne’: the ‘Other’ Women in Dante’s Vita nova'

·       George Rayson, '‘Language Always Implies Politics for the Animal [...] that Man is’ (Elisa Brilli): Hapax Legomena and Exclusion in Dante’s Commedia'

 

13.00-14.15 Panel II: Dante, Religion and Dialogue (chair: Vittorio Montemaggi)

·       Helena Phillips-Robins, 'Dante, Primo Levi, and Interfaith Dialogue'

·       Thomas Graff, 'Dante’s Theology and Engagement with Dante in Prison'

·       Chase Pepper, 'Pope Francis’ Candor lucis aeternae and its Implications for Engaging with Dante from Ecumenical and Inter-religious Perspectives'

·       Ewan King, 'Baptist/Protestant Perspectives on the Commedia and Ecumenical Dialogue'

·       Rachel Teubner, 'Dante, Humility, and Feminist Theology'

 

14.30-15.45 Panel III: Dante Spaces / Spaces for Dante (chair: Catherine Keen)

·       Ed Allnutt, 'Elements of Dante's Worldbuilding in Albert the Great'

·       Alessia Carrai, 'Edenic Landscape and Parnassus: The Earthly Paradise as a Physical and Literary Space'

·       Jonny Wiles, 'Scemare, or Approaching ‘Virgillessness’'

·       Tommaso Priviero, 'Notes Towards a Reading of Dante’s Commedia as a Meditation Book'

·       Nicolò Crisafi, 'Dante in the Streets'

 

15.45-17.00 Panel IV: British and Irish Remediations of Dante (chair: Daragh O’Connell)

·       David Bowe, 'Seeing with Dante'

·       Federica Coluzzi, ‘Dante in the Periodical Press: Mapping Critical and Popular Reception across Britain, Ireland and Italy (1865-1921)’

·       Valentina Mele, ‘English Contemporary Translations of Dante’s Work’

·       Dario Galassini, ‘A Genderless Legacy: Female Voices Re-reading and Re-thinking Dante’

 

17.15-19.00 Uzma Hameed, dramaturg for Wayne McGregor’s new ballet The Dante Project, a co-production between The Royal Ballet and Paris Opera Ballet, in conversation with Heather Webb

https://stream.roh.org.uk/packages/the-dante-project/videos/the-dante-project

 

 

Oxford Day (13 November) 

11.00–12.00 Panel 1 (chair: Matthew Treherne) 

·       Peerawat Chiaranunt, ‘The Hexameron from Brunetto to Dante’ 

·       Lachlan Hughes, 'Dante and the Traditions of Sung Vernacular Lyric'

·       Rebecca Bowen, ‘Reading Desire in Paradise: Between Botticelli and Dante’  

 

12.15–13.15 Panel 2 (chair: Simon Gilson)

·       Elisabeth Trischler, ‘Self-Fashioning through Tomb Decoration: Identity, Corruption and Rebirth in the Commedia’ 

·       Camilla Bambozzi, ‘The Dialogue between Dante and Cino da Pistoia: Premises and Developments’ 

·       Carmen Costanza, ‘Belief in Performance: Dante's Liturgical Hermeneutics’ 

 

14.30–16.00 Roundtable ‘Reviewing Dante Studies in the UK and Ireland from the 1990s to the Present Day’ (chairs: Heather Webb and Simon Gilson)

Contributions from Laura Banella, Zygmunt G. Barański, Claudia Rossignoli, Francesca Southerden, Matthew Treherne, and Serena Vandi.

The event is generously sponsored by the Italian Section (Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics, University of Cambridge), Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, University of Oxford, the Society for Italian Studies, and Intesa Sanpaolo.

Feel free to share the registration links with others who might be interested in attending.

If you have any questions, please contact Aistė Kiltinavičiūtė (ak914@cam.ac.uk) and George Rayson (gr430@cam.ac.uk) about the Cambridge day or Dr Rebecca Bowen (rebecca.bowen@mod-langs.ox.ac.uk) about the Oxford day. 

We hope to see many of you there!

All the best wishes,

Aistė