October 16, at the Italian Cultural Institute, an appointment that can not be missed. “Dante's Sympathy for the Other-or the Non-Stereotyping Imagination: Sexual and Racialized Others in the Commedia” is part of the cycle of events “Dante in Public” organized by IIC. Teodolinda Barolini will present to the New York Public a deep and fascinating analysis on Dante’s masterpiece, the “Divine Comedy”.
She will portrait Dante as an enigmatic and charismatic figure, a person that is capable to overcome, when facing “diversity”, the most common stereotypes. Instead, he perceives the encounter with the “other” as an occasion to enrich his personal culture and enlarge his knowledge horizons.
Thus this interpretation allows the audience to identify in Dante a person, a man that stands out in the medieval historical and anthropological context, an era in which scare and discrimination are dominant sentiments.
Under this point of view, a careful observer could state that Middle Age and contemporary society are not so different after all. So the lecture becomes also an occasion to reflect on the modern common perception of the “other”.
Teodolinda Barolini is Lorenzo del Ponte professor of Italian at Columbia University. She has written “Dante’s Poets”, “The Undivine Comedy”, “Dante and the Origin of Italian Literary Culture “. She is fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society and the Medieval Academy of America.
From 1997 to 2003, professor Barolini served as fifteenth president of the Dante Society of America.
The event “Dante's Sympathy for the Other-or the Non-Stereotyping Imagination: Sexual and Racialized Others in the Commedia” will take place this evening at the Italian Cultural Institute (686 Park Avenue, New York), 7 pm. Free admittance.
Will follow:
10/24/08, 6 pm: Stefano Bartezzaghi, “The square, the language, the Games: the case of DANTE ALIGHIERI”
RSVP: 212 879 4242 ext. 370
11/21/08, 6 pm: Giulio Tononi, “The Divine Comedy a Map: a Neuroscientist’s Guide to Hell, Purgatory and Paradise”.
RSVP: 212 879 4242 ext. 369
