Meetings and Events

The Dante Society of America regularly organizes panel sessions at various academic conferences, and holds its own annual meeting and conference.

Upcoming Events

New College Conference on Medieval & Renaissance Studies, 3-5 March 2022

The 2022 Dante Society of America Symposium will take place in Sarasota, Florida, on March 3-5, 2022, as part of the New College Conference on Medieval & Renaissance Studies. The DSA will sponsor two panels and a keynote lecture, all of which will be held on Saturday, March 5.

We expect that all sessions will take place in person and on site. We are, of course, monitoring the global health crisis as it continues to unfold, and will plan for contingencies as needed. But the members of the organizing committee are hopeful that we will be able to welcome you safely to Florida in the spring.

The theme of the 2022 DSA Symposium is “A lo stremo del mondo: Dante and the World.” The keynote speaker will be announced in the coming weeks. Following are two panel proposals. Please submit abstracts of 300 words, with a short bio, to ecoggeshall@fsu.edu by October 15, 2021.

Dante and the Global Middle Ages

This session seeks papers that read Dante’s works alongside and against contemporary texts in a trans-regional cultural landscape. The panel aims to continue the work of de-centering Dante’s Europe—removing his Italy from a Western Christian bloc and relocating it within a dynamic Mediterranean basin, where patterns of migration, commerce, pilgrimage, war, and enslavement brought about encounters and collisions of diverse mentalities from across the globe.

We invite papers that address the following questions: How did intercultural exchange shape (or not) the Commedia’s understanding of “world”? What do we gain or lose from reading Dante’s works in light of the connectivity and mobility of the medieval world? What tensions emerge when we situate Dante’s works within local, regional, or globalized systems? Please submit abstracts of 300 words, with short bio, to ecoggeshall@fsu.edu by October 15.

Dante as World Author?

Dante’s name frequently tops lists of the canon of “world authors,” those authors whose works have purportedly reached a “global” recognition (frequently understood to mean recognition within hegemonic Western categories of literary production and circulation). On the one hand, this is doubtlessly true, as testified by the worldwide celebrations of Dante and his works in the seventh centenary of his death. On the other hand, underpinning consideration of Dante as “world author” are assumptions about the “universality” of the ethical, social, theological, and cultural values his work promotes, as well as the reach of his works to audiences that are located, according to Western frameworks, “a lo stremo del mondo” (Paradiso 19.41).

This roundtable will discuss the value of considering Dante a “world author,” particularly in light of the commemorations of the poet and his works in the past year. In their contributions, roundtable participants might consider the following questions: With what measures can we assess Dante’s qualification as a “world author”? What are the limits to this status or qualification? What is the value of reading Dante’s works as situated within specific local Italian contexts, or as part of a transhistorical and transcultural continuum of Weltliteratur? How do politics and ethics shape such a reading, and how are these fields in turn impacted by reading Dante’s works in terms of his supposed world-author status? How might proponents of the global circulation, translation, and appropriation of Dante’s person, title, and texts answer charges of “presentism,” “Eurocentrism,” “colonialism,” “imperialism,” and other impositions of dominant cultural hierarchies and values?

The organizers aim for a lively discussion, with short “lightning-talk” style presentations from contributors, followed by a longer moderated Q&A session. Please submit a brief précis of proposed remarks, as well as a short bio, to ecoggeshall@fsu.edu by October 15, 2021.

Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, 30 March - 2 April 2022

In October 2021, the Center for the Study of Medicine and the Body in the Renaissance will join the worldwide celebrations for the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death (1321–2021) with an international online symposium dedicated to Dante’s poetry and science.

Gathering scholars who approach his work and times from interdisciplinary perspectives, the webinar will address how Dante shaped an understanding of the human body and mind, and his relationship with medical and scientific thought in his philosophical and literary production. Building on this interdisciplinary event, and sponsored by the Dante Society of America, this panel intends to continue the conversation on Dante’s legacy in the early modern era. The panel will address how Dante shaped an understanding of the human body and mind, and how his solutions had an influence in early modern times. By analyzing Dante’s early modern legacy within medical and scientific thought, this panel aims to reassess the multifaceted reuses of Dante’s philosophical and literary oeuvre.

We invite papers and ongoing research projects on different disciplinary and methodological perspectives, included but not limited to:

  • Medieval science and medicine, and their legacy in the early modern debates;
  • Dante’s approaches to the body/soul problem, and its influence in later discussions;
  • The reception and influence of Dante’s philosophical prose, especially for questions related to medicine and science;
  • Vernacular poetry and science between the Middle Ages and the early modern era;
  • Science, medicine, and literature in the commentary tradition to the Commedia;
  • Early modern rewritings of Dante, with a focus on medical and scientific questions;
  • Dante and the visual arts, approaching the body;
  • Questions of embodiment in the reception of Dante.

The panel is open to scholars and researchers from various fields and career stages. Per RSA policy, graduate students who are currently working on completing their final degree program will be considered as well, if their materials are directly related to their advanced degree (i.e., not term papers).

Please send your proposals to Dr. Matteo Pace at mpace1@conncoll.edu by June 15. In your submission please include: paper title (15-word maximum); abstract (150-word maximum); curriculum vitae; PhD or other terminal degree completion date (past or expected).

Filippo Gianferrari
University of California, Santa Cruz
DSA liaison to the Renaissance Society of America

International Congress on Medieval Studies, 9-14 May 2022

The DSA will sponsor two sessions on Dante at the 57th International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, May 9-14, 2022, and one themed session, organized by Matteo Pace, on “Dante and the Sciences of the Human.”

If you would be interested in presenting on a topic in the field of Dante studies, please refer to the paper submission and conference participation policies located on the website for the Congress.

Please submit your proposal via Confex at the Congress’s Call for Papers by September 15, 2021. Per Congress policies, I will forward any proposals I am unable to accommodate for DSA-sponsored sessions to the Medieval Institute to be considered for inclusion in a general session of the Congress.

Akash Kumar
Indiana University
DSA liaison to the International Congress on Medieval Studies

 

Recorded Events

Past Meetings and Events

A listing of meetings and events sponsored by the Dante Society in previous years is available here.

Minutes and agenda for the Society's annual membership meetings since 2014 may be found under "About the Society."