Leeds Dante Podcast Leeds Centre for Dante Studies

Conversations on Dante is a series of podcast episodes from the Leeds Centre for Dante Studies at the University of Leeds. In each episode, we sit down with researchers from a range of disciplines to discuss some of the work which is helping to shape our understanding of Dante, his context and works, and his place in the cultures of the world.

In this episode, hosted by Matthew Treherne, Joseph Luzzi discusses his book In A Dark Wood: What Dante Taught Me About Grief, Healing and the Mysteries of Love (Harper Collins, 2015) (https://josephluzzi.com/book/in-a-dark-wood/). The conversation covers how Joe arrived at this genre of writing - part memoir, part literary criticism - as well as how the process of writing the book helped him think anew about Dante, including notions of exile. We also discussed the ways in which in the current world - marked by the Covid-19 pandemic - the lessons of Dante, and the experience of reading, are emerging with renewed force. 

Joseph Luzzi is Professor of Comparative Literature and Faculty Member in Italian Studies at Bard College. For more information on his work, please visit  https://josephluzzi.com/.

The episode was edited by Olivia Jowle.

Conversations on Dante is a series of podcast episodes from the Leeds Centre for Dante Studies at the University of Leeds. In each episode, we sit down with researchers from a range of disciplines to discuss some of the work which is helping to shape our understanding of Dante, his context and works, and his place in the cultures of the world.

In this episode, hosted by Matthew Treherne, Rebekah Locke discusses her research on Purgatory in Italy in the centuries after Dante's death. Rebekah gives examples of visual and textual accounts of Purgatory in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, which suggest that - for all its daring originality - Dante's Purgatorio had a limited influence on how Purgatory was represented and understood; rather than seeing Dante's text as offering a decisive intervention in the tradition of writing on Purgatory, Rebekah argues for a richer understanding of the deep persistence of long-standing ideas on the nature of this realm. Rebekah's work, which offers an important challenge to critical commonplaces on Dante's role in shaping understandings of Purgatory, can be read online in her 2020 doctoral dissertation at the University of Bristol.

The episode was edited by Esme Sayal.

Conversations on Dante is a series of podcast episodes from the Leeds Centre for Dante Studies at the University of Leeds. In each episode, we sit down with researchers from a range of disciplines to discuss some of the work which is helping to shape our understanding of Dante, his context and works, and his place in the cultures of the world.

In this episode, hosted by Matthew Treherne, Guy Raffa discusses his recent book, Dante's Bones: How a Poet Invented Italy (Harvard University Press, 2020). Guy talks about some of the high points of writing and researching the book, and what the story of Dante's dead body can tell us about Dante's place in Italian cultural, social and political life. We also discuss Guy's award-winning DanteWorlds website (http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/), and his current Public Scholars Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities - including what it means to be a public scholar.

Guy Raffa is Associate Professor of Italian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin (https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/frenchitalian/faculty/guyr). 

The episode was edited by Esme Sayal. 

Conversations on Dante is a new set of podcast episodes from the Leeds Centre for Dante Studies at the University of Leeds. In each episode, we sit down with researchers from a range of disciplines to discuss some of the work which is helping to shape our understanding of Dante, his context and works, and his place in the cultures of the world.

In this episode, Sukanta Chaudhuri discusses the ways in which Bengali culture has engaged with Dante and with Italian culture more broadly, from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day – in translations, commentaries and rewritings of Dante’s works. He discusses some of the challenges of translating Dante into Bengali, and of presenting Dante to a Bengali audience. Sukanta also reflects on his own experience as a translator, and on how Dante’s account of his relationship with Florence resonates with modern experiences of the city of Kolkata.

Sukanta Chaudhuri is Professor Emeritus at Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He is editor of a series of translations of Italian literature at Jadavpur University Press, which includes a translation of Dante’s Comedy into Bengali by Alpana Ghosh (Inferno published in 2017, and the remaining cantiche forthcoming): Narak (নরক) – Jadavpur University Press / যাদবপুর বিশ্ববিদ্যালয় প্রকাশনা (jadunivpress.com)

Conversations on Dante is a new set of podcast episodes from the Leeds Centre for Dante Studies at the University of Leeds. In each episode, we sit down with researchers from a range of disciplines to discuss some of the work which is helping to shape our understanding of Dante, his context and works, and his place in the cultures of the world.

In this episode, Dr Jason Allen-Paisant discusses the ways in which a number of Caribbean poets have engaged with Dante: Aimé Césaire, Kamau Brathwaite and Lorna Goodison. He explains how Dante's approach to vernacular language, and his treatment of justice and the afterlife, offer a template for these poets. Jason also reads some of his own poetry, discussing how some of these themes emerge in his own practice as a poet.  

Dr Jason Allen-Paisant is Lecturer in Caribbean Poetry and Decolonial Thought at the University of Leeds, where he researches cultural memory in the African diaspora. His first collection of poetry, Thinking with Trees, is published by Carcanet Press in 2021. 

The conversation is hosted by Matthew Treherne.

Conversations on Dante is a new set of podcast episodes from the Leeds Centre for Dante Studies at the University of Leeds. In each episode, we sit down with researchers from a range of disciplines to discuss some of the work which is helping to shape our understanding of Dante, his context and works, and his place in the cultures of the world.

In this episode, economic sociologist Mark Davis talks about the sociology of finance, and how Dante's engagement with questions of money and finance might resonate with twenty-first century debates about finance: about indebtedness, the limits of finance-driven economic growth, and the connections between finance and sustainability. 

Dr Mark Davis is Associate Professor of Economic Sociology at the University of Leeds, where he founded the Bauman Institute. Among his many research projects, he is leading, together with Matthew Treherne and Rachel Muers, a project on The Cultural Life of Money and Finance. 

The conversation is hosted by Matthew Treherne.