Dante’s Pizza & Pasta is located in La Piazza Square in Klerksdorp, South Africa.
Kimiya Memarzadeh, “Academia’s Inferno” (April 4, 2016)
“In high school I read a book called Inferno by Dante Alighieri. [. . .] I want to take you through the nine circles of suffering every graduate student experiences on their journey to defending their thesis. I’m sure there are far more than nine forms of struggle that graduate students go through, but for the purpose of the analogy, we will stick with nine.
[. . .]
“Defeat is another circle that graduate students become quite familiar with. It happens so often that around the two-year mark of grad school, most of us seem to get desensitized to it. We learn to separate our self-worth from the worth of our work, and to focus on doing the best we can without letting defeat get in the way of our confidence. We build a thicker skin, and if nothing else, this circle of suffering will prepare us for a lifetime of rejected grants and harsh criticism from pesky ‘Reviewer Three.’
“This brings us to the last and probably most dangerous circle – doubt. Part of being a scientist is being a skeptic. However, if you constantly doubt yourself, your progress, or your ideas, you will inevitably make your graduate school experience a painful one. Go confidently in the direction you pursue, and if you fail – well then you’re just back at circle one.” –Kimiya Memarzadeh, “Academia’s Inferno,” McGovern Medical School (April 4, 2016)
Dante Birthday Cake by DeLuxe Bakery (and friends)
Custom birthday cake made by Heather Frost Hughes (Head Pastry Chef and General Manager, DeLuxe Bakery) and Mary Simmons of Iowa City.
Contributed by Daniel Christian
Sante Matteo, “Escape from Paradise,” Twelve Writers
“Before Beatrice fled from Florence to Venice and beyond in my story, she migrated from the classroom to the written page, then set sail and found a welcome dock at Twelve Winters Journal.
“A course I taught on the Divine Comedy drew students with a wide spectrum of academic interests. I encouraged them to undertake a term project related to their field of studies, as long as it included an account of their research and how their secondary sources contributed to the creation of their final product (a bit like this commentary). Art students handed in paintings and sculptures; music students composed, performed, and recorded musical pieces; writing majors wrote poetry and stories; theater majors wrote and staged plays; film students scripted, shot, and showed movies; philosophy majors wrote Platonic dialogues. My office became a museum of intriguing works of art.
“Beatrice often figured in the students’ projects, which gave me the idea for a piece that showed how things might have looked through her eyes. After I retired and began to dabble in ‘creative writing,’ I emulated my students and took on the project of drafting a story presented from her perspective. [. . .]” –Sante Matteo, “Commentary on ‘Escape from Paradise’,” Twelve Winters
Read Sante Matteo’s story “Escape from Paradise” at Twelve Winters‘ website here.
See also Sante Matteo’s poem “Assignation” (here) and his essay on Dante and baseball (here).
Contributed by Sante Matteo
St. Agrestis Liqueurs: Inferno and Paradiso
“There’s a Brooklyn-based distillery called St. Agrestis that’s been around since 2014. They made their name with an amaro, but have since delved into other spirits. Notably for our purposes, they have a Campari-like bitter called ‘Inferno’ that’s pretty good and an aperitivo called ‘Paradiso.’ They also make bottled Negronis and Spritz using Inferno and Paradiso, respectively.
“Interestingly, the label design hints at a Dantean topography. Inferno and the Negroni both have labels that evoke layers or concentric circles. Paradiso and the Spritz both have a geometric pattern that uses triangles (Trinity?). The batched Negroni also comes in a 1.75L Franzia-style box with a spout (’20 Negronis in every box!’) and the canned spritz comes in a triangular 10-pack case.” –Contributor Alex Cuadrado
Learn more about St. Agrestis’s products here.
Contributed by Alex Cuadrado (Ph.D., Columbia University)
