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Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

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Jane Alexander, Frontier With Church (2012-2014)

April 20, 2022 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

jane-alexander-installation-figure-with-white-head-and-colorful-vest-on-black-background“In Frontier With Church, the artist makes direct reference to the procession encountered by Dante and Matilda at the summit of Mount Purgatory, interpreted in the temporal contexts of proselytism, migration, and trade, on their way to paradise. With Matilda—who clearly prepares Dante for his meeting with Beatrice—Dante witnesses a procession which forms an allegory within the allegory, somewhat like Shakespeare’s play with a play, in which the characters are walking symbols rather than real people. Alexander’s tableau is thus intended to represent the earthly paradise, a borderline space between earth and divine sanctuary: a frontier with attendants, messengers, custodians, and cargo. The tension revolves around human figures rendered with extreme realis, concurring in the creation of the moment before Dante’s meeting with the woman who (allegorically) symbolizes the path to God. All the creatures of the tableau are life-sized and share the real space occupied by the Viewer/s. They have a spectral presence within that space which silently enacts a living history.”

From The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists by Simon Njami.

For more on the South African artist, see Wikipedia.

Categories: Visual Art & Architecture
Tagged with: 2012, Africa, Art, Art Books, Beatrice, Installation Art, Matelda, Migration, Paradise, Purgatory, South Africa

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Season 13, Theatre Tricks (2012)

August 19, 2021 By Ezra Berman '23

“In the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit season 13 episode ‘Theatre Tricks,’ Dante’s Inferno was the chosen play of an interactive theatre group where an actress ended up raped on stage during the Second Circle (Lust).”    —Wikipedia

Categories: Performing Arts
Tagged with: 2012, Circles of Hell, Hell, Inferno, Lust, Second Circle, Television, Theater

Sylvain Reynard, Gabriel’s Inferno (2012)

July 26, 2021 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

“Enigmatic and sexy, Professor Gabriel Emerson is a well-respected Dante specialist by day, but by night he devotes himself to an uninhibited life of pleasure. He uses his notorious good looks and sophisticated charm to gratify his every whim, but is secretly tortured by his dark past and consumed by the profound belief that he is beyond all hope of redemption.

“When the sweet and innocent Julia Mitchell enrolls as his graduate student, his attraction and mysterious connection to her not only jeopardizes his career, but sends him on a journey in which his past and his present collide.

“An intriguing and sinful exploration of seduction, forbidden love, and redemption, Gabriel’s Inferno is a captivating and wildly passionate tale of one man’s escape from his own personal hell as he tries to earn the impossible—forgiveness and love.”   —Penguin Random House

The 2012 novel, set in Toronto, was adapted into a three-part series of films starring Giulio Berruti and Melanie Zanetti and directed by Tosca Musk. It was produced and released by Musk’s company Passionflix in 2020. The image above comes from the Amazon Prime Video page for the film. Gabriel’s Rapture (Part Two) and Gabriel’s Redemption (Part Three) are scheduled for release in 2021 and 2022, respectively.

Contributed by Margaret Goodspeed

Categories: Performing Arts, Written Word
Tagged with: 2012, 2020, Beatrice, Campus, Canada, Colleges, Erotica, Films, Hell, Inferno, Love, Novels, Romance, Sex, Students, Teaching, Toronto, Universities

“The Ninth Circle of Hell – Dante and the DMV”

April 23, 2021 By Jasmine George, FSU '24

“Dante once wrote that Hell had nine circles within its depths. Dante’s Inferno is an amazing literary work that describes in great detail the horror of a place where no person wishes to go. Dante must have been inspired by a trip to the local DMV.

“You see, I recently journeyed into an inferno of abandoned hope, discomfort, and pain when I was forced to visit the Queens DMV. Like Dante, I encountered the nine circles of Hell, though not necessarily in the same order. But first, some backstory . . .”   –Jason Greene, The Good Men Project, 2012

Read the full article here.

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 2012, Circles of Hell, Hell, Ninth Circle, Queens

“Into the Dark Woods”

April 17, 2021 By Laura Chatellier, FSU '23

into-the-dark-wood-sojourners-2012

“This year I was drawn to Mark’s ‘certain young man’—the one who flees naked from the violence in the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives (14:51-52), leaving behind his linen cloth. Scholars vehemently disagree about who this young man was. Many deduce that it’s the writer of Mark’s gospel inserting himself into the story. Others say he is reminiscent of King David fleeing from Absalom on the the Mount of Olives. Or that he foreshadows the ‘young man’ in a white robe who will meet the women at Jesus’ tomb. Whoever he was, in the midst of an encounter with violence, this “certain young man” lost what thin protection he had and fled into the night, into the selva oscura, as Dante calls it, those ‘dark woods.’ Toward what, we do not know. As the human soul matures, we are confronted with moments that force us to let go of yet another thin veil of self-delusion. The “right road,” the moral high ground, sinks into a thicket of gray.” [. . .]    –Rose Marie Berger, SOJOURNERS, May, 2012.

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 2012, Catholicism, Dark Wood, Lent, United States

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How to Cite

Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.

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