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Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

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Jo Walton’s new novel, Lent (2019) is “Dante’s Groundhog Day”

May 18, 2019 By Professor Arielle Saiber

“I love Hugo and Nebula-Award winner Jo Walton’s science fiction and fantasy novels (previously) and that’s why it was such a treat to inaugurate my new gig as an LA Times book reviewer with a review of her latest novel, Lent, a fictionalized retelling of the live of Savonarola, who reformed the Florentine church in the 1490s, opposing a corrupt Pope, who martyred him (except in Walton’s book, and unbeknownst to Savonarola himself, Savonarola is a demon who is sent back to Hell when he is martyred, then returned to 1492 Florence to start over again).

“The story is motivated by a mystical shift in Savonarola’s destiny that allows him to remember, from one incarnation to the next, who he truly is. He lives many different versions of his life, seeking a way to harrow Hell, restore grace, redeem himself and save Florence.

“The Groundhog Day-meets-Dante premise is incredibly weird and incredibly satisfying, a bizarrely effective way of making the characters come to life as we see how they would have reacted to the same circumstance with slight variations, building up a series of incredibly detailed and nuanced portraits. And because this is a Walton novel, there are no easy answers, and ambiguity rules overall — and because Walton has become so close with the Renaissance scholar and science fiction novelist (and librettist, singer, and all-round genius) Ada Palmer, her Renaissance Florence has the ring of the true metal, incredibly well-drawn in ever way.” […]    –Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing, May 16, 2019

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 2019, Fiction, Hell, Novel, Renaissance, Savonarola

Jayson Greene, Once More We Saw Stars (2019)

May 15, 2019 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

Once-More-We-Saw-Stars-2019Once More We Saw Stars (Knopf, 2019) is a memoir by Jayson Greene, about the tragic loss of his 2-year-old daughter Greta and his path through grief to healing.

A review in the Washington Post notes, “The book’s title, from Dante’s Inferno, tips us off that Greta’s bereft parents will, in the poet’s words, ‘get back up to the shining world.’ But Once More We Saw Stars, an outgrowth of a journal Greene began shortly after the accident, is a chronological account, which means there’s unthinkable pain before the arduous ‘path toward healing.’

“Like Virgil, Greene makes for a good guide on this journey to hell and back. He’s a Brooklyn-based journalist and editor who met his wife, Stacy, a cellist by training, at the classical-music nonprofit where they both worked. After Greta’s birth, Stacy switched tracks to become a lactation consultant and nutritionist. Their story is not just of loss, but of their remarkable love, which helps them through this tragedy.” [. . .] — Review by Heller McAlpin in the Washington Post (May 8, 2019)

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 2019, Autobiography, Children, Grief, Hell, Inferno, Memoirs, Stars

“Dante’s Nightmares and Dreams” Wichita State Wind Ensemble and Contemporary Dante Theatre (2019)

April 30, 2019 By Professor Arielle Saiber

“Dante’s Nightmares and Dreams ​is a stunning collaboration between the Wichita State Wind Ensemble and the Wichita Contemporary Dance Theatre. Featuring live music, film, and dance, Dante’s classic tale, “The Inferno​,” is brought to life in a veritable feast for the senses.”   –Becca Yesner, The Sunflower, April 24, 2019

Categories: Music, Performing Arts
Tagged with: 2019, Dance, Kansas, Theater, Wichita, Wind Ensemble

Dante HH

April 9, 2019 By Professor Arielle Saiber

Dante HH is a “psychobilly blues, hard rock” band from L.A. —Dread Central

The motto, Dosis facit venenum, implies “The dose makes the poison.”

Categories: Music
Tagged with: 2019, Colombia, Los Angeles, Psychobilly Blues, Rock

Nimrod in Portland, Maine

March 5, 2019 By Professor Arielle Saiber

A bit of stretch, but seeing the name of the giant Nimrod rising up out of the snow might bring to mind Inf. 31.

Categories: Places
Tagged with: 2019, Inferno, Maine, Nimrod, Portland

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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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