American Politics

Purgatorio: A Journey Into the Heart of the Border Film, dir. Rodrigo Reyes (2013)

January 12, 2022 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

“Reyes’ provocative essay film re-imagines the Mexico/U.S. border as a mythical place comparable to Dante’s purgatory. Leaving politics aside, he takes a fresh look at the brutal beauty of the border and the people caught in its spell. By capturing a stunning mosaic of compelling characters and broken landscapes that live on the US/Mexico border, the filmmaker reflects on the flaws of human nature and the powerful absurdities of the modern world. An unusual border film, in the auteur tradition of camerastylo, Purgatorio ultimately becomes a fable of humanity, an epic and visceral experience with powerful and lingering images.” –description on Kino Lorber (retrieved January 12, 2022)

Watch a trailer for Purgatorio on Vimeo here.

Requiem of the Crazies Comics (2018)

October 23, 2021 By Harrison Betz, FSU '25

“A young troubled man who finds himself living on the streets with a gun in his mouth and nowhere to go is given hope for a new life when he is taken in by a streetwise bum named Vern. Dante is introduced to the underground world of the homeless, the Crazies, where a bum can stay for the month of May and won’t need any money. A sanctuary for all those who have been forsaken. . . If only it were that easy. When corrupt politicians, drug dealers and an insane cult leader begin fighting for power, the meek homeless become nothing more than pawns in a malicious game of power. “I thought being homeless would be really easy,” Dante thinks, as him and Vern set off on their journey to fight the evil forces bent on corrupting the minds of the homeless. ” [. . .] –Rusty Cage, Indiegogo (retrieved October 18, 2021)

The series was started by Rusty Cage in 2018 and is currently on the third of eight planned installments.

Garry Wills, “The Bishops Are Wrong About Biden—and Abortion” (June 27, 2021)

June 29, 2021 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

“What is the worst crime a society can commit? Some people (I among them) would say the Holocaust, the cold methodical murder of six million people just for being Jews.

“But some Catholics and evangelicals say they know of an even greater crime — the deliberate killing of untold millions of unborn babies by abortion. They have determined that a fetus is a person and abortion is therefore murder. This is a crime of such magnitude that some Catholic bishops are trying to deny the reception of Holy Communion by the president of the United States for not working to prevent it.

“No one told Dante that this was the worst crime, or he would have put abortionists, not Judas, in the deepest frozen depths of his Inferno. But in fact he does not put abortionists anywhere in the eight fiery tiers above the deepest one of his Hell.” [. . .] –Garry Wills, “The Bishops Are Wrong About Biden—and Abortion,” New York Times (June 27, 2021)

Read the rest of Wills’s opinion piece at the New York Times.

See also this response to Wills’s essay in The National Review, which includes an extended discussion of Dante and his era.

Contributed by Hilary Barnes (Widener University)

Trump and his Enablers belong in Dante’s 9th Circle of Hell

June 16, 2021 By Ezra Berman '23

“If Dante’s deepest circle of Hell did exist, it would be reserved for Trump and his enablers. It would be reserved for those who betrayed our country and this beautiful blue world for profit. It would be reserved for those who allowed a pandemic to take tens of thousands of lives and affect millions. It would be reserved for those who are silent about the bounties placed on our active duty troops’ heads, who disparage our military, intelligence agencies, our scientists, and health care professionals. It would be reserved for those who place all that we love in danger.

“It would be reserved for those who supposedly care for us, but expect silence about their support of Trump or of those who support him.

“The list of betrayals in my life is long and old.” […] –Onomastic, Daily Kos, September 15, 2020

William Barr’s Circle of Hell

June 16, 2021 By Ezra Berman '23

[. . .] “There are circles of hell for men such as Trump, and also for their enablers. For people who ought to know better but who go along with the inane, violent, crooked impulses of The Boss for reasons of political expediency. Barr is one such man.

“Dante reserved an entire section of hell for opportunists. Such people would, he wrote, be condemned to chase banners, and in turn to be chased by hornets and wasps, for all eternity.

“And this blind life of theirs is so debased,
They envious are of every other fate.
No fame of them the world permits to be;
Misericord and Justice both disdain them.” –Sasha Abramsky, The Abramsky Report, April 27, 2019

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