Dark Wood Archives - Page 5 of 7

Robert A. Ferguson, Inferno: An Anatomy of American Punishment (2014)

July 21, 2016 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

Columbia Law professor Robert A. Ferguson published a study of the theory informing American systems of punishment in penal institutions. Calling for a new model that emphasizes correction over condemnation, Ferguson writes, “Punishment is a reflexive response to misbehavior, and punishers in their anger are always spontaneously at the ready. Rehabilitation requires thought, a plan, work, and the willingness to probe slow changes in more mundane objects of attrition. It will always be easier to ask for punishment than to institute a treatment program in a prison system where punishment comes first. The answer, to the extent that we can give one, lies in something separate, something either beyond or after punishment.

“The Divine Comedy is a limited guide, but it does reveal the pernicious parameters in the psychology of punishment and gives a response to them. [. . .] Criminal justice has gone astray, lost in a dark wood of its own making. It is time, more than time, to find a way out.” — Robert A. Ferguson, Inferno: An Anatomy of American Punishment, 249.

From David Cole’s review in the New York Times: “[Ferguson] insists that the only way out is to reconceptualize punishment. Invoking the circles of hell in Dante’s Divine Comedy, Ferguson argues that we need to reorient our prisons away from punishment and debasement and instead model them on Purgatorio, where individuals are restored to heaven through the care and love of others.” — David Cole, “Punitive Damage,” New York Times Sunday Book Review (May 16, 2014)

“Esattamente il 7 aprile del 1300” Gif

April 16, 2016 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

Gif posted April 7, 2016, on the Facebook profile “Se i Social network fossero sempre esistiti“:

Contributed by Chiara Montera (University of Pittsburgh)

Grimes’ “Go” Video

August 28, 2014 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

On August 27, 2014, Grimes (Claire Boucher) released a music video for her single “Go” (feat. Blood Diamonds, aka Mike Tucker), providing the viewer with a glimpse into what Grimes perceives as Dante’s modern Hell. Though “abstract” in its composition, Grimes and her brother-turned-fellow-director strategically chose to set the video in various locations representing human carelessness and Hell on Earth. The video casts Grimes as the pilgrim and Blood Diamonds as Virgil, and begins with screenwriter David Hayter (X-Men, Watchmen) reading the opening verses of the poem: “Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.”

See Spin Magazine for Chris Martins’ post on the video, which he calls “a sci-fi homage to Dante’s Inferno.”

See the full video here.

Contributed by Ryan Alexander (George Mason University, 2016)

Brigid Pasulka, Sun and Other Stars (2014)

March 29, 2014 By Gretchen Williams '14

In his Sunday Book Review of Brigid Pasulka’s novel The Sun and Other Stars, Mike Peed describes the main character Etto: “. . . Etto tries to numb his pain with sarcasm and self-effacement. He is misanthropic and fatalistic, frequently funny and sometimes annoying. He explains himself by quoting Dante: ‘I found myself in a dark wilderness.’ Who will be his Virgil? Yuri Fil, a Ukrainian-born Italian soccer star ensnared in a match-fixing scandal who has absconded to San Benedetto’s supposed seclusion, inveigles Etto into playing regular pickup games and even fashions him a green-and-white jersey, ‘for hope and faith. When you do not have ability.'” –Mike Peed, The New York Times, March 21, 2014

“I Found Myself in a Dark Wood”

January 12, 2014 By Gretchen Williams '14

“ ‘In the middle of our life’s journey, I found myself in a dark wood.’ So begins one of the most celebrated and difficult poems ever written, Dante’s Divine Comedy, a more than 14,000-line epic on the soul’s journey through the afterlife. The tension between the pronouns says it all: Although the ‘I’ belongs to Dante, who died in 1321, his journey is also part of ‘our life.’ We will all find ourselves in a dark wood one day, the lines suggest. That day came six years ago for me, when my pregnant wife, Katherine, died suddenly in a car accident. Forty-five minutes before her death, she delivered our daughter, Isabel, a miracle of health rescued by emergency cesarean. I had left the house that morning at 8:30 to teach a class; by noon, I was a father and a widower.” –Joseph Luzzi, The New York Times, December 18, 2013

Contributed by Janet E. Gomez

See also the New York Times review of Luzzi’s 2014 memoir, In a Dark Wood.

Contributed by Stephanie Hotz, University of Texas at Austin

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