Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

  • Submit a Citing
  • Map
  • Links
  • Bibliography
  • User’s Guide
  • Teaching Resources
  • About

Higher Self Yoga: Consciousness in the Divine Comedy

December 30, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

spiritual-painting-of-two-dante-characters-floating-in-front-of-large-yellow-circle-with-many-faces

“[. . .] As an example, consider this scene at the bottom of the mountain of Purgatory.  These souls have figured out how to get out of hell and have crossed the river to this mountainous island. The journey up the mountain (toward increasing freedom from destructive patterns and closer to higher consciousness) waits for them.

“What do they do?  They turn away from the mountain, hang out on the shoreline, and stare out at the water waiting for entertainers to arrive:  TV channel surfing, 14th Century style.  Fortunately, Dante himself is being guided to start to climb the mountain because there is much more waiting for him if he ascends. He does so, and at the very top he meets Beatrice, his Higher Self, who then guides him into higher states of consciousness in paradise.” [. . .]    –Dr. Richard Schaub Ph.D., Higher Self Yoga, July 8, 2020

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: Beatrice, Circles of Hell, Cosmos, Energy, Guides, Heaven, Journeys, Mountains, Neuroscience, Paradiso, Psychology, Self-Help, Spirituality, Suffering, Transformation, Wisdom, Yoga

Katherine Powlesland, Narrative Strategies for Participation in Dante’s Divine Comedy (2021)

October 27, 2021 By Sephora Affa, FSU '24

videogame-theory-in-katherine-powleslands-narrative-strategies-for-participation-in-dantes-divine-comedy-2021“Katherine Powlesland’s new book Narrative Strategies for Participation in Dante’s Divine Comedy, which will be Italian Perspectives 53, brings an entirely new angle to Dante studies. This is a bold claim, given that Dante studies is enjoying its 700th anniversary this year, but Katherine is bringing to bear theories from cognitive neuroscience and from the critical study of videogames, so I think we can be fairly sure that the medieval scholiasts did not get there before her. But there is a certain affinity between the desire of modern game writers, and the desire of 13th-century epic poets, to enmesh their readers in a participatory experience.

“An immersive game today, or a text like the Divine Comedy or the Roman de la Rose, very much want the reader to experience for herself: to be in that wood, to find her way around that wall, to look into that mirror-like pool with her own eyes. Katherine sees both media as governed by mechanics of narrative participation.” [. . .]    –“Bringing Video Game Theory to Dante,” Modern Humanities Research Association, June 27, 2021

The book will be released in 2022. See more information about it, in particular a discussion of its cover art, here.

Categories: Written Word
Tagged with: 2022, Books, Digital Games, Games, Immersive Games, Media, Narrative, Neuroscience, Participatory Culture, Video Games

ALL TAGS »

Image Mosaic

How to Cite

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

Creative

 





Copyright © 2023 · Modern Portfolio Pro On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in