Encounter with Dante: Hell

Presents: Rossana Fenu Barbera

Curated by Erminia Scarcella

On the occasion of the 700th anniversary of Dante's death (1321) the DIVE are invited to participate in the first evening of a celebratory trilogy of the Divine Comedy and its beloved author, famous all over the world (April / Hell; May / Purgatory; September / Paradise).

In the first meeting, our friend, diva and teacher Rossana will talk to us about Dante and the first cantica, alternating images with evocative sounds, and short recitations,   pausing to remember some of the most fascinating Dante's myths, Paolo and Francesca, Ugolino, and in particular Ulysses, Dante's recreation of a myth punished among the damned for his indomitable intellectual audacity.

Rossana also involved the audience and surprised with a beautiful Anna Lawton acting !! It was an exciting modern and original presentation that stimulated an interesting and curious discussion in which Pope Francis also peeped out… alongside Rossana !! For the curious, here are some photos…. Thank you very much Rossana we look forward to May 27th to discover the Purgatory Mountain !!

The most diligent DIVE who want to have fun participating actively in the evening or reread the material presented, can find some passages from Hell selected for the evening in the link below:

https://sites.google.com/view/letture22aprile2021/home

A few notes on Prof. Rossana Fenu Barbera

Rossana Fenu Barbera has been teaching and conducting academic research in the United States for over twenty-five years. After graduating in Foreign Languages and Literatures (Faculty of Literature, University of Florence, 1983) he obtained a Ph.D. in Italian Literature (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University, 1998). She is the author of numerous literary articles and of the volume La donna che passi. Enchantment and myth of the seduction of the female step in Italian literature of the early twentieth century (Ravenna, Longo, 2001), winner of the Grazia Deledda National Literary Prize (Nonfiction Section, 2005). In 2017 he published the volume Dante's Tears. The Poetics of Weeping from Vita Nuova to the Commedia (Florence, Olschki Editore, 2017). He is currently Chair of the Department of Modern Languages at the Loyola Blakefield Institute, in Baltimore, MD, where he has been teaching Italian since 2011.