The Italian program of the University of Alabama welcomes you to a talk by Danielle Callegari
A Very Human Hunger: Cannibalism and Community in Dante’s Divine Comedy
Friday, Sep. 24th, 2021 at 11:00 AM CT (12:00 PM ET / 6:00 PM CET)
Online via Zoom
To attend, please register at: https://uasystem.zoom.us/webinar/register/-WN_kteH8pFNRAm52eXpR9T18g
While the moment in which the pilgrim stumbles upon Count Ugolino gnawing on another damned soul at the bottom of Hell is by far the most famous episode of man-eating in Dante’s Divine Comedy, cannibalism is in fact evoked persistently throughout the poem. If the poet’s interest in anthropophagy has frequently made readers of his medieval masterpiece uncomfortable, not least because such horrors appear to have no place in a work dedicated to Christian salvation, Dante’s insistent reliance on the theme of cannibalism is an important means for unlocking his understanding of what defines our humanity and binds us together as a community, made apparent by the threat of those who consume indiscriminately.
Danielle Callegari is Assistant Professor in the Department of French and Italian at Dartmouth College and Councilor of the Dante Society of America. Her teaching and research focuses on premodern Italian literature and food and wine studies. She has published on a variety of subjects including Dante, medieval food and wine culture, early modern women’s writing and religion, and modern Italian food and politics. Her book Dante’s Gluttons: Food and Society from the Convivio to the Comedy will be published by Amsterdam University Press in spring 2022.
