Introduction

Almost thirty years ago, the Modern Language Association published the second volume in its Approaches to Teaching Masterpieces of World Literature series, edited by Carole Slade and dedicated to various pedagogical strategies employed in teaching Dante's Divine Comedy (Slade 1982). Over the years, books and articles have appeared relating to this general topic,¹ countless conference sessions have explored the terrain, and numerous websites devoted to the study of Dante have made their mark in cyberspace (see For Further Reading section). Courses on the Florentine poet abound in colleges and universities and even in high schools all across North America.

In some forty years of teaching Italian language and literature classes at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I had the opportunity to teach the Comedy in a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses and seminars, from the very large introductory course where we read the poem in English translation to the advanced seminars focusing on one of the canticles. I have also been fortunate to teach Dante courses at other universities, on Italy-based study-abroad programs, and for the UW Alumni Association and the University of Wisconsin Division of Continuing Studies.

All of these varied instructional experiences were valuable preparation for the 2009 National Endowment for the Humanities summer seminar, which I directed in Prato, Italy: Dante's Divine Comedy and the Medieval World: Literature, History, Art. The fourteen participants came from a range of colleges and universities and were specialists in no fewer than ten different fields of study: history (1), archival studies (1), art history (2), philosophy (1), religious studies (2), psychology (1), French literature (2), English literature (2), comparative literature (1), and Italian literature (1) — and many also had extensive preparation in ancillary areas. Thus, just as the study of the Middle Ages is by its very nature interdisciplinary, so too was our study of Dante's poem enriched by the varying perspectives of our participants. We were all part of the learning process, and each session was a memorable experience.

These ten essays represent the many and diverse interests of my "seminarians," who, though not Dante specialists, either were already or have now become Dante enthusiasts. These essays, written from their particular disciplinary perspectives, together make, I believe, a very valuable contribution to the burgeoning field of Dante studies, particularly in the area of teaching the poem to different student audiences. Through cogent examples from Canto XXVI in all three canticles, Michelle Bolduc argues convincingly for the benefits that reading the Comedy can have for teachers and students of rhetoric. Joanna H. Drell surveys the various ways in which Dante depicts political leaders in southern Italy and how the same figures are presented in historical documents, thus raising interesting questions about the relative reliability of literary and historical documents. She also sets her discussion within the larger context of Dante's other works and the history of medieval political institutions. Jason Aleksander demonstrates the value of asking students to consider the "philosophical" questions that concern Dante and the medieval world in general, for a clear understanding of how the poet understood and presented philosophy. John Alcorn engages in a discussion of the value of using certain psychological concepts to investigate the sinners' responses to their punishments in the Inferno and how Dante presents certain notions regarding the passions. Kirilka Stavreva discusses the development of creativity in her students' interaction with and reflections on Dante's text. Their combination of poetry and art is a rich and fertile mix that yields excellent insights and results. Lisa Bixenstine Safford gives a fine demonstration of the benefits that introducing Dante's verbal imagery, historiographical method, and concern with ethics hold for teaching the mentality and artistic shifts of the Italian Renaissance. Through an examination of the procession in the final cantos of Purgatory, Anne L. Clark demonstrates how a comparison between Dante and medieval visionaries, such as Hildegard of Bingen, can shed light on the importance and innovative qualities of these prophetic writings. By incorporating the wonders of geographic information systems, Louis I. Hamilton is able to provide his students with a sort of "topographical contextualization...