Ideology and Pedagogy: The Tensions of Teaching Dante

What is at stake in teaching Dante? Giovanni Boccaccio—who delivered the first public lectures on Dante's Inferno in the church of Santo Stefano in Badia, Florence, from October 23, 1373 until early 1374—would lead us to believe, indeed, that one's physical wellbeing was at risk. Having been commissioned by the Commune to explicate the poem for "virtue-seeking citizens and their posterity and descendants," Boccaccio abandoned the enterprise only three months into his year-long commitment, halting his lessons after the first verses of Inferno 17.¹ Whatever the reason for this premature ending, the first lector Dantis attributes his deteriorating health to his attempts to teach Dante to the ignorant masses who could never appreciate the sublime beauty of the Commedia:

S'io ho le Muse vilmente prostratenelle fornice del vulgo dolente,e le lor parte occulte ho palesatealla feccia plebeia scioccamente,non cal che più mi sien rimproverate sì fatte offese, perché crudelmenteAppollo nel mio corpo l'ha vengiatein guisa tale, ch'ogni membro ne sente.

(Rime, 122)

As he writes in a subsequent sonnet, financial hardship, false hope, and the requests of his friends made him take on this academic task.² His remorse for having tarnished Dante's poetic vision is coupled with distaste for those utilitarians ("meccanici") who put profit before education, as Michael Papio has shown.

Though chronologically distant, the discomfort experienced by the first lector Dantis is one with which we can still identify today. By means of this analogy, I do not wish to imply that students of Dante today should be likened to Boccaccio's disappointing audience. Instead, I mean to underscore the ever-changing, yet persistent, tensions at the heart of teaching the Commedia: from the demands placed by those "meccanici" who have overseen the pedagogical project of teaching Dante, to the receptivity, sensibilities, and preparedness of our student populations. This forum explores how teachers of Dante, in myriad moments of time around the globe, have identified and contextualized those tensions in response to diverse ideological pressures. What is now at stake in teaching Dante, and how have we reckoned with those challenges?

Boccaccio's remorse stands in sharp contrast to the most controversial challenge to Dante pedagogy from the twenty-first century. In 2012, the Italian organization Gherush92, which advises the UN on human rights issues, called for the more discretionary integration or even removal of the Commedia from school curricula. Citing the depictions of the Prophet Mohammed (Inf. 28), Judas (Inf. 34), and the penitent sodomites on the Terrace of the Lustful (Purg. 26), the NGO deemed the poem racist, Islamophobic, and homophobic. Their recommendation was based on its "offensive and discriminatory" nature and the inability of young minds to contextualize such content.³

The seven participants in this forum were presented with the inflammatory request by Gherush92 to interrogate broadly the ideological tensions at the heart of Dante pedagogy. What does it mean to teach Dante amidst current debates about medievalism and white supremacy, from academic circles to the political arena (Cestaro)? How do we respond to such calls to erase Dante from the curriculum, especially in Italy (Giunta)? Considered historically, what motivations informed the teaching of Dante, such as from the beginnings of Dante pedagogy in nineteenth-century England (Coluzzi)? How can we reframe the discomfort experienced in the classroom by understanding Dante's poetics of defamation (Meier)? How do we address moments of religious and cultural difference in the poem: by understanding the entirety of Dante's multicultural project (Kumar), or by acknowledging Dante's own limitations in this regard (Montemaggi)? How do we position ourselves in respect to matters of faith in the classroom (Hawkins)? By probing the tensions of teaching Dante in response to various conflicts and debates, the authors in this forum engage with questions of politics, theology, identity, and faith.

This forum gives space to a conversation that has been alive since the times of Boccaccio, but which generally takes place informally between colleagues as we address the challenges that face us inside and outside of the...