Meetings and Events

The Dante Society of America regularly organizes panel sessions at various academic conferences, and holds its own annual meeting and conference.

Upcoming Events

DSA Annual Meeting and Program, 7 May 2022

The Dante Society of America will hold its 140th Annual Meeting via Zoom at 2:00PM Eastern Time on Saturday, May 7, 2022. To receive a personalized Zoom link, please register using the following link: https://bit.ly/DSA-Annual-Meeting. Registration is free and open through Friday, May 6, 2022.

Following the annual membership meeting, during which the results of the Council election will be presented along with financial, membership, and other reports, President Alison Cornish will host a program commemorating Robert Hollander and John Freccero, two influential American Dantists who died in the last year. Six formal reminiscences will precede a general discussion among those present:

"Quel savio gentil": Honoring our Teachers John Freccero and Robert Hollander

Reminiscences by:

David Quint
Eileen Reeves
Danielle Callegari
Georgia Nugent
William Stull 
Jessica Levenstein

The Society is grateful to Warren Ginsberg, Simone Marchesi, and Frank Ordiway for organizing this special program. 

International Congress on Medieval Studies, 9-14 May 2022

The DSA will sponsor two sessions on Dante at the 57th International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, May 9-14, 2022, and one themed session, organized by Matteo Pace, on “Dante and the Sciences of the Human.” Online registration will open in March.

Dante 1: Signs and Systems, Appropriation and Apprehension
Presider: Akash Kumar (IU Bloomington)

  • Elizabeth Coggeshall (Florida State University), “‘I liked Dante’s Inferno when it was still a poem’: Dante Memes
  • Maria Teresa De Luca (Rutgers University), “Fervore and Lexical Semantics in Dante’s Convivio”
  • Pierangelo Blandino (University of Lapland), “The Influence of Dante’s Thinking over the Notions of Sovereignty, Imperialism, and its Potential in the Realm of the Fourth Industrial Revolution”
  • Aistė Kiltinavičiūtė (Cambridge University), “Dante’s “Other” Women and the Socially Extended Mind in the Vita Nova”

Dante 2: History, Theology, Conflict
Presider: Elizabeth Coggeshall (FSU)

  • Jilian Pizzi (Columbia University), “Historicizing the Deicide Charge in Paradiso VII: 46-8”
  • Max Matukhin (Princeton University), “Dante’s Sacramental Poetics: Confession in the Commedia”
  • Christiana Purdy Moudarres (Yale University), “Dante’s Hope for Heresy’s Redemption”

Dante 3: Dante and the Sciences of the Human: Medicine, Physics, Soul
Presider: Matteo Pace (Connecticut College)

  • Joseph Abraham Levi (George Washington University), “Inferno Canto XXVIII: 30-31. The Prophet Muhammad and the Caliph ‘Ali: (Mis)Representing the Body, Discovering the Soul”
  • Edward Allnutt (University College London), “Body and Soul in Systematic Approaches to the Design of the Comedy”

Call for Papers: Modern Languages Association Annual Meeting, 5-8 January 2023

Please consider submitting a paper proposal to one of the three sessions proposed by the Dante Society of America for the annual meeting of the Modern Language Association. The next meeting of the MLA will be held in San Francisco, CA from January 5-8, 2023. See the calls for papers below.

All presenters giving papers on a DSA-sponsored panel must be members in good standing of both the Modern Language Association and the Dante Society of America at the time of presentation.

Dante's Economies: Industry, Work and Money Inspired by the 2023 MLA Presidential Theme, “Working Conditions”, this session invites presentations that explore issues relating to Dante's treatment of industry, work, toil, labor, or other 'natural' forms of generation (defined in contrast with usury or what Dante considered perverted or unnatural forms of generation). Please submit a title, 300-word abstract, and short bio to Anne Leone (aleone@syr.edu) by March 25, 2022.

Confession and Penance in Dante This session invites presentations that explore issues relating to confession and penance across Dante’s works and in the medieval Italian context. Please submit a title, 300-word abstract, and short bio to Anne Leone (aleone@syr.edu) by March 25, 2022.

Ecocritical Approaches to Dante  This session invites presentations that approach Dante’s works from ecocritical perspectives. We welcome submissions that interrogate the boundaries between the natural, non-natural, unnatural, supernatural, or that investigate particular issues such as: nature as a theoretical concern, natural imagery, meteorology, etc. Please submit a title, 300-word abstract, and short bio to Anne Leone (aleone@syr.edu) by March 25, 2022. 

Recorded Events

Past Meetings and Events

A listing of meetings and events sponsored by the Dante Society in previous years is available here.

Minutes and agenda for the Society's annual membership meetings since 2014 may be found under "About the Society."