Dante in Conversation with Contemporary Theorists

Insights for the Western Secular Cognoscenti

Author: Blaise Cirelli and Arthur G. Holder

Dante in Conversation with Contemporary Theorists

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Description

Dante's Divine Comedy appears on the reading list of almost every university's Humanities Studies department. But often it is thought of as a relic from the past. What if instead of considering the Divine Comedy as a historical artifact, one engaged the text as a work pertinent to the moment? Can we learn anything about our present situation by reading the Divine Comedy? Blaise Cirelli brings the Divine Comedy to life by challenging readers to consider how contemporary theorists might question Dante about his work. Where would Dante and the theorists agree, and where might they disagree? And which side might the reader of this text choose? This book will both enrich our understanding of Dante's Divine Comedy and challenge us to think afresh about our own beliefs.

Critic Reviews

"Navigating Dante's Hell with Deleuze and Guattari, Purgatory with Levinas, and Heaven with von Balthasar is not something I will soon forget. Many have traversed the layers of Dante's medieval cosmos, but few have done so with contemporary insights that are as spiritually enlightening as they are existentially challenging. Blaise Cirelli's call is not just to the cognoscenti of Dante's cosmology, but to a secular west in need of deep spiritual renewal."
--Andrew M. Davis, author of Mind, Value and Cosmos: On the Relational Nature of Ultimacy

"Many of the great philosophers of the past have felt compelled to comment on Dante's Divine Comedy. Can one also bring Dante into conversation with current philosophers, including those who do not make such comments themselves? This is what Blaise Cirelli's book does in many suggestive ways. Desire, punishment and reward turn out to be predicaments that speak to us across the ages."
--Anselm Ramelow, OP, Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology, Berkeley, California

"Dante in Conversation with Contemporary Theorists makes an original contribution to studies of the Divine Comedy. Placing Dante's poem in dialogue with modern philosophical thought--Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Emmanuel Levinas, and Hans Urs von Balthasar--Blaise Cirelli aspires to map a spiritual path for modern readers of Dante's perplexing medieval theology."
--Brenda Deen Schlidgen, distinguished professor emerita, comparative literature, UC Davis