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HIGHLIGHTS OF THE DEVERS PROGRAM: 1997-1998
Academic Programs and Support
The Devers Program inaugurated a series of credit-bearing mini-seminars dedicated to the examination of Dante's minor works. These seminars will be offered by distinguished visiting scholars and will continue over the next several years. Nineteen students registered for credit for the seminar on Dante's Vita Nuova that was offered by Professor Zygmunt Baranski of the University of Reading (UK) "Dante in Florence: A Reading of the Vita Nuova" March 17-24 in the Department of Special Collections. All told there were approximately twenty-five participants in the seminar including undergraduates, graduate students and five faculty members.
In addition the Devers Program ran its annual Fall series of three lectures in the Department of Special Collections:
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Franco Ferrucci, Rutgers University, spoke on "A Reading of Paolo and Francesca" (Sept. 25).
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Sergio Zatti, University of Pisa, spoke on "Recollecting Dante in Ariosto" (Oct. 30).
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Marc Cogan, Wayne State University, spoke on "The Shared Structure of Hell and Purgatory" (Nov. 13).
All of the lectures were well-attended and were followed by informal seminars offered by the visiting scholars which were regularly attended by interested faculty and students.
Finally, the Devers Program continued its support of the teaching of Dante "across the curriculum" by offering its annual Dante course; by its support of the teaching of Dante in the Sophomore Core Course; and by its organization of lectures and tours of rare Dante materials held in the Zahm Dante collection in the Department of Special Collections.
Scholarly Publication
The Devers Series in Dante Studies published its second volume during the Fall of 1997, The Fiore in Context: Dante, France, Tuscany, ed. Z. Baranski and P. Boyde; accepted for publication its first critical monograph (Volume III: The Design in the Wax: the Structure of the Divine Comedy and its Meaning by Marc Cogan); and accepted for publication the first English translation of the Fiore, by Christopher Kleinhenz and Santa Casciani (Volume IV).
Internet Research and Publications
The Devers Program participated in the formal launch of the ItalNet consortium held in Florence Italy at the Crusca Academy on May 20, 1998. The Devers Program, together with Opera del Vocabolario Italiano, Florence Italy, the ARTFL project of the University of Chicago and the Italian Studies Program of the University of Reading (UK), is one of four founding institutions of the ItalNet consortium dedicated to the organization and distribution of scholarly resources in Italian Studies over the World Wide Web. The collaboration has made available a digital library of over 1,000 medieval Italian texts in full-text retrievable format on Notre Dame's local Web and has made possible the on-line publication of Notre Dame's Ambrosiana Drawings Project and Notre Dame's International Gramsci Society Newsletter.
The Devers Program also began this year to develop an innovative video-based Italian language course for distribution over the local network to classrooms and dorms at Notre Dame and over the World Wide Web. This project is in collaboration with the Italian National Television Corporation (RAI) which has provided copyright cleared video from its archives and is funding the Devers Program in Dante Studies to develop and lead the project within the framework of their "Progetto Italica," an international campus of Italian language and culture for the World Wide Web.
Rare Book Acquisitions
A list of works purchased during the 1997-1998 academic year is available here.
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