Research Symposium

BIO

I am from Miami, Florida and I am an undergraduate student from the class of 2027 studying English Literature with a minor in Chemistry.

Dante Today: An Archive of Sightings of Dante in Contemporary Culture

Abstract

In 2006, upon teaching her “Dante’s Divine Comedy” course, Arielle Saiber (Johns Hopkins University, formerly Bowdoin College) found that the students repeatedly approached her with a curious array of findings. The students had found numerous references to Dante and his works, which inspired Arielle Saiber to create the site. The site was created as a way of digitally archiving these sightings of Dante’s works, but its purpose evolved to include further goals. As stated on Dante Today, the goal of creating such an expansive digital archive is not only to record Dante's presence in contemporary culture, but to provide this data to others. The project reached Florida State University through Elizabeth Coggeshall (Florida State University, formerly Stanford University). Elizabeth Coggeshall is the co-editor of the website, and her studies specialize in Italian literature and culture, including the Italian writer and poet Dante. She began collaborating with Arielle Saiber as co-editors of Dante Today in 2012. Over this time, Dante Today has become brilliantly saturated with over 2,000 sightings collected. Sightings are sorted according to an expansive tagging system, as well as according to their location, language and other key identifiers. Dante Today acts as a multimedia archive of the way in which Dante’s writing has evolved to encompass different modern and historical narratives, indicating the way in which Dante’s works have been adapted by the world. This website is continuously being updated and can be explored by both seasoned scholars of Dante and students who are first learning of Dante.

Keywords: dante literature archive inferno