The Massachusetts Medievalist suspects that many of us on and off the #CovidCampus are looking for some projects, some great literature, and some community right now. Attempting to get all three, I'm resurrecting the Lesley online summer reading group (I think we skipped last summer?) and am happy to announce readings, procedures, and timeline here in my new blog space!
This past spring term I had an amazing senior seminar group; one of our core texts was Toni Morrison's Beloved, and I was continually awestruck by my students' sophisticated and deeply felt observations about this crucial novel. I was simultaneously thinking about the connections between Beloved and Dante's Inferno as part of a separate research project; Morrison's trilogy of Beloved, Jazz, and Paradise is very loosely analogous to the three parts of Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Lesley's "Text and Image" class will use Inferno as one of its core texts in fall 2022; I haven't read Inferno since a million years ago in graduate school. Obviously, summer reading group 2020 will be the pair: Dante's Inferno and Morrison's Beloved.
TEXTS:
Morrison's Beloved is available in a variety of formats at a relatively low price; our local libraries are planning to re-open with curbside pick-up, so you can probably order a copy that way as well. If you're at all like me, you'll want your own hard copy of this essential American text.
Dante's Inferno is fine in any poetic translation you prefer- just make sure it's poetry and not prose! My core translation will be the 1994 Pinsky with reference to the 1996 Durling. If you don't mind reading onscreen, there's also a super site hosted at Columbia University that includes two translations (click on the relevant canto #, then "text and translations"- you can toggle between the 1980s Mandelbaum translation and the 1867 Longfellow translation).
PROCESS:
I'll load posts about the "assignments" on the days indicated below. You can decide if you want to read the literary texts before or after the post goes up; some people like the guidance of the heads-up context, others prefer to formulate their own ideas and opinions before heading to the secondary conversation. There are no quizzes or grades, just a chance to think about great literature!
The comments section will be open but monitored for questions, comments, tangents, and any sort of asynchronous discussion that group members find useful. Subscribe to the blog (red button above) and/or follow me on twitter @MDockrayMiller for emails and reminders. Hoping to see you in Hell on 1 June!
DATES (all are Mondays):
6/1 Inferno, Cantos 1-3
6/8 Inferno, Cantos 4-6
6/15 Inferno, Cantos 7-9
6/22 Inferno, Cantos 10-12
6/29 Inferno, Cantos 13-15
7/6 Inferno, Cantos 16-18
7/13 Inferno, Cantos 19-21
7/20 Inferno, Cantos 22-24
7/27 Inferno, Cantos 25-27
8/3 Inferno, Cantos 28-30
8/10 Inferno, Cantos 31-34
8/17 Beloved part 1
8/24 Beloved parts 2 and 3
Well, Dr. D, I am excited to have stumbled upon this summer reading group! As a former student, I can’t wait to dig in to this with you. I miss your classes and talking classics!
thanks mary--this will be fun