��Vlog | News

ND Learning Collaborates with Professor Boccuti for Italian VR Experience

2023-12-06T18:02:40-05:00

Italy is renowned all around the world for its distinguished architecture, culture, and language, so much so that an estimated 75 million people from all across the globe visit the country each year. In fact, more revenue is generated from tourism into the country than from those coming to Italy for business purposes. Travelers imagine a country with mouth-watering cuisine found on every corner, from the Northern risotto of Milan to the Southern gelato of Sicily, and can’t wait for a taste. Dreamy-eye jetsetters search for perfect picaresque angles in front of the iconic Roman colosseum and atop the bridges of the romantic Venetian canals. People flock from all over the world to experience all Italy has to offer–it’s not difficult to understand why Italy is one of the 10 most-visited countries in the world.

But what about those who have dreamed of visiting the country but are not able to do so? We know well that traveling is a privilege that we can’t always afford. Well, what if we told you that there’s an alternative to saving up for months or even years for that long-anticipated trip? Indeed, thanks to the ever-developing world of extended reality (XR), you can now put on a headset and be almost teleported to somewhere else: the other side of the earth, a historical place, or even a fictitious world.

On October 12, 2023, Notre Dame Learning collaborated with Dr. Mattia Boccuti from the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, who is instructing the Medieval-Renaissance Italian Literature and Culture course this semester, to create an Italian XR experience inside of The Hesburgh Library. Over the summer, Professor Boccuti reached out to KC Frye, Director of Creative & Media in Notre Dame Learning’s Office of Digital Learning (ODL). Frye had already been discussing how to incorporate XR experiences into the classroom with colleague Adam Heet, a digital projects specialist in the Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship. Professor Boccuti’s idea for giving students a feel for what it was like to live in Italy during the Renaissance period of the 14th and 15th centuries seemed like a perfect opportunity to turn this concept into an (extended) reality.

With the help of Professor Boccuti, Frye and Heet found a number of existing XR experiences, including virtual reality video, augmented reality (AR) art galleries, and the work of Matthew Brennan, a doctoral candidate at Indiana University who had developed stunning virtual reality recreations of Italian Renaissance chapels and their fresco works through VR videos posted to YouTube. After receiving Brennan’s permission to use his videos for Professor Boccuti’s class, the team worked with Kuangchen Hsu, ODL’s director of learning design, “to identify the learning objectives the videos were meant to fulfill and how to structure the class session in a way that guided the students’ engagement with them."

“So much of what Notre Dame Learning does centers around accompaniment,” said Frye, who, along with Heet, attended the class to help Professor Boccuti facilitate the lesson. “We’re here to walk alongside instructors as they bring innovative new approaches into their courses, and that collaboration starts well before students feel the impact of the finished product. Just like our faculty partners, we want to be purposeful in how we design learning experiences so that what makes them dynamic isn’t just the medium through which they’re delivered.”

Students from the Medieval-Renaissance Italian Literature and Culture course met at the Center for Digital Scholarship, located on the second floor of Hesburgh Library. There, KC and Adam gave the class a tutorial on how VR and AR are used to make anybody who wears the headset feel as if they were actually inside the Vatican Museums. In one of the VR headsets, students were able to make themselves jump up into midair while listening to the YouTube video, as if they were magically granted the ability to walk on air. Students could also use an iPad to point in any direction and make a famous Italian painting appear on the screen as if it were there inside of the library.

Professor Boccuti said that he greatly enjoyed collaborating with ND Learning to create this one-of-a-kind experience. He is grateful to have such talented and knowledgeable staff members such as KC, Adam, and Kuangchen here at Notre Dame. When everybody’s passions were able to come together in one place, it’s no surprise that the class session ended up being so well-received by the students.

Ben fatto, Dr. Boccuti and ND Learning!

Originally published by the the CLSC on November 30, 2023. Republished at / on December 6, 2023.

New Raclin Murphy Museum of Art opens Dec. 1

2023-12-04T18:46:00-05:00

A new gateway to the University of Notre Dame continues the University’s long legacy of commitment to the arts. Welcoming visitors from across the country, the new Raclin Murphy Museum of Art opens its doors to the public Friday (Dec. 1).

The new 70,000-square-foot building on the northeast corner of Eddy Street and Angela Boulevard is designed by the award-winning firm Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA). Recognized as a leader in classical-inspired architecture, RAMSA has designed an expanded home for the University’s robust art collections that honors both tradition and innovation. The building’s brick, cast stone and Indiana limestone exterior blends with other historic buildings on campus. The new museum, occupying a prominent intersection where the University’s campus meets the greater community, will anchor and function as a gateway to an expanding on-campus arts district.

Inside, the museum’s 23 historically thematic galleries unfold around a multilevel atrium that rises to a central skylight. Classical yet contemporary, the light-flooded atrium greets visitors with works from the Raclin Murphy collection and orients them to the building’s upper and lower floors, connected by two grand staircases. A bookstore is nestled in the central atrium alongside Ivan’s Cafe, named for the Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović, who taught and worked at Notre Dame from 1955 until his death in 1962.

“Since its founding, Notre Dame has valued the vital role the visual arts play as an expression of human creativity, religious experience and insight into the human condition,” said University President Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C. “By bringing the collections currently in the Snite Museum of Art to new life in the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art, we will be able to share these treasures in all their richness with our University community, our neighbors in the region and the wider world.”

In addition to education spaces, a teaching gallery, an object study center and a chapel, the state-of-the-art galleries serve as a dramatic backdrop to works from the University’s art collection, which encompasses more than 30,000 objects. With origins that date to 1875, the collection has grown into one of the most significant and extensive collections of any academic museum in the country, with works representing many of the principal cultures and periods of world art history. The museum’s paintings, sculptures, ceramics, prints, drawings, textiles, baskets and decorative arts offer visitors a broad view of global proportions.

“The Raclin Murphy Museum of Art makes an essential contribution to Notre Dame’s strategy as a global Catholic research university for the 21st century,” said John T. McGreevy, the Charles and Jill Fischer Provost of Notre Dame. “The stunning exhibition spaces and the luminous works of art they contain will captivate us with their beauty, spark important conversations in the classroom and beyond and enable us to think in new ways about our past, present and future.”

“The permanent collection, which will celebrate its sesquicentennial in 2025, has been reinstalled with new life and vigor, giving visitors the opportunity to reconnect with and experience cherished artworks from a new perspective,” said Joseph Antenucci Becherer, director of the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art.

“Our search for knowledge is endless. It joins earth and sky.”

Newly commissioned works by globally renowned artists are integrated into the fabric of the building design, beginning with “Endless,” a 36-foot stainless steel sculpture by Jaume Plensa positioned outside of the museum entrance. Reflecting on his visits to the University and its mission, the artist noted, “Our search for knowledge is endless. It joins earth and sky.” The work of art features alphabets in eight languages and symbolizes Notre Dame’s commitment to diversity, internationalization, knowledge and global service.

A monumental carved text panel on the front facade of the building reads, “We are in the midst of reality responding with joy.” The meaningful work of art by Jenny Holzer welcomes visitors to the new Raclin Murphy Museum of Art and sets the tone for the renewed spaces inside, merging tradition and innovation in an effort to resonate with audiences from around the world.

Stepping into the atrium will reveal a circular terrazzo and bronze floor installation by Kiki Smith. “Sea of Stars,” one of the artist’s largest public projects to date, features 39 hand-drawn and cast stars inspired by celestial images frequently seen in medieval, Renaissance and Byzantine depictions of the Madonna as protectress and “Star of the Sea.” Also prominently mounted in the atrium is Maya Lin’s “St. Joseph (River) Watershed,” a reflection on our shared natural environment. The expansive relief with shimmering recycled silver honors the region’s Indigenous people and celebrates the unique geographic, sociological and environmental elements of the St. Joseph River and watershed.

Mimmo Paladino’s artistry adorns the museum’s Mary, Queen of Families chapel, a sacred space for contemplation and Masses. Paladino’s stained-glass window, incised wall frescoes and mosaic artwork on the ceiling are the result of extensive research of the University of Notre Dame, the Congregation of Holy Cross, Marian iconography and the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi. The large-scale commission will complement the medieval and Renaissance altarpieces in the chapel, offering a unique curatorial opportunity to consider the link between art history and the history of the Catholic Church.

The Raclin Murphy Museum will also unveil new acquisitions by Magdalena Abakanowicz, Zhang Huan, Dietrich Klinge, Julie Mehretu, David Ocelotl Garcia, Jamie Okuma, Yinka Shonibare, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Dana Warrington, Jason Wesaw and others. The recent acquisitions and newly commissioned art will elevate the museum’s holdings of global works and complement objects from the permanent collection, many of which underwent conservation or professional cleaning before being moved to the new building.

Located in the 9-acre Charles B. Hayes Family Sculpture Park, the museum’s location allows for the continued growth of its outdoor sculpture collection. The park installation will feature new acquisitions by Sir Anthony Caro, Dietrich Klinge, Clement Meadmore, Louise Nevelson, Beverly Pepper and Ursula von Rydingsvard among others and provide a new environment for works by Deborah Butterfield, Peter Randall-Page and George Rickey. The park’s landscape architect, Michael Van Valkenburgh, was retained for the horticultural design.

“Designed for both education and enjoyment, the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art is a place where campus and community can experience the richness of Notre Dame’s art and sculpture collections together,” said Melissa DelVecchio, partner at RAMSA.

The newly opened Raclin Murphy building is dedicated to exhibition and educational spaces. The larger vision for the museum includes additional galleries and spaces for teaching, a works-on-paper study center, administrative and curatorial offices and open collections storage. The timeline for these additional elements is to be determined.

“Along with my dedicated colleagues, we say welcome to what is and what can be. Nurturing an ongoing culture of learning through art, we’ve realized this new space to bring the campus and national community together. We have built a building and filled its spaces, but only together can we give the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art the soul it merits,” Becherer said.

The late Ernestine Raclin and her daughter and son-in-law Carmen and Chris Murphy are the lead benefactors of the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art. Admission to the Raclin Murphy Museum of Art is free. For more information, visit raclinmurphymuseum.nd.edu.

Originally published by Notre Dame News at news.nd.edu on December 01, 2023.

Introducing Katie Sparrow, post-doctoral fellow in Rome

2023-11-08T01:10:00-05:00

Katie Sparrow is a "5 + 1" postdoctoral fellow at the University of Notre Dame Rome Global Gateway. While in Rome, she co-teaches two courses of the foundational class “All Roads lead to Rome” in the fall 2023, and will teach one on her own in the spring 2024 while continuing to develop her own research.

The "5+1" program is offered by the College of Arts and Letters in partnership with the Rome Global Gateway. It is a 10-month appointment that runs August-May and it allows students to spend their final graduate school years focused on the dissertation. Once it is complete, they can devote a postdoctoral year to professional development that will enhance their competitiveness for jobs both inside and outside the academy.

Sparrow earned her Ph.D. in Italian Studies and M.A. in Romance Languages and Literatures from the University of Notre Dame. She is from London and completed her bachelor’s degree in French and Italian at the University of Reading in 2015.

“When I was studying in Reading, my Professor Paola Nasti, who had been a graduate student at Notre Dame with Professor Zygmunt G. Baranski, recommended his course to me,” explains Sparrow. “That was the moment when I decided to apply to the Master program at the University of Notre Dame and then continued through my PhD.”

Sparrow’s primary research explores Dante’s approach to characters and characterization and, in particular, Dante’s self-characterization in the Vita Nova and Commedia. Her research considers modern narratological theories on character and autobiography in its investigation of narrative, structural, and stylistic methods employed by Dante to construct his overarching, self-representative “Dante.”

Sparrow this semester is co-teaching the “All Roads lead to Rome” course with Professor Chiara Sbordoni. “It is a very intense course from the instructor point of view and I am enjoying it a lot,” comments Sparrow. “As soon as I read the description of the course I thought that it was great that students in Rome could learn about the culture and history of the city while being out and about. I find students to be very receptive to this approach. The majority of afternoon classes are composed by engineering and finance students, and they have really cool, interesting insights of the city. As someone who focuses on literature and history, it is very fascinating to see things through the eyes of an engineer's perspective.”

Learn more about pos-doctoral fellows in Rome.

Originally published by Costanza Montanari at rome.nd.edu on October 30, 2023.

Columbus Murals Unveiled for Educational Purposes

2023-11-06T14:39:00-05:00

The Columbus Murals, adorning the second floor of Notre Dame's Main Building, will be revealed for public viewing from Monday, October 23, until 8 a.m. on Friday, October 27. During this period, instructors and their students will be able to immerse themselves in the murals' history and engage in thought-provoking discussions. More details about the Columbus Murals, their historical context, and their role in educational settings can be accessed here.

Charles Leavitt receives 2022 Italian Studies Article Prize for Outstanding Work on Holocaust Drama

2023-11-01T13:50:00-04:00

The Society for Italian Studies has announced that the 2022 Italian Studies Article Prize has been awarded to Charles Leavitt, Associate Professor of Italian and Film and Associate Director of the ��Vlog at the University of Notre Dame, for his article "Deicide and the Drama of the Holocaust: Gian Paolo Callegari’s Cristo ha ucciso (1948)."

The readers summarized their reasons for selecting Prof. Leavitt's article as follows:

“This is a powerful and pithy article of considerable originality which explores an overlooked play and author but also investigates the whole context of Italy pre- and post-Fascism with reference to anti-semitism and the Holocaust. The quality of the reconstruction of both Callegari as author and surrounding texts and contexts is very high, and equally strong is the critical reviewing of categories and of related production. Through a detailed analysis of Callegari’s play, the article makes an original, novel and topical contribution to the much broader debate on anti-Semitism in postwar Italy. For both readers, an outstanding essay in historical, literary and critical terms.”

Prof. Leavitt's article is accessible here.

Applications open for 2024 Rome Summer Program

2023-10-05T17:13:00-04:00

This seminar is designed to introduce Ph.D. students from across the humanities to the unique primary sources available in Rome. Working hands-on with materials in the city’s archives and libraries, students will be exposed to the rich potential of a wide range of sources produced from the Middle Ages to the present. Seminar meetings will be held at the Vatican Apostolic Library, the Biblioteca Nazionale, and the Archivio di Stato, and elsewhere. The seminar will also include a series of presentations by senior scholars who will discuss how they have collected and interpreted Roman primary sources in their own research.

The dates for the 2024 Seminar are June 3 to June 28.

There are extraordinary and understudied materials in libraries and archives in the city for archeologists and classicists, art historians and historians, musicologists and students of theater and performance, historians of late antiquity, the Middle Ages, the early modern period and the world, specialists in the Near East and East Asia. The holdings of the Vatican Library alone include priceless manuscripts and documents from East Asia, the near East, and North Africa – as well as a vast collection of ancient, medieval and early modern texts in Greek and Latin, a unique resource for the history and literature of ancient Greece and Rome, of Christianity from its origins until recent times, of relations between Christians and Jews from antiquity onwards, and other subjects without number.

Previous seminar participants include students of art history, history, literature, political science, medieval studies, film studies, and musicology. Their areas of intellectual interest ranged from Byzantine art, papal humanism, hospitals, charity and pilgrimage, Persian embassies and the Chinese missions to art and science, fascist textile production, the history of sexuality, and politics and church in the postwar era. They have taken up primary sources like Anglo-Latin manuscripts, a Hebrew Arthurian legend, socioeconomic records of daily life, institutional records of church and state, art and material culture, films, and twentieth-century letters. Participants have come from Catholic University, Harvard, Northwestern, Princeton, Stanford, Syracuse, University of Chicago, University of Melbourne, University of Minnesota, University of Notre Dame, University of Toronto, and others.

The professors in charge of the seminar this year are Paula Findlen (Stanford) and Heather Minor (Notre Dame). Please direct any questions about the seminar to Prof. Minor at hhydemin@nd.edu.

This seminar is made possible by generous support from Stanford University, the Princeton University Humanities Council, and from Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters, the Charles and Margaret Hall Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, and the ��Vlog.

Qualifications

We welcome applications from students from any discipline at any stage in their graduate education who have not done extensive research in Rome prior to the seminar. To be eligible to apply, you must be enrolled full-time in a Ph.D. program. The focus of your research need not be Rome but you should have an interest in developing that research through the use of primary sources located in the city. Each successful applicant will receive a stipend of up to $3,500 to defray travel costs, housing, and meals in Rome.

The COVID-19 vaccine and booster are required of all students participating in the Rome Seminar.

The selection committee will notify applicants about the status of applications in December.

Application Instructions

Please submit: a CV, a statement of interest, the name of one referee and the email address of the referee to Interfolio. Please confirm with your referee directly that an Interfolio link arrives to upload your letter of reference. The selection committee will meet in early December to consider all complete applications.

For questions about the seminar, please contact Prof. Heather Minor at: hhydemin@nd.edu.

“Dante Now!” Returns to Campus

2023-10-02T18:12:00-04:00

The ��Vlog and the Devers Program for Dante Studies hosted its annual “Dante Now!” event consisting of community recitations of Dante’s Divine Comedy with students across various fields of study.

Early 70s Italian Cinema

2023-08-22T18:21:00-04:00

Through a partnership with the ��Vlog, Notre Dame Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, and the David A. Heskin and Marilou Brill Endowment for Excellence, this course looks at the period after the political and cultural turbulency of the 1960s and how that rerouted many already-celebrated filmmakers’ styles while creating new pathways for emerging directors. During the early 1970s, that mix of old and new led to intriguing films around the world with Italy being no exception. This course, which will bring in leading Italian film scholars from both on campus and around the nation, will look at this period of Italian cinema as both a transitional period and one with fully articulated techniques through sampling filmmakers at various stages of their careers.

Scheduled Films

August 24: Amarcord

August 31: Decameron

September 7: No Screening

September 14: The Conformist

September 21: Death in Venice

September 26: The Hidden Renaissance

October 5: Deep Red

October 12: Seven Beauties

Link to Enroll

Sponsors

��Vlog

Notre Dame Department of Romance Languages and Literatures

David A. Heskin and Marilou Brill Endowment for Excellence

The course is $14 total and free for HC, IUSB, ND, SMC, and local HS students. That includes a ticket to each of the films, course readings, and discussions after the films. You can sign up at the above-linked enrollment page (linked again here for convenience), in person at the box office (e.g., when arriving for the first film), or phone the box office at 574.631.2800. We hope that the price point opens the class to many people, but also recognize that it's a lot of money for some folks. If it will be a barrier to enrolling, then please let me know.

Some quick answers to FAQ's:

1. Yes, you can join the class if you miss the first couple screenings.

2. No, attendance is not required.

3. Yes, you can attend films individually without signing up for the class.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to email Ricky Herbst.

The Rome Global Gateway launches the Rome Summer Seminars on Religion and Global Politics

2023-08-21T06:50:00-04:00

In June 2023, the University of Notre Dame’s Rome Global Gateway co-hosted the first edition of the Rome Summer Seminars on Religion and Global Politics. The two-week program welcomed 17 graduate students and post-doctoral fellows working at the intersection of religious studies and international affairs for a full schedule of writing workshops, graduate seminars, and public events. The program included visits to the many sites that have made Rome a key hub for transnational and multi-religious policymaking, including the Great Mosque and Great Synagogue of Rome, the Vatican’s Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, the community of Sant’Egidio, and the US Embassy to the Holy See.

“The idea of the Summer Seminars was to recognize the importance that Rome as a site for religious political activity has taken over the last 20 years,” comments Michael Driessen, director of the program. “Rome’s transnational nature has turned it into a central hub for religious political activity with many different resources, an incredible network of people, ideas, and institutions at the intersection of religion and politics, and our hope was to take advantage of those resources, share them with the students and connect scholars and students who are working on similar projects.”

“Rome is a city of great history and very impressive architecture,” adds Mahan Mirza, executive director of the Rafat and Zoreen Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion in the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. “Just being in this city gives you a real gravitas of both tradition and a central place of religion in the life of communities and of the world; coming to Rome inspires students to think about the role of religion in global politics.”

The students in the program represented 15 different nationalities, including Georgia, the Gambia, Iran, Taiwan, Lebanon, Algeria, Romania, the UK, India and Pakistan; hailed from a diverse array of Universities such as Stanford, McGill, Göttingen, Notre Dame, Bouira, and St. Andrews. Leading scholars in the field, such as Olivier Roy of the European University Institute, Kristina Stoeckl of LUISS, Jonathan Laurence of Boston College, Anna Rowlands of Durham University and Scott Appleby, Dean of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs, provided lectures and seminars for the students. Public events were held at the Pontifical Gregorian University and John Cabot University, as well as at the Rome Global Gateway.

Professor Anna Rowlands says: “I think we are currently living in a moment, in terms of the academy and the world, where there is a deep need for interdisciplinary conversations about the role of religion and global politics. The Rome Summer Seminars in Religion and Global Politics has therefore been a fantastic opportunity to work with a group of junior and senior scholars together, covering a really wide and appropriately global context.”

The University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs and Rome Global Gateway are founding partners of the program, along with the Pontifical Gregorian University, John Cabot University in Rome, the Hanns Seidel Stiftung of Germany, the Adyan Foundation of Lebanon, and the Royal Institute of Interfaith Studies. The program was also held under the high patronage of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with special support from Andrea Benzo, the Italian Special Envoy for Religious Freedom and Interreligious Dialogue.

The program ended with a two-day international policy dialogue hosted by ISPI, a leading Italian think tank for international politics, and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the theme of Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding in Contemporary Global Crises. The conference’s opening session and keynote address, by Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States, were held at the Italian Parliament, in Palazzo Montecitorio’s Sala della Regina, and institutionally hosted by the Italian Parliament’s permanent Committee for Foreign Affairs. Notre Dame’s Scott Appleby also participated in a roundtable panel at the Italian Parliament following Archbishop Gallagher’s speech and offered a keynote address to students participating in the Rome Summer Summers.

Driessen says that he was deeply impressed by the commitment of the students attending the seminars and the quality of their research and projects. The 2024 Rome Summer Seminars will run from 2 June - 15 June, 2024. For more information about the program and how to apply visit the Rome Summer Seminars website.

Originally published by Costanza Montanari at rome.nd.edu on July 17, 2023.

In Memoriam: Remembering Tiziana Serafini, Esteemed Colleague and Educator

2023-08-20T17:20:00-04:00

In memoriam: Tiziana Serafini

It is with profound sadness that we communicate the passing of our dear friend and colleague, Tiziana Serafini.

Tiziana joined the Italian faculty in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Notre Dame in the fall of 2016. Prior to her arrival at Notre Dame, she had taught Italian language and culture at several institutions, including the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Southern California, Santa Monica College, and Los Angeles City College, in addition to serving as the Director of the Italian Language Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her teaching and research interests encompassed literary translation and its theory, as well as pedagogical issues focusing on intercultural competence, social justice, and collaborative learning with technology.

To know Tiziana was to know her passion for working with students in and out of the classroom. A student of hers this past spring recently shared in an email “I took Italian 10101 with Professor Serafini this past spring, and I have never so loved learning. When I walked into this class three times each week, I felt so alive, competent, real, sensitive, and capable. I reveled in my class participation.” Tiziana was generous with her time and with her talents, as her students and her colleagues in Italian, those in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, and many who knew her across campus could attest to. It was just as easy to find her holding extra office hours with a line of students out the door as it was to find her running a yoga class in Italian for our students of Notre Dame. She also served for several years as the co-advisor of the Multi-Language Reading Club and the Italian Club on campus and she cherished these personal interactions with
students. Most recently Tiziana collaborated with the Center for Social Concerns on an interdisciplinary and experiential-learning course on refugee issues and the basic principles of foreign language pedagogy, giving students the training they needed to work as teaching assistants in language courses for refugees. Through this course and her teaching philosophy in general, Tiziana
sought to bring students from the personal to social and global issues, making language learning all the more meaningful.

Tiziana’s passion for teaching and her boundless energy have undoubtedly touched and had a profound impact on thousands of students over the years. Her kindness and generosity have left a mark on friends and colleagues here at Notre Dame and in the broader Italian Studies community. She will be greatly missed.

Vittorio Montemaggi named academic director of the London Global Gateway

2023-06-28T16:18:00-04:00

We are pleased to announce that Vittorio Montemaggi, an affiliate of the ��Vlog, has been appointed as the new academic director of the University of Notre Dame in England (UNDE). In his new role, Montemaggi will be responsible for overseeing the academic aspects of UNDE, including teaching, research, and scholarship. He will work closely with Notre Dame International's London Global Gateway to provide academic leadership for the institution.

Beltrami Bicentennial honors 200 years with stories of Italian explorer's life and journeys

2023-06-27T17:00:00-04:00

The Beltrami County Historical Society commemorated the bicentennial of Giacomo Costantino Beltrami's exploration of the Minnesota region, bringing together different worlds and cultures in the celebration. As part of the program at the Beltrami County History Center, John Welle, emeritus professor of Italian at Notre Dame, delivered a talk on Giacomo Beltrami's "Trans-Atlantic Promenade."

You can read more about the event here.

RGG Research fellow studies civic feminist Virginia Salvi in Rome and Venice

2023-06-27T16:36:00-04:00

Katherine McKenna is a Rome Global Gateway short-term research fellow. In June 2023, she spent two weeks in Rome and one in Venice researching Sienese poet, academician, political firebrand and exile Virginia Martini Salvi and her participation in the Venetian response to the Battle of the Lepanto and the larger War of Cyprus of which it was a part in 1500s.

McKenna has studied abroad in Rome and is currently the National Endowment for the Humanities and Teagle Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Notre Dame, where she teaches classes on the history of science and gender. Her research interests lie in the early modern world and include women as intellect in Italy and Europe, civic mythology, and contemporary print culture. Her work on these topics can be found in Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal, The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, and the forthcoming anthology Lucrezia Marinella’s Works, Reassessed (Classiques Garnier).

Since the days of undergraduate studies, McKenna was fascinated by women authors and their active involvement in civic and politics. In her book project entitled Fashioning Adria, Fashioning Femininity: Women Authors and the Pursuit of Civic Feminism in Renaissance Venice, McKenna explores the movement of secular women writers into print in Venice in conjunction with the contemporary civic crisis. Its chapters disrupt traditional historiographies of Renaissance state-making to reinstate secular Italian women as civic actors whose contributions to the book market and the discursive production of national mythology actively shaped contemporary civic life.

During her fellowship, McKenna researched Virginia Martini Salvi, who in October 1571, seized an opportunity to publish what would be her final printed work: a pair of bellicose sonnets in praise of contemporary Christendom and its heroes both military and intellectual. The northern Italian republic of Venice and its European allies were at war with the Ottoman Empire, and Catholic forces had recently extirpated the Turkish navy off the coast of Lepanto, Greece in a fight accurately described by contemporaries as the largest maritime conflict since the Battle of Actium.

“In the weeks and months that followed, hundreds of songs, poems, and orations commemorating the western forces’ victory rolled off the Venetian presses,” explains McKenna. “Salvi was quick to add her voice and that of her daughter Beatrice to the fray. In an era and a state that proscribed the bounds of ideal feminine life according to the dictum aut murus aut maritas (convent walls or marriage), political speech-making by a woman was a potentially fraught political enterprise.”

In Rome, Virginia Salvi lived in exile from approximately 1556 on, and in Rome, McKenna explored resources; the majority of Salvi’s extant poetic oeuvre predates the War of Cyprus and survives in manuscript form in Sienese state archives and in edited volumes held at libraries throughout Italy. Little evidence of her life post-exile has been sought for or recovered. Prospective repositories in Rome with collecting areas or finding aids that indicate the presence of records pertinent to Salvi include the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, the Biblioteca Angelina, which specializes in Italian literature and religious historical studies, and the Biblioteca Casatenese.

“The opportunity to work in Rome will also enable me to forge relationships with archivists at these institutions,”comments McKenna. “Because catalogs and finding aids for the manuscript collections of many Italian libraries have yet to be digitized or incorporated into online resources like the Cataloghi Storici Digitalizzati dell'ICCU, archivists remain the richest source of knowledge about the scope of a repository’s holdings.”

After the first two weeks in Rome, McKenna moved to Venice where she mainly worked at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana (BNM) and the Biblioteca del Museo Correr.

“While the outcome of an archival research trip cannot be fully known in advance, I am confident that the opportunity to conduct research in Italy for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic will meaningfully advance my book project, and grow my academic network” explains McKenna.

Learn more about Research in Rome here.

Originally published by Costanza Montanari at rome.nd.edu on June 27, 2023.

Symposium Cumanum 2023

2023-06-22T16:41:00-04:00

The ��Vlog is pleased to be a co-sponsor of the Symposium Cumanum 2023, organized by Professors Luca Grillo and Sergio Casali. This year's symposium will explore the diverse ways in which the Roman Republic's experience can shape and transform our understanding of Virgil. The symposium will take place at the Villa Vergiliana, Cuma-Bacoli, Italy from June 27 to July 1.

View the program

Maradona: sport, visual culture, and identity in Naples

2023-06-15T15:26:00-04:00

Emma Ackerley ’23 recently graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a major in anthropology, a supplemental major in global affairs with a concentration in transnational European studies, and a minor in journalism, ethics, and democracy. Over spring break 2023, with support from the Nanovic Institute for European Studies and the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, she traveled to Naples in southern Italy to conduct anthropological research on the visual culture surrounding the global football (soccer) legend Diego Maradona.

To share her story, we compiled a photo essay with many of the examples of this visual culture she documented and used in her research. Ackerley was also recently featured in an article by the College of Arts and Letters describing her incredible journey as a Notre Dame student, including working with five different languages, completing the Globally Engaged Citizens program, working with the Ukrainian Museum-Archives, and more. Both pieces may be accessed through the buttons below.

Maradona: sport, visual culture, and identity in Naples

Maradona è Napoli

Through studying five languages, researching in Italy, and interning at a Ukrainian-American museum, anthropology major discovers the value of taking surprising paths

Originally published by Emma Ackerley at nanovicnavigator.nd.edu on June 15, 2023.

MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships: Call For Expressions of Interest

2023-05-13T16:50:00-04:00

Italian Studies at the University of Notre Dame welcomes expressions of interest from early-career researchers who would like to apply to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Postdoctoral Fellowships. Italian at Notre Dame has enjoyed significant success in this postdoctoral scheme in recent years and is keen to support postdoctoral candidates whose profiles fit the MSCA specifications and whose proposed research speaks to its key research strengths.

Our award-winning faculty are considered leaders in their respective fields. Theodore J. Cachey Jr. (Director of Graduate Studies, Fabiano Collegiate Chair in Italian Studies, and Ravarino Family Director of the ��Vlog and the Devers Program in Dante Studies) researches and teaches Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, history of the Italian language, travel literature, and literature and cartography. Charles L. Leavitt IV (Associate Professor of Italian and Film) researches and teaches modern and contemporary Italian literature, Italian screen studies, fascism and resistance, and the cultural intersections between the Italian and African-American experience. Laura Banella (Assistant Professor of Italian) researches and teaches Dante, Boccaccio, lyric poetry, manuscript studies and history of the book, as well as Renaissance literature.

The University of Notre Dame Department of Romance Languages and Literatures provides unique opportunities for research, in collaboration with the Medieval Institute, the ��Vlog, the Devers Program in Dante Studies, Notre Dame’s Rome Global Gateway and London Global Gateway, and other research centers and institutes at Notre Dame, the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, and the Kellogg Institute for International Studies. The University’s Hesburgh Libraries offer rich and growing collections in all areas of Italian Studies, especially Dante Studies, early modern Italian literature, and modern and contemporary Italian literature and film.

We would welcome proposals of innovative research in several interdisciplinary fields such as medieval and renaissance studies, especially proposals taking advantage of the strong community in terms of research and collaborations provided by the Medieval Institute and its affiliated faculty across the University; the reception and reshaping of intellectual and literary traditions; film history and aesthetics; postcolonial and transnational studies; translation studies.

With the many postdoctoral fellows, postgraduate researchers, and young faculty members across Notre Dame’s Departments and Centers, the environment for early-career researchers is a vibrant and welcoming one.

Strong programmes are in place for mentoring and supporting ECRs, provided by the University, the Nanovic Institute, and the Kaneb Center.

If you are inspired by the prospect of having the University of Notre Dame as your third country partner institution, do not hesitate to write (before July 1, 2023) to:

Laura Banella lbanella@nd.edu

Ted Cachey tcachey@nd.edu

Charles Leavitt cleavitt@nd.edu

Italy Study Abroad Alumni Reunion 2023

2023-04-13T10:57:00-04:00

2023 marks the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Rome Global Gateway. On this important occasion we are inviting all former students who have studied in Italy for at least one semester (fall, spring, or summer) over the last seventy years, for an extraordinary four-day visit to the city. This visit and reunion is inspired by the 2013 Academy Award-winning film La Grande Bellezza - The Great Beauty by Paolo Sorrentino.

The event will take place in Rome from October 15 to October 18, 2023. Registration closes May 31, 2023. Please register here.

Site visits will include the Fontana dell’Acqua Paola, Palazzo Spada, Terrazza Borromini, Aventino and Gianicolo Hill, the Villa del Priorato dei Cavalieri di Malta, Giardino degli Aranci, the Terme di Caracalla, an evening screening at the Festival del Cinema di Roma, St. Peter’s Necropolis and much more. Special locations with stunning views will also host aperitivi and dinners including the final evening’s Gala Dinner.

Prof. Jim Collins, Professor of Film and Television at the University of Notre Dame, will be the leading guide for the tour.

“The University of Notre Dame and its students have a unique relationship with Italy and Rome,” comments Silvia Dall’Olio, Director of the Rome Gateway. “We want to celebrate all those who have cultivated this relationship over the years, shaping it but also being shaped by it. We look forward to doing the honors for your return to The Great Beauty."

This event is targeted to Notre Dame former students who studied abroad in Italy, their spouses and friends. Limited tickets are available.

The following proposed program outlines a series of events that will guide you through your return visit to the Eternal City. For further information please write to: Romereunion2023@nd.edu.

Program Outline

Sunday, 15 October 2023

5 pm - Opening Mass at S. Maria in Domnica, Via della Navicella, 10
6 pm - Welcome reception at the ND Villa, Via Celimontana 23

Monday, 16 October 2023

10 am to 12 pm - Lecture by Prof. Jim Collins at the Rome Gateway
12 pm to 2.30 pm - Free time
2.30 pm to 4.30 pm - Site visit to Gianicolo Hill and Palazzo Spada
5 pm to 6.30 pm - Aperitivo at Terrazza Borromini (transfer from Palazzo Spada provided)

Tuesday, 17 October 2023

10 am to 12 pm - Visit of Aventine Hill, Parco degli Aranci, Villa del Priorato dei Cavalieri di Malta
12.30 pm to 2.30 pm - Lunch at "Il Focolare" in Monteverde (transfer to restaurant provided)
3.00 pm to 5.00 pm - Visit of Terme di Caracalla (transfer from restaurant provided)

Wednesday, 18 October 2023

7.30 am to 10.30 am - Papal Audience at St. Peter's Square
11.30 am to 1.00 pm - Group visits of St. Peter's Necropolis
1.00 pm to 6.00 pm - Free time
6.00 pm - Meet at Rome Global Gateway for transfer to Gala Dinner venue
6.30 pm to 7.30 pm - Welcome drinks
7.30 pm to 10.30 pm - Gala dinner (venue to be announced)

Please note that the proposed program is subject to change and confirmation.

Student in Italian receives University of Notre Dame Library Research Award

2023-04-10T15:00:00-04:00

The ��Vlog is pleased to announce that Notre Dame graduating senior Charles House won the Senior Thesis Prize of the 2023 Hesburgh Library Research Award program for his thesis “Coproducing Fascism: How Italy and Spain’s Cinematic Cooperation Demonstrates International Fascist Values.” Houses’s thesis, a study of Augusto Genina’s 1940 film L’Assedio dell’Alcazar, was directed by Charles Leavitt, Associate Professor of Italian and Film and Associate Director of the ��Vlog.

A Romance Languages major with concentrations in both Italian and Spanish, House won the 2023 Joseph Italo Bosco Award for Excellence in Italian Studies. For his award-winning Senior Thesis, House consulted a wealth of primary resources from both Italy and Spain to produce an innovative study of a significant collaboration between Italian Fascism and Spanish Falangism in the run-up to World War II. “I searched through contemporary scholarship on the relationship between Spain and Italy during the Spanish Civil war while also exploring primary source film magazines in both Spanish and Italian,” says House. “What I discovered was a political and cinematic conversation between the two countries that looked to promote an international fascist ethic. My thesis analyzes how this international fascism is presented both in the film as well as in politics and cinema magazines from the time.”

The 2023 University of Notre Dame Library Research Award competition, sponsored by the Hesburgh Libraries, recognizes excellence in research skills by undergraduates, who use a breadth of library resources and services for their course assignments, research projects and creative endeavors. Charles House says that, “while the task of discovering information on a relatively obscure Italian film from the 1940s seemed daunting, the resources and collections of Hesburgh Libraries helped me to uncover a wealth of information on the intriguing but understudied film from the Wagstaff Collection.”

The Christopher G. Wagstaff Italian Film collection, housed in the Hesburgh Library at the University of Notre Dame, encompasses more than two thousand Italian films and television programs. The collection spans over one hundred years of Italian film history, as well as rare interviews with Italian actors, directors, and scholars, documentaries, movie extras, and commercials.

Of the 2023 Senior Thesis Prize, House says, “I owe a million thanks to the Italian Studies program for giving me the skills to be able to understand and interpret Italian art and culture. Their inspired teaching gave me a love for Italian culture that made working on a project like this a true joy (even when deadlines were approaching quickly). The Hesburgh Library’s staff were also incredibly helpful in getting me the information I needed from among the thousands of books in the library and the millions of entries in online databases. Finally, I must thank Professor Leavitt who showed me L’assedio dell’Alcazar and advised me throughout the process of writing this thesis. Without his countless edits and inputs, my thesis would not have half the quality of the current finished edition.”

In addition to his excellent work in Italian Studies, Charles House participated in varsity Cheerleading for three years and portrayed the Notre Dame Leprechaun for one. In 2023 he was awarded his Notre Dame monogram jacket, as well as the Capt. Jack Samar and Mrs. Sherry Samar Sword for Athletic Excellence. House is a First-Class Midshipmen commissioning as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Marine Corps. After graduation, Charles will report to The Basic School at Headquarters Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia, where he will study to be a provisional rifle platoon commander before selecting his Military Occupational Specialty.

CFP: Laureatus in Urbe VII (Rome, 27-28 June 2023)

2023-04-03T16:11:00-04:00

The University of Roma Tre, in collaboration with the Notre Dame Rome Global Gateway and ��Vlog and Devers Family Program in Dante Studies, is delighted to renew its annual seminar dedicated to Francesco Petrarca. The aim of Laureatus in Urbe has been to create a regular meeting for young scholars of Petrarch: university graduates, Ph.D. candidates, and those who have been post-doctoral fellows for 3 years or less. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss their work with notable experts, who will also guide group discussion of these research presentations. Over the years, Laureatus in Urbe has successfully established itself as a meeting-place and “research laboratory” for young scholars from both Italy and abroad, who have found in the program a unique sounding-board for their research. Past editions of the program have involved nearly one hundred young scholars from around the world; in addition to these participants’ own talks, Laureatus in Urbe has featured lectures by scholars such as Francisco Rico, Theodore Cachey, Philippe Guérin, Marco Ariani, and Bernard Huss. These sections, seminars, and presentations have been enlivened by experts from Italian and foreign universities. The initiative is expected to produce conference proceedings: the first volume, dedicated to the 2017 meeting, was published in 2019; the second in 2021 and the third volume is in preparation. Our seventh meeting will be held in Rome from June 27 to 28, 2023. Several lines of inquiry have been proposed, inspired by the following areas of research:

Petrarch's Latin and Vernacular Works: themes, contexts and style
Relationship with the classics and with the vernacular tradition
Fortune of Petrarch: from Petrarchism to the Twenty-First century
The Language of Petrarch: Latin and vernacular
Petrarch and History
Petrarchan Philology
Petrarch and Philosophy
Petrarch and Other Media
Petrarch's Latin Works
Petrarch's Biography and Historical Context

Johannes Bartuschat and Loredana Chines will give lectures during the 2023 Seminar.

Proposal submissions

Paper proposals, accompanied by a title, an abstract (max 500 characters) and a short bio-bibliographical profile (max 500 characters), should be sent to paolo.rigo@uniroma3.it by April 30, 2023. Materials should be sent together in a single word doc file, entitled “Cfp_LiU2023_Surname”; please send emails with the subject heading: “CFP Laureatus in Urbe.”

Participation in the seminar is free. The organization will not offer reimbursements for travel expenses or accommodations, though some forms of refreshment will be provided. The event is expected to result in conference proceedings, after review of submissions. The proposals will be subject to evaluation by the scholarly committee, consisting of:

Marco Ariani (Roma Tre), Rossend Arques Corominas (UAB), Johannes Bartuschat (Zurigo), Theodore J. Cachey Jr. (Notre Dame), Marco Cursi (Napoli), Sabrina Ferrara (Tours), Enrico Fenzi (Genova), Maurizio Fiorilla (Roma Tre), Philippe Guérin (Sorbonne Nouvelle), Bernhard Huss (Freie-Berlino), Luca Marcozzi (Roma Tre, coordinatore del Comitato scientifico), Daniele Piccini (Stranieri di Perugia), Carlo Pulsoni (Perugia), Francisco Rico (UAB), Paolo Rigo (Roma Tre, Responsabile organizzativo), Luca Carlo Rossi (Bergamo), Jiří Špička (Olomouc) Sabrina Stroppa (Stranieri di Perugia), Franco Suitner (Roma Tre), Natascia Tonelli (Siena), Eduard Vilella Morato (UAB).

Secretary: Chiara Abaterusso, Silvia Argurio, Giulia Maria Cipriani, Riccardo Deiana, Rita di Pasquale, Giulia Lanciotti, Valentina Manca, Carlotta Mazzoncini, Valentina Rovere, Priscilla Santoro, Chiara Sbordoni, Nicole Volta.

Now accepting applications for a post-doctoral fellowship in Italian (Dante Studies)

2023-03-13T18:23:00-04:00

The Devers Program in Dante Studies of the University of Notre Dame invites applications for one Postdoctoral Research Fellowship to be held from September 2023 for up to thirty-six months (2 years + 1 year renewable) to help in setting up and doing preparatory research for a major research project on the Canon of Dante’s Works, 1300–1600, under the leadership of Professors Laura Banella and Ted Cachey. The successful candidate will be primarily based at the University of Notre Dame Gateway in Rome (with the possibility of certain periods on the home campus in the U.S.), and will have close ties with the Gateway Director Dr. Silvia Dall’Olio, and with Dr. Chiara Sbordoni, Italian Studies Faculty in the Gateway.

The research project aims to investigate the canon of Dante’s works, focusing specifically on the processes through which the canon was constructed between 1300 and 1600. The research will focus on the ways in which individual works have been attributed to Dante or not, on how Dante’s works have been organized, exploring the influence of canon formation on the interpretation and reception of Dante’s oeuvre over the centuries.

Applicants will be expected to have obtained or expect shortly to obtain a PhD with specialization in an aspect of Dante and Italian Studies or field relevant to the project. As well as expertise in Dante studies, native or near-native competency in English and in Italian is essential.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

1. To conduct research as directed by the project’s leadership team.

2. To assist in the conceptualization of ideas and applications of the research.

3. To assist in the organization and staging of lectures, colloquia, and public engagement activities in collaboration with colleagues in the Rome Gateway.

4. To contribute to workshops, international conferences, and public engagement activities on the subject of the project.

5. To assist in establishing and developing contacts with individuals and institutions with an interest in the project’s central research questions.

6. To assist in planning for and developing written outcomes for the research.

7. To write several articles (the precise number to be established in consultation with the project leaders) based on research arising from the project.

8. To contribute to the editing of conference proceedings, to write chapters for these proceedings and/or journal special issue, website, and database.

9. To teach in years two and three of the project according to need and opportunity.

10. To carry out any other duties appropriate to the role and level.

Apart from when on academic visits, the fellow will be expected normally to work in the University of Notre Dame Rome Gateway. The precise scope of the above duties will be agreed in consultation with the project leadership team.

Information about Italian at Notre Dame and about the Rome Gateway can be found here.

To apply for the position, please submit the following to Interfolio: a standard letter of application which addresses how the experience and previous research of the candidate are appropriate for the project, together with a CV.

Salary: TBD

Informal enquiries may be made to Professor Laura Banella and to Professor Ted Cachey.

Closing date 15 April 2023

����Vlog | News

ND Learning Collaborates with Professor Boccuti for Italian VR Experience

New Raclin Murphy Museum of Art opens Dec. 1

Introducing Katie Sparrow, post-doctoral fellow in Rome

Columbus Murals Unveiled for Educational Purposes

Charles Leavitt receives 2022 Italian Studies Article Prize for Outstanding Work on Holocaust Drama

Applications open for 2024 Rome Summer Program

Qualifications

Application Instructions

“Dante Now!” Returns to Campus

Early 70s Italian Cinema

The Rome Global Gateway launches the Rome Summer Seminars on Religion and Global Politics

In Memoriam: Remembering Tiziana Serafini, Esteemed Colleague and Educator

Vittorio Montemaggi named academic director of the London Global Gateway

Beltrami Bicentennial honors 200 years with stories of Italian explorer's life and journeys

RGG Research fellow studies civic feminist Virginia Salvi in Rome and Venice

Symposium Cumanum 2023

Maradona: sport, visual culture, and identity in Naples

Maradona: sport, visual culture, and identity in Naples

Through studying five languages, researching in Italy, and interning at a Ukrainian-American museum, anthropology major discovers the value of taking surprising paths

MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships: Call For Expressions of Interest

Italy Study Abroad Alumni Reunion 2023

The event will take place in Rome from October 15 to October 18, 2023. Registration closes May 31, 2023. Please register here.

Program Outline

Student in Italian receives University of Notre Dame Library Research Award

CFP: Laureatus in Urbe VII (Rome, 27-28 June 2023)

Now accepting applications for a post-doctoral fellowship in Italian (Dante Studies)

��Vlog | News