Beth Coggeshall
Contact Information
Wednesday 2-4pm via Zoom
Assistant Professor, Italian
Faculty Adviser, Italian Club
Faculty Adviser, Gamma Kappa Alpha Honor Society
Coordinator, Medieval Studies Workshop
Beth Coggeshall (PhD, Stanford University) specializes in the literature and culture of medieval Italy, with a particular focus on Dante. Her research centers on the intersections of literature, ethics, and cultural identity; medievalism and popular culture; and the transmedia reception of Dante’s works across contemporary global cultures. Her book On Amistà: Negotiating Friendship in Dante’s Italy is forthcoming from the University of Toronto Press. In her book, she argues that the disputes over the nature and uses of amistà (friendship) in medieval Italian literary culture pave the way for the wholesale recuperation of friendship in its many forms among the early humanists. In addition to this research, she is also the co-editor (with Arielle Saiber, Bowdoin College) of the website Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante’s Works in Contemporary Culture, a curated, crowd-sourced digital archive that showcases Dante’s sustained presence in contemporary culture. She was part of the inaugural class of faculty fellows in FSU’s Demos Institute for Data Humanities, 2019-2020. She was honored to receive a University Teaching Award for undergraduate teaching in 2019 and the Undergraduate Research Mentor Award in 2020. Beth currently serves as the Vice President of the Dante Society of America (2021-2023). In addition to her work on the DSA Council, she also serves on the Education and Outreach Committee and is part of the DSA’s Dante Speakers Bureau.
Research Interests
13th and 14th Century Italian Literature, History, and Culture
The tre corone (Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch)
Reception Studies
Digital Humanities
Courses Taught
Dante’s Inferno (Ethics; in English)
La Commedia di Dante (in Italian)
Trecento Writers (in Italian)
Survey of Italian Literature, from the Origins to the 18th Century (in Italian)
Advanced Grammar and Composition (in Italian)
Digital Projects
Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante’s Works in Contemporary Culture. Ed. with Arielle Saiber. Online since 2006.
Selected Publications
Books and Edited Collections
- On Amistà: Negotiating Friendship in Dante’s Italy. Available for pre-order at University of Toronto Press.
- Missiles for the Future: Dante and DH. Ed. with Akash Kumar. Bibliotheca Dantesca: Journal of Dante Studies, vol. 5 (December 2022).
Articles and Book Chapters
- “The Hell Franchise: Dante’s Commedia in American Marketing.” In Dante Alive: Essays on a Cultural Icon. Eds. Francesco Ciabattoni and Simone Marchesi (Routledge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture, 2023) Pp. 195-212.
- “Discussing the Divine Comedy with Dante: Crowdsourcing and Transcultural Heritage.” Bibliotheca Dantesca 5 (December 2022): 253-272. Available for free download here.
- “Jousting with Verse: The Poetics of Friendship in Duecento Comuni.” Italian Culture 80.2 (2020): 99-118. Available for free download here.
- “Dante oggi. L’Inferno diffondibile.” Italianistica. Rivista di letteratura italiana 49.2 (May/August 2020): 73-88.
- “Dante’s Afterlife in Popular Culture.” In Approaches to Teaching Dante’s Divine Comedy, 2nd edition. Eds. Christopher Kleinhenz and Kristina Olson. MLA Approaches to Teaching World Literature Series, New York: Modern Language Association, 2020. Pp. 185-191.
- “Dealing with Dante’s Audacity: Borges’s ‘Aleph’ and the Mystical Imperative.” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 24.2 (Fall 2017): 103-114.
Public Writing and Media
- “Bad Apples and Sour Trees: Dante on Systemic Injustice, Rage, and Reform.” The Sundial (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies): September 15, 2020.
- “Dante Today.” Podcast with Matthew Treherne and Arielle Saiber. Leeds Dante Podcast. Centre for Dante Studies, University of Leeds (UK).
- “Purgatorio 16: The Poem’s Moral Center.” Podcast with Deborah Parker. Canto per Canto: Conversations with Dante in Our Time. Dante Society of America.