SXU professor to attend National Endowment for Humanities Summer Seminar in Italy

Jason Aleksander, Ph.D., will study Dante’s Divine Comedy during four-week seminar

Chicago (June 11, 2009) Saint Xavier University Assistant Professor of Philosophy Jason Aleksander, Ph.D, has been invited to participate in a National Endowment for Humanities Summer Seminar in Prato, Italy.

The four-week seminar, “Dante’s Divine Comedy and the Medieval World: Literature, History, Art,” will be held at Monash University Centre. The seminar will use interdisciplinary approaches to study and interpret Dante’s work. Aleksander and the 14 other scholars in attendance will read the Divine Comedy in both English and Italian.

Additionally, the group will visit nearby cities to take advantage of the area’s remarkable literary, historical and artistic resources, including Florence, Pisa and Ravenna.

Aleksander will teach two pilot courses about the Divine Comedy for the General Education program’s Level III interdisciplinary studies requirement during the next two years at Saint Xavier.

“The more I’m able reach out to colleagues both here and at other universities, especially in the fields of literature, religious studies, history and art history, the more successful Saint Xavier’s course will be and the better it will be as a model for future interdisciplinary courses,” Aleksander said.

The NEH Summer Seminar is offered by the National Endowment for the Humanities to provide college and university faculty members and independent scholars with an opportunity to enrich their understanding of significant humanities ideas, texts and topics.

-SXU-