Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture
“For those PR professionals not involved in the candy, safety, party, and costume industries, what does Halloween mean for them? With everyone thinking of the underworld, it made me think about the venial and mortal sins that some PR professionals may commit as part of their daily practice of PR. In his Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri wrote of the Nine Circles of Hell. That caused me to wonder – what are the nine circles of PR Hell?” — Mark W. McClennan, PRSA Boston, October 31, 2014
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A death and violence, deceit and fraud, cab-driving, police-chasing translation of Dante’s Inferno.
“Set in the hellish world of cab-driving in Los Angeles in the year 2000, Taxi Inferno is an idiomatic interpretation/translation and transposition of Inferno. In place of Dante walking through hell with Virgil as the guide, the author is driving a cab in LA with Charles Bukowski. The narrative is shot through with the feel of dim and smoky death and the thrall of disgust that impels one on, as is Dante’s.
“Taxi Inferno is written as a mirror image of Inferno. Virgil becomes less competent the deeper into hell they go; Bukowski becomes more so, and even heroic in his guidance. Each location in Los Angeles compares with one of the circles of hell, corresponding to Dante’s description of the terrain and its punishments.” —Amazon.com
Contributed by Wallace Zane
Czech dance company 420PEOPLE has created a piece entitled “Inferno – Variations on Dante“, which premiered on September 30th, 2014. The performance is described on the 420PEOPLE website as
“A tragicomic parable on a human fight with sorrow, boredom and laziness that sneak into our lives with middle age. Inferno is not a place, it is a state of soul.”
Contributed by Michele Torresani
The Savannah College of Art and Design’s museum featured an exhibit called “The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists” which ran from October 16, 2014 to January 25, 2015.
“SCAD presents the U.S. premiere of ‘The Divine Comedy: Heaven, Purgatory and Hell Revisited by Contemporary African Artists.’ Curated by the internationally acclaimed Simon Njami, this monumental exhibition explores the thematic sequences of Dante Alighieri’s epic poem through works by more than 40 contemporary artists from 19 African countries as well as the African diaspora. [. . .]
“Through a variety of media, this exhibition demonstrates how concepts visited in Dante’s poem transcend Western traditions and resonate with diverse contemporary cultures, belief systems and political issues. Overall, the exhibition provides a probing examination of life, death and the continued power of art to express the unspoken and intangible.” —SCAD Museum of Art
The exhibition was later featured at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, running from April 8 to August 2, 2015. The large exhibition was on display in the entrance pavilion, stairwells, and all three floors of the museum. See the National Museum of African Art’s exhibition page here, and Elena Goukassian’s review in the Washington Post here (April 16, 2015).
Italian artist Davide Bedoni creates images of fine art as if sponsored by Nike.
“The Ghosts of Paolo and Francesca Appear to Dante and Virgil” by Ary Scheffer (1835): 
“Dante and Virgil in Hell” by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1850): 
Click here to view the images on tumblr.
All submissions will be considered for posting. Bibliographic references and scholarly essays are also welcome for consideration.
Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante’s Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.
