“In a statement earlier this week, the human rights group Gherush92 condemned Dante’s Divine Comedy as ‘offensive and discriminatory’, and called for it to be removed from the Italian school curriculum. According to the organisation’s president, Valentina Sereni, Dante’s masterpiece is replete with racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, and homophobic sentiments which have no place in the modern classroom.

“Insofar as we are concerned with the use of literary texts in schools, this understanding of the relationship between the author’s intentional meaning and the reaction of the reader (student) suggests that works of literature should be studied principally as an adjunct to the cultivation and reinforcement of contemporary political and aesthetic views.”    — Alexander Lee, “Defending Dante”, Project Syndicate, March 17, 2012