Dante Among Theologians

Experience the Event

Presented by de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture

Step into the celestial rose of the “Dante Among Theologians” project, an international collaboration that invites you to rediscover the poet’s vision not merely as verse, but as a living source of spiritual wisdom and theological insight. This session from the de Nicola Center’s 2024 Fall Conference on the Catholic Imagination introduces the “Dante Among Theologians” initiative.

“Dante Among Theologians” brings diverse approaches to Dante’s works into conversation with the goal of examining the theological dimensions of the poet’s work in relation to its historical contexts and its reception across time.

The project seeks to integrate disparate disciplines through three primary research strands:

• Dante Among Contemporaries: Situating the poet alongside medieval giants like Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Bernard of Clairvaux.
• Theological Reception: Analyzing 700 years of how theologians—from Scholastics to modern popes—have interpreted his work.
• The Poet-Theologian: Examining Dante as a figure whose theology is inseparable from his poetics.

This cross-institutional collaboration overcomes the fragmentation of modern academia. By uniting historians, theologians, and literary scholars in a common project, “Dante Among Theologians” recreates a vibrant interdisciplinary space that reflects the holistic nature of the poet’s own worldview.

The “Dante Among Theologians” project is led by the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture and the Devers Program in Dante Studies, operating under the aegis of the Notre Dame Global Catholic Research Initiative.

Meet the Speaker: George Corbett

George Corbett is Professor of Theology at the School of Divinity, University of St Andrews. Prior to joining the School of Divinity in 2015, he held positions as Junior Research Fellow in Philosophy, Trinity College, and Affiliated Lecturer, University of Cambridge, where he taught English literature, Italian literature, and theology. He received his BA (double first), MPhil (distinction), and PhD (AHRC-funded) from the University of Cambridge. He also studied in Pisa (as an Erasmus-Socrates exchange scholar at La Scuola Normale Superiore), Rome (Institutum Pontificium Alterioris Latinitatis), and Montella (Vivarium Novum). 

Meet the Speaker: Vittorio Montemaggi

Vittorio Montemaggi is the academic director of Notre Dame London, responsible for leading the academic team, shaping the academic vision, and advancing the University’s mission of education and research in the UK. Vittorio oversees Notre Dame London’s academic programs, as well as its academic partnerships and collaborations with institutions in the UK.

In addition to his role at Notre Dame London, Vittorio serves as director of the Von Hügel Institute for Critical Catholic Inquiry of St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge. He previously served as a faculty member at Notre Dame from 2009 to 2017 and most recently as reader in religion, literature, and the arts at King’s College London.

Vittorio’s primary academic expertise is in the relationship between literature and theology, and in the significance of the arts for humanity’s exploration of divinity. His research focuses primarily on Dante and Primo Levi, and his comparative interests also entail exploration of works of authors as different as Saint Gregory the Great, Duccio di Buoninsegna, Saint Catherine of Siena, Shakespeare, Mozart and Roberto Benigni.

Vittorio grew up in Italy, and to this day its art and culture are primary points of reference and inspiration, especially as enshrined in Siena and its contrade. In his free time, Vittorio enjoys listening to classical music and spending time with family and friends. He and his wife enjoy traveling and exploring the English coast and countryside, especially in Norfolk and Suffolk.

Meet the Moderator: Jennifer Newsome Martin '07 M.T.S, '12 Ph.D.

Jennifer Newsome Martin ’07 M.T.S., ’12 Ph.D. is a systematic theologian with areas of interest in 19th and 20th century Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox thought, trinitarian theology, theological aesthetics, religion and literature, French feminism, ressourcement theology, and the nature of religious tradition. Her first book, Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Critical Appropriation of Russian Religious Thought (University of Notre Dame Press, 2015), was one of ten winners internationally of the 2017 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise. She is co-editor of An Apocalypse of Love:  Essays in Honor of Cyril O’ Regan (Herder & Herder, 2018) and the second edition of the forthcoming Blackwell Companion to Catholicism. Over twenty articles and book chapters have appeared in such venues as Modern Theology, Communio: International Catholic Review, The Newman Studies Journal, International Journal of Systematic Theology, and in a number of edited volumes and collections of essays. She serves on the editorial board of Religion & Literature and the University of Notre Dame Press, as well as steering committees of the Hans Urs von Balthasar Consultation of the Catholic Theological Society of America and the Christian Systematic Theology Unit in the American Academy of Religion.