Professor Rebecca Messbarger Interviewed by CNN: Here's how Italians 'quaranteamed' 700 years ago
How was social distance observed (if at all) during previous pandemics? Turns out there's quite a precedent not just for staying away for your neighbors, but also for the idea of "quaranteaming" you might have heard about. CNN talked to Rebecca Messbarger, a professor of Italian and founding director of the Medical Humanities program at Washington University in St. Louis about social distancing from the Black Plague until now. The parts about the different ways people deal with distance still ring true.
RLL Alumnus Gonzalo Aguiar earns prestigious NEH fellowship
RLL alumnus Gonzalo Aguiar of SUNY Oswego’s department of modern languages and literatures has earned a prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Scholar Fellowship for his book project,"Tropes of Violent Inequality: Brazilian Crime Fiction in a Post-Neoliberal Age."
Professor Ignacio Infante Publishes a Translation of Vicente Huidobro's Temblor del cielo
Please join the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures in congratulating Professor Ignacio Infante on the publication of his new book, a groundbreaking translation of Vicente Huidobro’s Temblor del cielo, available now.
Professor Michael Sherberg Offers Some Coronavirus Lessons From Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio’s masterpiece, the “Decameron,” is set on the outskirts of Florence in 1348. His protagonists have retreated to the countryside in the wake of the Black Death, which is decimating their city both mortally and socially. The book offers important lessons as we confront the global threat of Coronavirus.
Professor Rebecca Messbarger Explains What A 14th-Century Italian Novel Teaches Us About Social Distancing
When a plague swept 14th-century Florence, killing more than half the city’s population, wealthy Italians turned to social distancing. One small group’s retreat from a stricken city to a deserted villa became the backdrop for the classic novel “The Decameron.” That novel is just one of the texts Rebecca Messbarger teaches in her Disease, Madness and Death Italian Style course at Washington University. But it has sudden resonance, she says — and relevance she never anticipated when she began teaching it a year ago.
Academe’s Shameful Neglect of Spanish, By Professor Ignacio Sánchez Prado
Researchers and students engaging with the U.S.’s second-largest language are ignored in our universities — and in ‘The Chronicle’
Changing Narratives: WU Professor Ignacio Sánchez Prado Named Library of Congress Kluge Chair
Sitting down in his office lined with thousands of books and a new Keurig, Professor Ignacio Sánchez Prado, who teaches Mexican cinema, literature and culture at Washington University, divulged his life’s story, his work over the years which culminated in his appointment to the Kluge Chair at the Library of Congress.
Prof. Rebecca Messbarger's New Course Explores Seven Centuries of Dealing With Death in Italy
In her course “Disease, Madness, and Death Italian Style,” Rebecca Messbarger, professor of ltalian and founding director of the Medical Humanities Program at Washington University, takes students through seven centuries of Italian culture, beginning with The Decameron and the plague of 1348.
Jarvis Thurston and Mona Van Duyn Professor in the Humanities Ignacio Sánchez Prado responds to 'American Dirt' in Washington Post article
‘American Dirt’ gets Mexico very wrong. It’s the latest in a long trend.
A War With Words: How Spain’s Women Lobbied Against Slavery in Cuba
Interview with Faculty Fellow Akiko Tsuchiya
Professor Harriet Stone publishes new book, Crowning Glories: Netherlandish Realism and the French Imagination during the Reign of Louis XIV
Please join us in congratulating Professor of French Harriet Stone on the publication of her new book, Crowning Glories: Netherlandish Realism and the French Imagination during the Reign of Louis XIV.