Beth Coggeshall
Contact Information
Thursdays 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., Calvin's Coffee House
@UKirk
About
On Leave, AY 2025-2026
Beth Coggeshall (Ph.D., Stanford University) specializes in the literature and culture of medieval Italy, with a particular focus on Dante. Her research centers on the intersections of literature, ethics, and cultural identity; medievalism and popular culture; and the transmedia reception of Dante’s works across contemporary global cultures.
Her book "On Amistà: Negotiating Friendship in Dante’s Italy" was published by the University of Toronto Press in 2023. In her book, she argues that the disputes over the nature and uses of amistà (friendship) in medieval Italian literary culture pave the way for the wholesale recuperation of friendship in its many forms among the early humanists. She has discussed the book in more detail on two podcasts: "The History of Literature" and the "New Books Network."
In addition to this research, she is also the co-editor (with Arielle Saiber, Johns Hopkins University) of the website "Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante’s Works in Contemporary Culture," a curated, crowd-sourced digital archive that showcases Dante’s sustained presence in contemporary culture. To further this research, she was part of the inaugural class of faculty fellows in FSU’s Demos Institute for Data Humanities, 2019-2020, and has participated in the FSU Libraries PEN and Inc program.
She has been honored to receive awards for excellence in teaching from the Southeastern Medieval Association (2023) and the FSU Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa (2024), as well as a University Teaching Award for undergraduate teaching (2019) and the Undergraduate Research Mentor Award (2020). Beth currently serves as the director of education and outreach of the Dante Society of America (2023-present), through which she helps to administer the DSA’s Dante Speakers Bureau.
13th and 14th century Italian literature, history, culture
The tre corone (Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarch)
Reception and adaptation studies
Digital humanities
Books and Edited Collections
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On Amistà: Negotiating Friendship in Dante’s Italy. University of Toronto Press, 2023.
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Missiles for the Future: Dante and DH. Ed. with Akash Kumar. Bibliotheca Dantesca: Journal of Dante Studies, vol. 5 (December 2022). Access the introduction here.
Articles and Book Chapters
- “‘Inna wi own Jama tongue’: Lorna Goodison’s Tradaptation of Dante’s Inferno.” Dante Studies 143 (forthcoming).
- “A Transmedia Commedia: The View from Dante Today.” Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies 13.4 (October 2025): 465-470.
- With Arielle Saiber. “Building and Maintaining the Crowdsourced Archive Dante Today.” Limina: Intorno al testo 1 (June 2025): 83-95.
- “‘Into the City of Deep Downpression’: Lorna Goodison’s Tradaptation of Dante’s Inferno.” Praisesongs for Lorna Goodison, edited by Kelly Baker Josephs. SX Salon 49 (June 2025).
- “Resonant Texts in Noisy Spaces: Approaching the ‘Publics’ of the Public Humanities.” Section on Public Humanities, edited by Araceli Hernandez-Laroche, Roopika Risam, and Brian Yothers. PMLA 140.1 (January 2025): 145-153.
- “The Hell Franchise: Dante’s Commedia in American Marketing.” In Dante Alive: Essays on a Cultural Icon. Eds. Francesco Ciabattoni and Simone Marchesi (Routledge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture, 2023) Pp. 195-212.
- “Discussing the Divine Comedy with Dante: Crowdsourcing and Transcultural Heritage.” Bibliotheca Dantesca 5 (December 2022): 253-272.
- “Jousting with Verse: The Poetics of Friendship in Duecento Comuni.” Italian Culture 80.2 (2020): 99-118.
- “Dante oggi. L’Inferno diffondibile.” Italianistica. Rivista di letteratura italiana 49.2 (May/August 2020): 73-88.
Public Writing and Media
- “Bad Apples and Sour Trees: Dante on Systemic Injustice, Rage, and Reform.” The Sundial (Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies): September 15, 2020.
- “Dante Today.” Podcast with Matthew Treherne and Arielle Saiber. Leeds Dante Podcast. Centre for Dante Studies, University of Leeds (UK).
- “Purgatorio 16: The Poem’s Moral Center.” Podcast with Deborah Parker. Canto per Canto: Conversations with Dante in Our Time. Dante Society of America.
Literature and the World: An Invitation to Reading Across Modern Languages
Dante’s Inferno
La Commedia di Dante
A New Normal? Boccaccio’s Decameron and the Post-Pandemic World
Trecento Writers
Survey of Italian Literature, from the Origins to the 18th Century
Italian Grammar and Composition (intermediate and advanced)
Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante’s Works in Contemporary Culture. Ed. with Arielle Saiber. Online since 2006.
