Dear Colleagues,
Due to the new University policies and guidelines that have emerged in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Center for Italian Studies is cancelling all public events between now and April 13, as well as several others which involve scholars from the US, Italy, and across Europe who have been affected by the current global health crisis.
Cancellations include the research seminars of Roberto Dainotto on March 26 and Massimo Riva on April 23 and the Ravarino Lecture by William Caferro on April 2. Since programming is already in place for Fall 2020 and for the Dante Centenary in 2021, we will try to reschedule these events for Spring 2022.
The conference on Dante's Inferno, organized in collaboration with the Institut für Italianistik of the University of Basel and scheduled for March 10-13, has been postponed until September 2020, and the workshop on Dante's Purgatorio, scheduled to be held in Rome on May 21-22, has been cancelled.
We are tentatively moving forward with OVI videoconference seminars. Due to the massive disruptions to everyday life that are currently underway in Italy, the seminar by Giulio Vaccaro, originally scheduled for March 25, has been moved to April 29. Seminars will resume on April 8 with Irene Falini, but due to the University's decision to move all courses to online instruction, campus participants will need to connect individually via Zoom. More details will be provided soon. Please contact Demetrio Yocum with any questions.
The "Set to Music" conference and the Italian Community Concert, "Mediterranean Sì," scheduled to be held on April 24 and 25, have both been postponed to Fall 2020. The organizers will share more information on rescheduling at a later date.
With regard to the Center's funding of travel to and research in Italy, we have suspended consideration of applications for the remainder of the academic year. We will announce any updates to this policy as soon as the global situation changes. Please contact italianstudies@nd.edu with any questions.
We will continue to follow the lead of the University's administration in our response to the current global health crisis.
Sincerely,
David G. Lummus
Assistant Director, Center for Italian Studies