Why the Divine Comedy?  The world behind the world of the Divine Comedy, 16^th century Italy, is a lot like our own.  But, the religious worldview is something so foreign that it is incomprehensible. The goal of the lessons on the Divine Comedy is to help students to understand and to critique received beliefs about the afterlife, so that they can intelligently integrate what is actually known about the afterlife into their religious worldview today.

I hope to help students to develop their respectful mind by helping them to see how an idea that takes shape in one historical period, in one culture, can affect what we think and what we believe today.  So, rather than be tempted to ignore what Dante has to teach us about the nature of good and evil, which is couched in the language and thought forms of his era, they might retrieve and make practical use of the wisdom of a former age.

The Divine Comedy is a study in morality and ethics.  In the Inferno, Dante teaches us how to recognize evil in all its grotesquerie; in the Purgatorio, how to atone for it; and in the Paradiso, the goal of human striving.  Human beings, whether religious or not, often delude ourselves about the quality of our actions.  Dante allows us to suffer none of our own best illusions about evil, or about good.  These are lessons that all might benefit from today as we attempt to lead ethical lives.

The padlet “wall” contains (almost) all of the resources that I would use to teach Dante, The Divine Comedy.  I included links to introductory lectures, online texts in the original Tuscan and several English translations, various maps, and the iconic art of Dore. There is also an audio file of the nine most famous lines of the Inferno, i.e., Canto III, Lines 1-9, Abandon all hope . . . , and a <.pdf> that introduces students to the metaphysics of good and evil.

I used padlet because it has a lot of bang for the buck. It is very simple to use.  Just double-click, type, and use the command ribbon to create --- in this case --- an archive.  Ours includes uploaded texts, audio files, and links to online resources.  Padlet also has a webcam feature, but I am not sure why a selfie might be useful.  Padlet also provides exceptional technical support.  The only thing I found that I could not do was to embed a padlet within a padlet.  You have to settle for a link.

My students are currently using the padlet as personal and group archives for a research project.  Their final deliverable will be a completed padlet archive, bibliography, and link to a multimedia presentation.  The padlet will help them to put it all together in one place.

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