Georgetown Takes Dante Online

October 6, 2014—Associate Professor of Philosophy Frank Ambrosio is bringing his course on Dante’s Inferno to the online platform GeorgetownX, part of edX. The Divine Comedy: Dante’s Journey to Freedom, Part 1 starts October 15, 2014. Two four-week modules will follow—Part 2 (Purgatorio) beginning on February 4, 2015, and Part 3 (Paradiso) on April 8, 2015.

The course will be taught using MyDante, a custom-designed online environment developed by the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship, which was created long before Ambrosio decided to turn his course into a MOOC.

“Having MyDante already in place has given us the opportunity to design a MOOC that was closer to the experience one has when reading a great literary text, which is both personal and communal, and which is full of pleasure and enjoyment while still speaking to our most personal and enduring concerns,” Ambrosio said. “MyDante is beautiful to look at and fun to interact with, but it always puts the technology in a supporting role to the main focus on reading in a genuinely contemplative way, the way all literature is meant to be read.”

Related Information

Learn more about GeorgetownX and online courses such as The Divine Comedy: Dante’s Journey to Freedom.