Spring 2013
Around the Quads
Barolini, Lansing Win MLA Award
Tedolinda Barolini ’78 GSAS, the Lorenzo Da Ponte Professor of Italian and chair of the Department of Italian, and Richard Lansing ’65, professor of Italian studies and comparative literature at Brandeis, received the Modern Language Association of America’s (MLA) 15th annual Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Publication Award for a Manuscript in Italian Literary Studies for their work, “Dante’s Lyrics: Poems of Youth and the Vita Nuova.” The award is one of 15 that was presented during the association’s annual convention in January.
Barolini is the author of Dante’s Poets: Textuality and Truth in the ‘Comedy’, which received the MLA’s Howard R. Marraro Prize and the Medieval Academy of America’s John Nicholas Brown Prize; The Undivine Comedy: Detheologizing Dante; and Dante and the Origins of Italian Literary Culture, which won the Premio Flaiano di Italianistica. She is the editor of Dante’s Rime giovanili e della ‘Vita Nuova’ and is working on the second volume of her commentary to Dante’s lyric poems for the Biblioteca Universale Rizzoli.
Lansing earned an M.A. and a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and is the editor of The Dante Encyclopedia (a Choice Outstanding Book for 2000) and Dante: The Critical Complex; the associate editor of Medieval Italy: An Encyclopedia; and author of From Image to Idea: A Study of the Simile in Dante’s Commedia.
The MLA and its 30,000 members in 100 countries work to strengthen the study and teaching of languages and literature. Founded in 1883, the MLA provides opportunities for its members to share their scholarly findings and teaching experiences with colleagues and to discuss trends in the academy.