You are cordially invited to a talk by Prof. Oriol Ponsatí-Murlà, Josep Pla Visiting Professor in Catalan Studies at the Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures, titled "Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Bernat Metge Knocking on Hell’s Door: Why the Souls of the Suicides Keep Moving", which will take place on Thursday, October 16, 2025, at Pigott Hall (Bldg. 260), Room 252, from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM.

This talk explores how four major descents to the underworld—the Odyssey, the Aeneid, the Divine Comedy, and Lo Somni—reimagine the place of those who die by suicide. From Homer’s Hades to Virgil’s threshold of shadows, Dante’s forest of the self-destructive and Bernat Metge’s restless afterlife, the location of the suicides is never fixed. Why do these souls keep moving? What does their instability reveal about ancient and medieval understandings of agency, guilt, and redemption? By tracing these shifting representations across Greek, Latin, Italian, and Catalan texts, the lecture shows how the geography of the underworld becomes a space for negotiating moral ambiguity and the boundaries of divine justice.

Please RSVP if you are planning to join us. We look forward to seeing you there!