Italy and the Middle Ages – March 26, 2019 from 7:00pm to 9:00pm

This presentation will be given by Christina McGrath, a PhD candidate in Italian and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where she also teaches Italian. Boccaccio’s Decameron, set in Florence during the devastation of the Black Death, is a text whose humor and insight have inspired readers since its completion in 1353. A text of enormous cultural import, the Decameron has much to teach us about the Middle Ages, Italian identity, and the development of the modern novel. Most significantly, it is deeply relatable even today: we as readers can see our own joys and struggles in the lives of Boccaccio’s characters.