Guy P. Raffa

Danteworlds Web Site

A multimedia journey--combining textual commentary, artistic images, and audio recordings--through the three realms (Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise) of Dante's Divine Comedy. This site contains, in addition to an abridged version of the original commentary in The Complete Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the Divine Comedy and Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the Inferno, Italian recordings of selected verses and a vast gallery of images depicting characters and scenes from the Divine Comedy. Like the books, the Danteworlds Web site is structured around a geographic representation of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise--the three worlds of Dante's Divine Comedy.

Danteworlds is "an invaluable resource for specialists and novices alike," writes E. S. Hierl (Harvard University) in Choice Reviews Online, "the sort of multimedia experience that those in the digital humanities strive for" (August, 2010). The subject of an interview on the home page of the University of Texas at Austin, Danteworlds was selected for inclusion on EDSITEment in 2008 as "one of the best online resources for education in the humanities," and was featured in the literary blogs of the New Yorker (Jan. 8, 2009) and the Los Angeles Times (Jan. 14, 2009).

Teaching and Research Areas

• Medieval Italian literature, with emphasis on Dante


• Literature and the history and philosophy of science

Recent Awards and Fellowships

• National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (6/1/12 to 12/31/12)


• American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship (9/1/11 to 5/31/12)


• University of Texas Faculty Research Assignment (2011-12)


• University of Texas Humanities Research Award (2009-12)


• Raymond Dickson Centennial Endowed Teaching Fellowship (2009)


• University of Texas Dean's Fellowship (2008)


• Teaching with Technology Gold Award for Danteworlds: Purgatory and Paradise (2007)


• Teaching with Technology Silver Award for Danteworlds: Inferno (2003)


• University of Texas Faculty Research Assignment (2003)


• President's Associates Teaching Excellence Award (2002)