About Events

The ICI Berlin is an independent, non-profit research centre. To accompany its ongoing research, it organizes public events on a wide range of topics and in different formats including lectures, performances, conferences, art events, and readings. It welcomes diverse audiences living in or passing through Berlin.

The ICI Core Project draws input from and is reflected in an accompanying lecture series. Other conferences and symposia represent collaborative initiatives of fellows and staff. Many more events are the product of cooperations with partner institutions and other research projects.

Indications for Visitors

All events are open to the public and are usually free of charge. For semi-public workshops prior registration might be requested. Reservations are not possible, the ICI Berlin asks for your understanding that doors will close if the room gets overcrowded. The Institute’s facilities are wheelchair-friendly but their navigation might require some assistance; please contact Event Management ahead of your visit.

ICI events are frequently recorded and made available within the ICI Edition later on; the audience’s consent is presumed; individual recordings are not allowed. Video documentation not available on the ICI website might be part of ICI Library holdings and can be found through its catalogue.

Lecture Series

Parallel to its ongoing research colloquium, the ICI Berlin organizes public events on a wide range of topics. Its core project draws input from and is reflected in an accompanying lecture series.

Decentring Dante

The ICI Berlin celebrates the publication of The Oxford Handbook of Dante, edited by Manuele Gragnolati, Elena Lombardi, and Francesca Southerden (2021) with a series of lectures that suggest ways of reading Dante’s Comedy from a less central position and with a broader, more critical perspective. How can discussions of race in the Middle Ages and the attentiveness to indigenous forms of knowledge preservation help literary scholars to rethink their understanding of ’canonicity’ and the ’canonical‘? On what basis can canonical authors such as Dante, Chaucer, and Christine de Pizan continue to be read today? In what sense and at what cost can Dante inspire other poets? What does he mean, more specifically, to a woman writer and artist in Jamaica? What changes when Dante’s Virgil is read not only as part of the Christian reception of classical authors in the Middle Ages, but also in dialogue with the practices of ancient pedagogy? Does the queer desire informing the Aeneid also flow through Dante’s poem?