Nassime Chida
Assistant Professor of Italian Studies
A scholar of Italian literature with a focus on Dante, Medieval Italian History and Mediterranean Studies.
My research explores the connections between Dante’s Commedia and its literary and historical context. My book project Local Power in Dante's Commedia: Between Literature and History investigates Dante’s focus on local power as an original site of political analysis. While scholars have examined Dante’s theories of papal and imperial power, and biographers have speculated about the impact of local politics, my book offers a vision of Dante’s outlook on local military and political affairs, placing it among the writings of precursors, contemporaries, and current historians. My work involves comparing pre-dantean sources with subsequent medieval historiography. Rather than use historiography to provide relevant context, my work makes the case for historiography as content in the Commedia.
My interest in the intersection of literature and history informs my teaching. My classes center the practice of collective close reading through attention to language and intertextuality. My courses offer students rigorous training leading to tangible skills, including textual analysis and argument building. I combine ultra famous voices such as Dante’s with lesser known sources, and always include both ancient and modern authors. I have taught survey courses, language courses, literature seminars and single author courses on Dante, Boccaccio and Machiavelli.
I am the Dante Society of America’s Liaison to the Modern Languages Association, an associate editor of Digital Dante and an editor of Dante Notes. I occasionally work as an interpreter.
Education
- B.A., University College London
- M.St., University of Oxford
- Ph.D., Columbia University in the City of New York