The Hanway Lecture at Loyola University Maryland is an annual event that I am fortunate enough to collaborate with the director of Global Studies and the director of Academic Events to create a marketing campaign.
This year we were proud to host the Honorable Roméo Dallaire, retired lieutenant-general and advocate for global human rights. He is best known for leading "the UN peacekeeping mission for Rwanda during the 1994 Genocide that took 800,000 lives in 100 days." I hope
Before the event I was able to meet Dallaire at the reception and he truly is a wonderful person as we discussed Dante's Divine Comedy and he recommended that I read Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
In the line to get my book signed, I saw him connect with a veteran who was suffering from PTSD. This was a human moment of two people seeing each other as they both expressed admiration for each other.
Later it struck me that his vision of a lasting peace is mandatory to protect the environment and create an equitable society. That is where we must begin to fix what ails our human culture.
Dallaire recently published book served as the basis of the lecture.
Photo Credit: Marie-Claude Michaud
The book's narrative structure is inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy, which is broken into three cantiche: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
Dallaire chose this structure because Dante's journey with Virgil represented the stages of his life. A crucial moment came when Virgil could not continue and the beloved Beatrice took over and led Dante into Paradise.
For Dallaire this signified the meeting of his current wife and how she has helped him see life in a new way. Having watched a few videos and read the books introduction online I could see how important this was to him, so I wanted to incorporate this into the design.
Dante's Divine Comedy is not a casual reference for me. On my first visit to Paris, in museum after museum I saw references to Dante's work. Before I left an early morning walk provided me the opportunity to purchase a copy of John Ciardi's Inferno at Shakespeare & Co., and I've read half a dozen translations since. My favorite so far is Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's translation, but it's difficult to go wrong with the newer ones.
Later today I will finish this post. (01/02/25)