Conversations on Dante 16: Amy Harris and Kimberly Campanello on Experimental Translations of Dante

An episode of the Leeds Dante Podcast podcast, hosted by Leeds Centre for Dante Studies, titled "Conversations on Dante 16: Amy Harris and Kimberly Campanello on Experimental Translations of Dante" was published on March 25, 2026 and runs 45 minutes.

March 25, 2026 ·45m · Leeds Dante Podcast

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Summary

Conversations on Dante is a series of podcast episodes from Dante at Leeds, at the University of Leeds. In each episode, we sit down with researchers and practitioners to discuss some of the work which is helping to shape our understanding of Dante, his context and works, and his place in the cultures of the world.In this episode, hosted by Matthew Treherne, Amy Harris and Kimberly Campanello discuss twenty-first-century experimental translations of Dante into English. The conversation covers how writers have engaged with some of the innovative and challenging aspects of Dante's work, including Dante's approach to geography and specificity. Amy discusses her doctoral research on anglophone writers, and Kimberly shares insights from her current work versioning Dante. Amy Harris is a PhD Candidate at the University of Western Australia. The provisional title of her thesis is “Dante in the Anglosphere: an excursus in language and image”. Her project investigates how topography, regionalisms and neologisms are (re)interpreted in 21st-century English translations of Dante's Divine Comedy. ORCID: Amy Harris (0009-0000-9974-6440) - ORCIDKimberly Campanello's most recent poetry collection An Interesting Detail was published by Bloomsbury Poetry in April. Her debut novel Use the Words You Have is the inaugural title from Somesuch Editions, the imprint of BAFTA and Oscar-winning production company Somesuch. Her versioning of Dante is at once highly personal and ‘universal’ in Dante’s visionary sense of ‘la forma universal di questo nodo / the universal shape of this knot’. She traces the knotted threads tying together her birthplace in Elkhart, Indiana, traditional lands of the Pokagon Potawatomi, her family origins in Volturara Appula (Puglia, Italy), and her experience of young onset Parkinson’s disease. Extracts from this work-in-progress, titled This Knot: A New Version of Dante’s Commedia with The Poet K, have appeared or are forthcoming in publications including Poetry Ireland Review, Still Point and Notre Dame Review, as well as in the Routledge Companion to Dante. She is Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds and Director of Poetry@Leeds. https://www.kimberlycampanello.com/dante-with-the-poet-k Translations and versions discussedDante’s Divine Comedy by Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders: https://sandowbirk.com/divine-comedy Dante’s Inferno by Lorna Goodison: https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781800174665/dantes-inferno/ Dante’s Inferno by Philip Terry: https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781847772206/dantes-inferno/ The Divine Comedy by Clive James: https://www.clivejames.com/the-divine-comedy.html Dante’s Divine Trilogy by Alasdair Gray: https://thealasdairgrayarchive.org/shop/books-by-alasdair/dantes-divine-trilogy/ Dante on the Move: https://danteonthemove.blog/Caroline Bergvall, Via: https://carolinebergvall.com/work/via-48-dante-variations/

Episode Description

In this episode, hosted by Matthew Treherne, Amy Harris and Kimberly Campanello discuss twenty-first-century experimental translations of Dante into English. The conversation covers how writers have engaged with some of the innovative and challenging aspects of Dante's work, including Dante's approach to geography and specificity. Amy discusses her doctoral research on anglophone writers, and Kimberly shares insights from her current work versioning Dante.

Amy Harris is a PhD Candidate at the University of Western Australia. The provisional title of her thesis is “Dante in the Anglosphere: an excursus in language and image”. Her project investigates how topography, regionalisms and neologisms are (re)interpreted in 21st-century English translations of Dante's Divine Comedy. ORCID: Amy Harris (0009-0000-9974-6440) - ORCID

Kimberly Campanello's most recent poetry collection An Interesting Detail was published by Bloomsbury Poetry in April. Her debut novel Use the Words You Have is the inaugural title from Somesuch Editions, the imprint of BAFTA and Oscar-winning production company Somesuch. Her versioning of Dante is at once highly personal and ‘universal’ in Dante’s visionary sense of ‘la forma universal di questo nodo / the universal shape of this knot’. She traces the knotted threads tying together her birthplace in Elkhart, Indiana, traditional lands of the Pokagon Potawatomi, her family origins in Volturara Appula (Puglia, Italy), and her experience of young onset Parkinson’s disease. Extracts from this work-in-progress, titled This Knot: A New Version of Dante’s Commedia with The Poet K, have appeared or are forthcoming in publications including Poetry Ireland Review, Still Point and Notre Dame Review, as well as in the Routledge Companion to Dante. She is Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds and Director of Poetry@Leeds. https://www.kimberlycampanello.com/dante-with-the-poet-k

Translations and versions discussed

Dante’s Divine Comedy by Sandow Birk and Marcus Sanders: https://sandowbirk.com/divine-comedy

Dante’s Inferno by Lorna Goodison: https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781800174665/dantes-inferno/

Dante’s Inferno by Philip Terry: https://www.carcanet.co.uk/9781847772206/dantes-inferno/

The Divine Comedy by Clive James: https://www.clivejames.com/the-divine-comedy.html

Dante’s Divine Trilogy by Alasdair Gray: https://thealasdairgrayarchive.org/shop/books-by-alasdair/dantes-divine-trilogy/

Dante on the Move: https://danteonthemove.blog/

Caroline Bergvall, Via: https://carolinebergvall.com/work/via-48-dante-variations/