Event Details
Wed, April 08, 2026
18:00 – 19:30
VILLA SASSETTI
Villa La Pietra
Via Bolognese, 120
50139 Florence, Italy
(Event open to NYU Florence community-only)
(Event open to NYU Florence students-only)
Kate Driscoll, Duke University
Moderated by Eric Nicholson, NYU Florence
Set against the backdrop of the First Crusade’s conquest of Jerusalem, Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered, 1581) explores questions of territorial ownership, religious right, and the materiality of space, extending from the Middle East to the symbolic New World shores. Central to this presentation’s analysis is Canto XV, whose prophecy of Christopher Columbus and his distant oceanic voyages engages pre-, anti-, and decolonial modes of thought. This prophecy unfolds as two Crusaders approach the island of the enchantress Armida, a maker of space charged with imperial tensions. Although resembling an earthly paradise, Armida’s Atlantic home functions as a paradise-prison, a heterotopia generating what can be named “decolonizing doubts” – critiques and counternarratives that arise when one potentially colonial context is forced to assess another. By examining the interplay between utopian and decolonial perspectives, this talk brings into relief Tasso’s multilayered critique of center and periphery, and foregrounds the pivotal role female artistry plays within epic history and its (im)possible future.
Featured Biographies
Kate Driscoll
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ITALIAN, DEPARTMENT OF ROMANCE STUDIES, DUKE UNIVERSITY.
Kate Driscoll is Assistant Professor of Italian in the Department of Romance Studies at Duke University. She is the author of Tasso and Women Readers: Literary Hospitality in Early Modern Italy, forthcoming with Cambridge University Press in Fall 2026. This study was awarded the 28th annual Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Award for a Manuscript in Italian Literary Studies from the Modern Language Association. Beyond Tasso Studies, Dr. Driscoll’s research broadly investigates early modern Italian literature, classical and romance epic poetry, women’s writing, gender studies, and Baroque performance history. Her articles on these and related topics have appeared in a variety of academic journals based in the US, the UK, Italy, and Switzerland. Research for these publications has been supported by grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the German Excellence Foundation, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Renaissance Society of America, the Modern Language Association, and the American Philosophical Society.