The four voyages of Christopher Columbus introduced the European continent not only to a land mass that had been unknown to them, but to a conception of the world that required a dramatic paradigmatic shift. The reaction among Italian writers and philosophers was delayed but, in some cases, extreme. While some embraced the idea of the New World, adapting their conception of the ecumene to accommodate these new peoples and lands, others wrote about an existential crisis, questioning the veracity of the Bible and the wisdom of the ancients. In Italian literature, Columbus is depicted as both hero and villain, an accomplished son of Italy as well as a symbol of destruction and unwelcomed change. Join us for an examination of this complex understanding of a pivotal figure in both American and Italian culture.

Erin McCarthy King, Ph.D. has been teaching Italian Language and Literature since 2004. Erin earned a combined B.A. and M.A. in Italian Language and Literature from Yale University in 1998 and then her Ph.D. from Yale in 2009. She has been a Lector of Italian at Yale University and an Instructor at Sacred Heart University, Southern Connecticut State University, Quinnipiac University, The Hopkins School and Fairfield University. She currently teaches French and Italian at an all-boys, private prep school. Erin has published several articles, including “The Voyage of Columbus as a ‘non pensato male’: The Search for Boundaries, Grammar, and Authority in the Aftermath of the New World Discoveries” © 2012, and has presented several conference research papers including “The Logic of the Clock: Dante’s Similes of the Horologe in Paradiso X and XXIV” and most recently, “Language and the Expansion of the Ecumene in the Mondo nuovo of Tommaso Stigliani”. Erin serves as an alumna interviewer for Yale College Admissions and as a member of the Yale Alumni Schools Committee. In her spare time, Erin and her husband are very busy parents to their four children.