Abstract:The Inferno's central conflict is between us readers and God. When fictional characters captivate us, we are normally free to enjoy their charms. Not so Dante's sinners. If we feel bad for these characters, it cannot be because they are sympathetic—after all, God put them in Hell—but because we are naive. But is this sympathy really naive? This article reconsiders the Ugolino episode as a paradigm for the Inferno's ethical contradictions. In a poem that reminds us that crimes often create (...) the circumstances for victimization, perhaps sympathizing with the damned is the most ethical reading of all. (shrink)

What is it about the concept of absurdity that allows it to be applied to everything from the nature of existence to statistical methodologies to slapstick comedy? This article seeks an answer in the structure of how we experience the phenomena regularly cited to substantiate absurdity claims, namely those putatively labeled ‘confusing,’ ‘humorous,’ or both. Taking its cue from evolutionary and phenomenological accounts of humor and confusion, and responding to the canonical statements of Albert Camus and Thomas Nagel, the essay (...) proposes that certain structures of experience parallel the structure of absurdist arguments. (shrink)