Marilyn Migiel salutes Italian PM at State Dept. luncheon


Biden with Migiel

On Oct. 18, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry hosted a luncheon at the U.S. Department of State in honor of Matteo Renzi, prime minister of the Republic of Italy. In his remarks, Kerry said, “You will find many dear friends here, Mr. Prime Minister – friends of Italian history, of Italian culture, art.” And among them was Marilyn Migiel ’75, senior associate dean for arts and humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences and professor of Romance studies.
 
Migiel, who teaches and works on a wide array of texts and authors from the Italian Middle Ages to the present day, is known for her feminist readings of medieval and Renaissance Italian literature. Her “A Rhetoric of the ‘Decameron’” received the MLA’s 2004 Howard R. Marraro Prize for outstanding scholarship in Italian. Her book, “The Ethical Dimension of the ‘Decameron,’” was published in 2015. In her recent and ongoing research, Migiel is especially interested in how literary works engage us in reflection about our ethical choices.

- Linda B. Glaser