Rite of Passage in the Narratives of Dante and Joyce

Rite of Passage in the Narratives of Dante and Joyce 

This book is a study of innovation. I wanted to figure out how someone made the leap from being a reader to being a writer of culture. I discovered that much of that leap hinges on one’s mentor.

In my undergrad, I was amazed by Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. As a historian of science, he revealed the pattern whereby – throughout history – there were the scientists who adhered to the model of the time. They saw it as reality. They sought to prove it with their highly trained minds. But then there were the mavericks who could envision a different reality and had the drive to pursue it. Kuhn called them “creative scientists.”

In my academic approach, I home in always on the creatives, the mavericks, the ones who step away from the status quo. I question why, what’s makes them different, why do they suffer for their new way of thinking, why does it matter so much, how do they articulate it and make the rest of us care. How do they bring about global change?

During my PhD, I studied the most exceptional minds to learn more about these innovators. I turned to medieval poet Dante who changed the world’s concept of the afterlife, spirituality, and writing, and then I turned to Irish novelist James Joyce who changed the world’s concept of colonialism, state and religion, oppression and imagination. This fascination was my dissertation and became my first book published by the University of Florida Press.