Professor's Note
Matteo Soranzo
Matteo Soranzo is Associate Professor of Italian Studies and the director of the Liberal Arts program at McGill University in Montreal. He published two books, Poetry and Identity in Quattrocento Naples (2014) and Giovanni Aurelio Augurello and Renaissance Alchemy (2019), as well as various articles, book chapters, and essays exploring the intersection of literature with philosophy, astrology, and alchemy in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance. He is also interested in textual criticism and manuscript studies. Currently, he directs an SSHRC-funded project examining a corpus of writings on the Philosophers’ Stone from Late Medieval Venice and has just published two articles on Dante. You can take a look at some of his work on this website and learn more about his alchemical pursuits from this recorded lecture.
Professor's Note
Daniel W. Pratt
I am a professor of Slavic cultures, and I work on Central and Eastern Europe, specifically on Austrian, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, and Russian literature and culture, with a comparative perspective. I am interested in the ways that literature, history, and philosophy intersect, and this is why I enjoy teaching in the Liberal Arts program. The Liberal arts program provides students with a broad understanding of what culture, philosophy, religion, and history mean in a global context. Students can think outside of national paradigms, exploring the differences and congruences between cultures over several historical eras. The program provides students with enormous flexibility, while also giving them a strong basis in language and critical thinking, two essential skills in the world today.
