Rala Diakite

PROFESSOR
Humanities School of Arts and Sciences
Rala Diakite PhD
978.665.4706 Office: Conlon Fine Arts 255A
Office Hours
Spring 2025

Tuesday 10:00am-11:00am, 2:00pm-3:00pm
Wednesday 10:00am-11:00am

Courses Taught

To see course descriptions go to the University Catalog.

Italian for Beginners I (ITAL 1000)
Italian for Beginners II (ITAL 1100)
Intermediate Italian I (ITAL 2000)
Intermediate Italian II (ITAL 2100)
Italian Culture in English I (ITAL 3000)
Italian Culture in English II (ITAL 3100)French for Beginners II (FREN 1100)

Background

Ph.D., Brown University (Italian Studies)
M.A., Brown University (Italian Studies)
B.A., Trinity College (Modern Languages)

I study the medieval period in Italy, the poetry of Dante, early comic verse, and the Italian chronicle tradition of the 14th century. I am fascinated by the opportunities offered by the conjunction of our modern digital culture with these medieval texts.

I am currently a Researcher for the Virtual Humanities Lab, a digital archive of early Renaissance and Renaissance Italian texts. Over the past two years, I have worked to encode (make searchable) a segment of a 14th century Florentine chronicle by Giovanni Villani, and am now focused on the translation into English and annotation of that same text. I am also preparing articles related to the role of women in Villani's chronicle.

AATI - American Association of Teachers of Italian
Dante Society of America
MLA - Modern Language Association