Professor Shares Italy Experiences with History Students
Christopher Bellitto, Ph.D., at the Colosseum in Rome, is sharing insights from his summer lecture series in Italy with his students at Kean.
A Kean University history professor's summer lectures in Italy are bringing new insights into his classes at Kean.
Christopher Bellitto, Ph.D., spent three weeks in Italy this summer, including 10 days in Bologna for a two-day seminar at the Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose Giovanni XXIII, where research fellows and graduate students from around the world go to study the history of the Catholic Church. He also gave a public lecture at the Fondazione on retired Pope Benedict XVI and conducted research for a scholarly article.
While in Italy, Bellitto was thinking about his classes and students back at Kean. Every night, he would upload his photographs into a PowerPoint to share with students when he returned home. Recently, Bellitto showed images of the mosaics in Ravenna, Italy, to his students in his Medieval Civilization class to illustrate the power structure of the Byzantine Empire. These photos deepened the learning experience of the students.
“You’re never done designing courses,” said Bellitto. “You’re never done adding to your courses.”
The seminars in Italy, designed for his audience of doctoral students and research fellows, were really intense, he said. The two-day seminar, Reconsidering Medieval Church Reform: Words and Works, explored church councils, Latin vocabulary, Charlemagne's decrees circa 800 and some late medieval criticisms of the church decades before Martin Luther. Following the presentations, Bellitto and the attendees reviewed Latin works on medieval church reform.
“We discussed the texts and sometimes argued about their translations and significance,” Bellitto said.
Bellitto’s public lecture, Benedict XVI’s Resignation, Historical Reflections, Future Considerations, offered insight on the first papal resignation in 600 years and critiqued missteps of the former pope’s post-papal career. The lecture will form the basis of a scholarly article that he’s working on, so Bellitto also spent time researching.
Bellitto said these lectures are in line with the active schedule of public talks that are a part of the history department’s initiative to have professors share their knowledge within and beyond the classroom.
“The history department gives dozens of public lectures a year,” he said. “What it means to be a professor is to have a public voice, and that is what we are doing.”