Jenna Arafeh Wins 2025 Dante Prize

Jenna Arafeh, a second-year History student at Duke University, has been awarded the 2025 Dante Prize by the Dante Society of America for her essay, “The Lone Star’s Resurrection: Abel Tesfaye’s Reimagining of the Commedia in Modern Sound.” The prestigious honor, awarded annually since 1887, recognizes the best undergraduate essay on Dante and remains one of the most distinguished literary prizes in the humanities. Arafeh wrote her winning essay in Spring 2025 as a student in Martin Eisner’s class, Dante's Divine Comedy: Hell, Purgatory and Paradise.

The Dante Prize boasts an impressive history of recipients who have gone on to notable academic careers, including David Ungvary (Trinity 2010), now associate professor of Classics at Bard College. Another distinguished honoree, Alyssa Granacki (Trinity 2011; Duke PhD 2020), later received the Grandgent Prize in 2018 for the best graduate student essay on Dante.

Arafeh’s achievement places her within this remarkable intellectual lineage at an early stage in her academic career. Her work not only testifies to Dante’s enduring relevance in the modern world, but also demonstrates how contemporary artists like Tesfaye continue to reinterpret and reshape classical traditions.