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Contemporary Humanism

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Lethal Intersections: Rethinking Humanism Beyond the Matrix of Domination (Patricia Hill Collins)

 

 

On April 22, 2026, Patricia Hill Collins, Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, delivered a lecture for the PhD program in Contemporary Humanism, focusing on the category of intersectionality and its productivity in rethinking and updating the concept of humanism. The lecture by Professor Hill Collins was preceded by an introductory talk by Professor Mariella Nocenzi on the category of intersectionality.

 

Click to watch Professor Hill Collins’ lecture

 

Click to watch Professor Mariella Nocenzi’s introductory talk (in Italian)

Who’s afraid of error (Brunella Antomarini)

“On January 14, 2026, Professor Brunella Antomarini of John Cabot University delivered a seminar entitled ‘Who’s Afraid of Error?’.”

Click on the image to watch the video.

“The Paradoxes of Gift – 100 years after Marcel Mauss’ Essai sur le don (1925)” – International Conference

 

The conference, which took place on November 11, 2025, focused the legacy of Marcel Mauss and his Essai of 1925. Starting from the observation of the paradoxical character of the gift as both free and compulsory in some archaic societies, Mauss proposed an interpretation of social relations that profoundly affected not only the social sciences, but also philosophy and theology, producing a true paradigm shift and a flourishing season of studies, of which it is now time to take stock. The conference focused on the phenomenon of gift and the most important categories associated with it: duty, gratuitousness, reciprocity, symbol, supererogation.

 

Keynote speakers:
Jean-Luc Marion, Académie française, PhD program “Contemporary Humanism”
Cyril O’Regan. University of Notre Dame
Consuelo Corradi, LUMSA University, PhD program “Contemporary Humanism”

 

Chair:
Stefano Biancu
LUMSA University, PhD program “Contemporary Humanism”
University of Notre Dame Rome Associate Fellow

 

 

 

 

 

The poster of the event

 



Credits – Notre Dame Rome

 

2025 Rome Annual Seminar (LUMSA) – Humanism of Hope

 

Download here the poster, the detailed program and the abstracts of lectures and presentations. Here the seminar’s proceedings (open access).

 

Greetings

Francesco Bonini, Rector of LUMSA University (Italy) (video)

Caterina Fiorilli, Head of Human Studies Department of LUMSA University (Italy) (video)

 

Introduction

Stefano Biancu, Coordinator of the PhD program “Contemporary Humanism”, LUMSA University (Italy) (video)

 

Keynote lectures (click on the title to watch the video)

Bishop Paul Tighe, Vatican Dicastery for Culture and Education (Vatican City State), Humanism of Hope in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Emmanuel Falque, Institut Catholique de Paris (France), Survival and Creation

Robyn Horner, Australian Catholic University (Australia), What Can the Humanist Hope for?

Fernando Arancibia Collao, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Chile), Common Good and Social Welfare

Zaida Borges  Charepe, Universidade Católica Portuguesa (Portugual), Hope and Integral Health: Nurturing a Human-Centered Approach

Chiara Pesaresi, Unversité Catholique de Lyon (France), Hors d’attente. Rethinking Hope with Henri Maldiney

 

PhD Students’ Presentations (click on the title to watch the video)

  • Enrico di Meo, LUMSA-ICP: Imaginative Variation on Power: Ricœur’s Take on Utopia
  • Gianluca Michelli, LUMSA: The Non-Person. Benveniste and Ortigues on the Role of the Third Person
  • Tomaso Pignocchi, LUMSA-ICP: Language and Emptiness. Toward a Non-Foundational Soteriological Epistemology
  • Orlando Garcia, ICP-LUMSA: Hope and the Total Value of Human Existence
  • Jan Juhani Steinmann, ICP-LUMSA: Disquiet, Freedom and Hope. On the Dialectics of Possibility and Impossibility
  • Sarah Horton, ICP-ACU: Maine de Biran on the Limits of Science and the Self
  • Carlo Maria Simone, UCP-LUMSA: Hope Beyond the Apocalypse: An Ovidian Myth in the Road by Cormac McCarthy
  • Alessia Cadelo, LUMSA-UCP: The Multidimensional Concept of Autonomy and Hope
  • François Deshors, UCLy-LUMSA: Postmodernity and Disenchantment: Hope Confronted with the Illusion of Omniscience
    with the Development of Artificial Intelligence
  • Jèrèmie Supiot, UCLy-LUMSA: What is Constructivism?
  • Costanza Vizzani, LUMSA-PUC: Surrogacy in the Feminist Debate
  • Cecilia Benassi, LUMSA: Pavel Florensky and Hope between Poetry and Apocalypse
  • Flavia Chieffi, LUMSA-UCLy: Hope as a Figure of Human Historicity: Time and History in Virgilio Melchiorre’s Philosophy
  • Giuseppe Vena, LUMSA: Some Notes for a Genealogy of Confession: Foucault and the Christian Alethurgy
  • Lorenza Zucchi, UCLy-LUMSA: Invisibility and Passibility of Aesthetic Experience: Perspectives from Michel Henry and Henri Maldiney
  • Giammarco Basile, LUMSA-PUC: Flaminio Piccoli, the DC and the South America
  • Francesco Marcelli, LUMSA: Hope and Optimism among Italian Catholic University Students during the Post-War Period
  • Matteo Mostarda, LUMSA: Enrico Mattei’s Approach to International Relations
  • Riccardo Maria Sciarra, LUMSA: The Long Road to the EPP: A Historical Analysis of Christian Democratic Cooperation in Europe
  • Victoria Bauer, LUMSA-UCLy: Hope in Philosophical Posthumanism
  • Federico Rudari, UCP-LUMSA: Disorientation and Movement in Anne Imhof’s Natures Mortes
  • Marco Valerio, LUMSA-UCP: Challenges in Integrating Civic and Citizenship Education and Education for Sustainable Development in Initial Teacher Education for Pre-Primary and Primary Education: Preliminary Findings from Two Italian Case Studies
  • Giacomo Chironi, PhD, LUMSA: Between Forgiveness and Hope

 

 

 

A quick introduction to the Contemporary Humanism PhD program

Cyril O’Regan, The Drama of Christian Humanism

 

On 21 November 2024, Cyril O’Regan, professor of Theology a the University of Notre Dame (USA) and the 2024 recipient of the prestigious Ratzinger Prize, has given the 2024/2025 Opening Lecture of the PhD Program “Contemporary Humanism”, entitled “The Drama of Christian Humanism“.

 

 

Download the Flyer.

 

 

Meeting with the post-doctoral programme in Integral Human Development (DHI)

 

On Wendsday 28 February 2024, a joint-meeting of the doctoral programme in Contemporay Humanism and the post-doctoral programme in Integral Human Development (DHI) took place at LUMSA University in Rome.

Led by professor Peter Hanenberg and professor Stefano Biancu, about thirty fellows of the two programmes gathered togheter to share insights and friendship along with some Faculty from the involved institutions (LUMSA University, Catholic University of Portugal). A representative of Porticus Foundation, Cristina Robledano, took also part at the meeting.

As interdisciplinary research environments, and moving from the ideas of humanism and human development, the two programmes share a common focus on the urgent question, what does it mean to be human?

 

Joint-Meeting IHD-CH
Joint-Meeting IHD-CH
Joint-Meeting IHD-CH
Joint-Meeting IHD-CH
Joint-Meeting IHD-CH
Joint-Meeting IHD-CH
Joint-Meeting IHD-CH
Joint-Meeting IHD-CH

 

 

Angry Men and the Rise od Populism (Bryan S. Turner)

 

On 1 February 2024, Professor Bryan S. Turner  (Australian Catholic University) gave a lecture entitled, “Angry Men and the Rise of Populism”.

 

The event was chaired by Professor Stefano Biancu, coordinator of the PhD program “Contemporary Humanism”. The topic and Prof. Turner’s talk were introduced by Consuelo Corradi, Professor of General Sociology at LUMSA University.

 

Bryan S. Turner is a world-renowned British – Australian sociologist, currently professor at the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University (Australia).

 

 

Transitional Justice: Conflict, Pluralism and the Politics of Compromise (Frank Haldemann)

 

On 10 January 2024, Dr Frank Haldemann (Université de Fribourg) gave a lecture entitled, “Transitional Justice : Conflict, Pluralism and the Politics of Compromise”, based on his 2022 book Transitional Justice for Foxes : Conflict, Pluralism and the Politics of Compromise (Cambridge University Press).

 

2024 Rome Annual Seminar – Human Freedom at the test of AI and Neurosciences

Rome, 2–5 September 2024

 

The seminar was hosted by LUMSA University within the framework of the international project New Humanism at the time of Neurosciences and Artificial Intelligence (NHNAI – coordinated by Lyon Catholic University under the aegis of the International Federation of Catholic Universities) and in collaboration with the Ecumenical French-speaking Association of Moral Theologians and Ethics Experts (ATEM). The last session of the conference took place at Notre Dame Rome.

 

 

Detailed programme and practical information here.

Download the poster here

Download the proceedings (open access) here

 

 

Greetings

 

Francesco Bonini, Rector of LUMSA University (Italy) (video)

Silvia Dall’Olio, Director of the University of Notre Dame Rome (USA) (video)

 

 

Introductions

 

Mathieu Guillermin, Coordinator of NHNAI project, Lyon Catholic University (France) (video)

Dominique Coatanea, President of ATEM, Facultés Loyola Paris (France) (video)

Stefano Biancu, Coordinator of the PhD program “Contemporary Humanism”, LUMSA University (Italy) (video)

 

 

Keynote lectures (click on the title to watch the video)

 

Mario De Caro,University of Roma Tre (Italy), The problem of Freedom and today’s challenges

Dominique Lambert, University of Namur (Belgium), Ethics of AI

Thierry Magnin, Catholic University of Lille (France), Christian Thought, Humanism, AI and Neurosciences

Patricia Churchland, University of San Diego (USA), Neurosciences and Human Freedom

Fiorella Battaglia, University of Salento (Italy), Democracy and Education at the Time of AI and Neurosciences

Laura Palazzani, LUMSA-University of Rome (Italy), Health at the Time of AI and Neurosciences

 

 

PhD Students’ Presentations (click on the title to watch the video)

 

  • Marco Tassella, LUMSA-UCLy: The Paradox of Moral Luck: Testing Free Will and Responsibility Against Chance
  • François Deshors, UCLy-LUMSA: Human being and artificial intelligence: prospects and consequences of a hypothetical conflict
  • Alessia Cadelo, LUMSA-UCP: The power of algorithms to redefine human autonomy
  • Pierangelo Bianco, Lumsa-UCP: The search for Habitable Intelligence: George Lindbeck’s contribution to AI Debate
  • Giammarco Basile, LUMSA-PUC: Flaminio Piccoli, the DC and Centrist Democrat International (CDI) 
  • Francesca Fioretti, LUMSA- UCP: Promoting the development of competences for active citizenship in Italy: from school organization to classroom practices
  • Francesco Marcelli, LUMSA: Youth association and the training of the governing class: the case of Catholic university students in Italy and internationally
  • Matteo Mostarda, LUMSA: Integral Human Development in Enrico Mattei’s strategy for Italy
  • Marco Valerio, LUMSA-UCP: Learning to teach civic and citizenship education and education for sustainable development during pre-service teacher training
  • Costanza Vizzani, LUMSA-PUC: The theoretical foundations of the debate on reproductive technologies
  • Sarah Horton, ICP-ACU: Alienation and Self-Knowledge in Maine de Biran
  • Juhani Steinmann, ICP-LUMSA: The Coming God. Soteriological Figures in Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Heidegger
  • Federico Rudari, UCP-LUMSA: Embodied perception and spatial sense-making: from phenomenology to aesthetics
  • Tomaso Pignocchi, LUMSA-ICP: Language and soteriology: the concept of liberation in Wittgenstein and Buddhist philosophies
  • Orlando Garcia, ICP-LUMSA: Human freedom challenged by AI and neuroscience
  • Enrico Di Meo, LUMSA-ICP: Mechanism and Free Will: a possible Convergence Hypothesis
  • Flavia Chieffi, LUMSA-UCly: The role of «symbolic consciousness» in Virgilio Melchiorre’s philosophy
  • Cecilia Benassi, LUMSA: The embodiment of form – Symbolic between poetry and technology
  • Gael Trottmann-Calame, ICP- LUMSA: An all-too-modern modernity: a genealogical investigation

 

 

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