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 […]

  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 […]

  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).  

    On 12 April 2023, Professor Megan Cassidy-Welch, Program Director of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (Australian Catholic University, Melbourne), gave a seminar on Medieval Humanisms.    

  On 22 February 2023, Kathy Mills, Professor of Literacies and Digital Cultures at the Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education (Australian Catholic University, Brisbane), gave a seminar on The future of the digital turn in the New Literacies Studies. Click here to watch the video.        

  Il 16 novembre 2022, Benedetta Papasogli, accademica dei Lincei, ha inaugurato le attività 2022-2023 del dottorato di ricerca “Contemporary Humanism” con una prolusione dottorale dal titolo “Mèntore e Telèmaco fra attualità e immaginario”. A partire dalla figura di Telèmaco, il mitologico figlio di Ulisse, la professoressa Benedetta Papasogli ha proposto riflessioni e immagini per […]

  George Steiner  is «a secular Jew […] on reading terms with the major Christian theologian and writers […]. As a Jew he combines knowledge of things Jewish with an unusual sensitivity to things Christian.»[1]   George Steiner’s work can be considered a long soliloquy, sometimes criticized for its excessive assertiveness, obsessivity and rhetoricity. In […]

  Schools and classrooms are “communities of practice” (Torney-Purta et al., 2007), where students can experience and practice democracy (Flanagan, 2013; Nieuwelink et al., 2016; Maurissen et al., 2018), and where they gain participatory skills in debates and collaborative decision-making processes (Godfrey et al., 2014). In this scenario, words become tools for knowledge acquisition and […]

  Dialogue is the way that mature humanity uses as a tool to solve its problems in almost all areas. In order not to be misleading, dialogue must have its own rules; actually, it is necessary that the parties assume mutual respect for human dignity, freedom of expression, and respect for the environment as a […]

  Pope Francis’ encyclical “Fratelli tutti” proposes the so-called parable of the Good Samaritan[1] as the paradigm of a fraternity understood as a social friendship (see Fratelli tutti, n. 56-86). This proposal is of interest to the moral philosopher for at least a couple of reasons.   The first reason is that the Samaritan’s attitude […]

  The Encyclical Fratelli tutti is rich in suggestions. The text works on a “rhizomatic” basis, that corresponds to its inspiring principles, i.e. fraternity and social friendship. The ultimate goal of these principles is extending to all human beings the grace of a bond that projects the light of Salvation on human history. Pope Francis […]

  Peter Howard, the Director of the Institute  for Religion and Critical Inquiry (IRCI) at the Australian Catholic University, gives a seminar on “Flourishing and Humanists in Renaissance Florence”. Click on the image to watch the video.    

  La lezione si è tenuta il 16 febbraio 2022 nel contesto del dottorato internazionale “Contemporary Humanism”. Attraverso un percorso storico e teorico, la prof. Chiara Pesaresi, responsabile della cattedra “Vulnerabilités” dell’Université Catholique de Lyon (Francia), è intervenuta sul tema della vulnerabilità, nozione all’intersezione tra il pubblico e il privato. Per vedere il video della […]

  Fraternity Social Friendship during the Time of Social Distancing September 6th-10th, 2021 (to watch the videos click on the title of each conference)   6 September : Luca VALERA (PUC), Distance and Presence in a Technological Environment 7 September : Matteo RIZZOLLI (Università Lumsa), Covid-19 and Social Preferences 8 September : Emmanuel FALQUE (ICP), Fraternity and […]

  For more than a year now, we have been witnessing the biggest limitation of fundamental freedoms since the Second World War, at least in Europe and in many democratic countries. Limitations on social life, on traveling, on worship have become daily life for us. An unprecedented limitation of freedoms (in the plural) urges us […]

Peter Hanenberg, professor at the Catholic University of Portugal (Lisbon), gives a seminar on “How culture shapes the mind. Cognitive Culture Studies and the challenges of contemporary society”  

Jérôme de Gramont, professor of Philosophy at the Institut Catholique de Paris, gives a seminar on Humanism and Phenomenology in dialogue with Emmanuel Levinas.  

A webinar on the pandemic and its challenges to intergenerational justice took place on 4 December. Stefano Biancu, Caterina Fiorilli, Fabio Macioce, Ferdinando Menga, Laura Palazzani, Matteo Rizzolli, Vincenzo Schirripa, and all the doctoral students discussed this this challenging topic from an interdisciplinary point of view.   The program. The poster. The video.

  Some years ago, Slavoj Žižek was asked to discuss a shattering, traumatic event, an event widely believed to hold world-historic consequence. Žižek began with the following, general qualification:   “When one hears this phrase: ‘nothing will be the same,’ the first approach of a truly thinking person is simply to doubt this.”[1]   The […]

  At least at our latitudes, the Covid-19 pandemic represented an absolute and radical novelty. Not even the most elderly among us, who have witnessed immense tragedies such as war, have ever experienced anything like this. In a short period of time everything changed under the threat of a terrible and invisible enemy: lifestyles, educational […]

  Lo scorso febbraio, poco prima che scoppiasse la pandemia, usciva per l’editore Marsilio di Venezia la nuova edizione di Le potenze dell’anima. Vie alla riforma interiore. Dal disincanto al risveglio, saggio di Elémire Zolla pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1968.   La nuova edizione, curata dalla moglie e orientalista Grazia Marchianò nell’ambito dell’Opera […]

  “What can I know?” “What must I do?” “What may I hope?” are the three questions that, since Kant’s time, are recognized as essential in every attempt to think about human existence and reality. Three questions to which the experience of the pandemic has taken away any simple answer.   What is in our […]

Che cosa possiamo conoscere, che cosa dobbiamo fare, che cosa possiamo sperare sono le tre domande che, fin dai tempi di Kant, riconosciamo come essenziali per ogni tentativo umano di pensare l’esistenza e il reale: tre domande rispetto alle quali l’esperienza della pandemia ci ha sottratto ogni facile risposta.     Ciò che è in […]

  I am a Professor, I work with words. I know how to fill in any kind of space or time gap with words. I know how to catch the attention of an audience through funny words or emotional phrases. I know how to skirt issues smartly when I do not have all the answers. […]

  Je suis professeur : je travaille avec des paroles. Je sais comment remplir de paroles toute espèce d’espace ou de temps. Je sais comment captiver l’attention d’un auditoire avec une parole amusante ou une autre émouvante. Je sais comment m’en tirer avec élégance lorsqu’on n’a pas réponse à toutes les demandes. Cela, je l’ai […]

  Sono un professore, lavoro con le parole. So come si può riempire di parole ogni spazio e ogni tempo, come si cattura l’attenzione di un uditorio con una parola divertente o con una commovente, come cavarsela elegantemente quando non si hanno le risposte a tutte le domande. L’ho imparato: sono i segreti del mestiere. […]

  El virus ha afectado a las regiones del norte de Italia y, en particular, a Lombardía, donde se registran más de la mitad de los casos. Aquí los brotes del virus fueron los hospitales (en particular el servicio de urgencias) y las residencias de ancianos. A mitad de febrero en estas instalaciones se mezclaron […]

  Anche il Papa cammina da solo per Roma. Le chiese sono aperte nella capitale, ma si entra uno per uno, nel rispetto della salute pubblica che è anche rispetto del dono della propria salute. E come se il Signore ci chiamasse uno per uno e non in massa. La Chiesa è come la nostra […]

A  discussion on the impact of the COVID 19 virus in Hong Kong, Italy, France and the United States. The panel reflects on the different ways the virus is impacting life around the world.   

  When the Little Prince said “The essential is invisible to the eyes” he was not thinking about a virus. Yet a virus invisible to the eyes is today urging us back to the essential, depriving us of many things that, at least at our latitudes, we were used to taking for granted: security, health, […]

Quando il Piccolo principe dice che “l’essenziale è invisibile agli occhi” non sta certo pensando a un virus. Eppure un virus invisibile agli occhi ci sta oggi richiamando con prepotenza all’essenziale, privandoci di tante cose che, perlomeno alle nostre latitudini, ci eravamo abituati a dare per scontate: la sicurezza, la salute, i rapporti sociali, la […]