Humanities Social Sciences and Business

On October 31st, 2006, a Google research for the words "European Identity" resulted in 35 millions of entries. This is evidence enough that the debate on European identity has left academia and is now part of a much wider public space. Probably, the defeat of last spring's referenda has contributed to bring issues such as European identity and European legitimacy

On October 31st, 2006, a Google research for the words "European Identity" resulted in 35 millions of entries. This is evidence enough that the debate on European identity has left academia and is now part of a much wider public space. Probably, the defeat of last spring's referenda has contributed to bring issues such as European identity and European legitimacy to the forefront of political debates, as the Union has been questioned in its very raison d'être, and it has been the object of many bitter comments for its failure to acquire a direct popular support. The debate about the possibility of developing an European identity, therefore, can no longer be considered of exclu- sively academic interest. The identity question is in fact closely con- nected to an issue, the legitimacy of a political construction as com- plex as the European Union, whose immediate political relevance is well beyond discussion. This essay will move from a very brief reference to some p...

My paper will take into consideration different paradigms of justice besides traditional retributive justice, such as restorative or transitional justice. Since their primary goal is that of restoring relationships and re-creating social bonds, such paradigms of justice also contemplate the possibility of some forms of forgiveness being offered by  the victims to the perpetrators. The paper will therefore  proceed to analyse the various understanding of “forgiveness” and to debate how forgiveness can be conceptualised in a political framework, in light of its trasformative and liberating potential.

Feminism cornered: between playgrounds and battlefields
keywords: gender, difference, xenophobia, neoliberal order

My articles aims at analysing how the use of “feminist” arguments by xenophobic, right –wing and populist discourses constitutes a specific form of neutralisation of feminism.  In European public discourse, women’s freedom is becoming a pawn in a political game that has nothing to do with women themselves.
Women’s bodies - possessed, re-appropriated, impregnated, covered and uncovered – become battlefields for the “identity conflicts” of late modernity. On the other hand, the aspiration to autonomy, re-narrated in late capitalism in terms of freedom to consume, causes women bodies, exposed, spectacularised, commodified, to become the playgrounds of neo-liberal order (Fraser 2009). Some trends in contemporary feminism reflect this mimetic version of freedom, thus contributing to make feminist critique suitable to the spirit of new capitalism and easily manipulated by  xenophobic, right-wing populist discourses.
My essay aims at exploring ways to avoid the cornering mechanism of the imposed necessity of “taking sides”. The critical analysis and deconstruction of the ambiguities of modernity is a  crucial step to counteract this  domestication of feminism.

L'autore affronta il dibattito sul rapporto tra monoteismo e violenza a partire dallo stato del dibattito, mettendo in evidenza come esso da una parte va ben oltre i confini della dimensione scientifica e dall'altra ha una lunga tradizione alle spalle; in questa tradizione, che viene presentata a partire dall'Illuminismo, la violenza politica e la violenza religiosa si sono sovrapposte e, talvolta, profondamente distinte, creando una memoria storica che pesa nella società del XXI secolo. L'articolo si conclude con una riflessione sulle ragione che spingono a considerare il monoteismo come elemento in grado di scatenare violenza e intolleranza.

This essay explores the rapport between categories such as novum and renovatio and the Protestant Reformation. The privileged connection between modernity and novum is evident: and insofar as the Reformation is considered one of the determining factors of the rise of modernity, it would be legitimate to infer a strong link with the notion of novum. The relationship is more complicated than it appears at a first glance, as the Reformation did not aim at introducing any «novelty», as it rather aspired to restoring a lost purity. This essay will explore the rapport between Reformation and novum and novitas in the wider frame of modernity’s debt towards the Jewish-Christian sources of temporality. It will also consider the ambiguity of the early modern notion of renovatio, to assess the Reformation’s specific positioning. The genuine novelty of the Protestant Reformation, will be identified in the affirmation of an ever-renewing hermeneutical exercise. Words such as novum, renovatio and...

My essay provides a few elements to analyse how the neoconservative perspective on gender issues has evolved from its early phases to the last years. The aim is to highlight how neoconservative authors shifted from an openly patriarchal view of gender roles to more or less successful attempts at appropriating “feminist” themes and issues, in view of the affirmation of America’s moral superiority as a justification of hard power.

The article aims at analysing how the use of "feminist" arguments by xenophobic, right –wing and populist discourses– constitutes a specific form of neutralisation of feminism. In European public discourse, women’s freedom is becoming a pawn in a political game that has nothing to do with women themselves. Women’s bodies –possessed, re-appropriated, impregnated, covered and uncovered– become battlefields for the "identity conflicts" of late modernity. On the other hand, the aspiration to autonomy, re-narrated in late capitalism in terms of freedom to consume, causes women bodies, exposed, spectacularised, commodified, to become the playgrounds of neo-liberal order (Fraser, 2009). Some trends in contemporary feminism reflect this mimetic version of freedom, thus contributing to make feminist critique suitable to the spirit of new capitalism and easily manipulated by xenophobic, right-wing populist discourses. Resumen Este articulo muestra c o mo los argumentos fem...

The dream and politics presents a selection of public speeches by the greatest Democratic leaders, from Franklin Delano Roosevelt up to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Presidents, Presidential candidates, outstanding figures of American history that through the words declaimed in public, and hence in the heat of the fray and the debate, have succeeded in grasping and proposing new aspirations and visions of the nation and the world. The introductory essays by the editors analyse the themes and the style of political communication of the protagonists of the long dream of American liberals. Each speech is completed with notes and a short introduction that helps to place it in its historic context.

The essay explores the work of Elena Pulcini, who was snatched away by the pandemic when her ideas and her work were becoming more and more visible in the public sphere. Books like Care of the World, or her last work Tra cura e giustizia, were read and discussed beyond the usual academic circles. Although she was profoundly alien from spectacularisation of any kind, in the last years her profile had become that of a public intellectual whose philosophical work was a point of reference for a wide variety of groups and networks, from feminists to environmentalists.

The essay explores the work of Sergio Caruso, whose work moved from theories of justice to citizenship, from the notion of ideology to the role of intellectuals. I will retrace some of the fils rouges of Caruso’s production and adopt two main lenses of observation. First, his work will be presented as an example of immanent critique, and secondly, it will be analysed in the light of its more or less explicit normative outcomes.