2012 Programme
Event #12
Franco Cordero
The phobia of thinking
Mass lobotomies are usually successful: the intellectual vision entails a cost in terms of Energy consumption and sometimes traumatic emotional strain, because it sees fearful things we would rather not know: to begin with, the biological death sentence under which every animal is born. Hence the flourishing entertainment industry; hence the weight of interests defended by so-called dogmatic truths. The auto-da-fe or burning stake has modern and politically correct equivalents. The intellect requires constant maintenance: it does not take much to atrophy. The hypnosis of the screen and the monitor explains effects that are much more pervasive than those of the soul-carers of old: suffice it to mention the sermons by the friar Savonarola in the cathedral of Florence, or by John Calvin in Geneva—two technocrats of psychological subjugation. So thinking has a hard game to play against psychic inertia, a game that may be lost from the start but is still worth playing.
is Professor Emeritus of Criminal Procedure at the University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’. He is one of Italy’s leading jurists: one of his textbooks has reached the 17th edition. In his pamphlets and essays, as well as his novels, he has addressed the incricacies of law the mazes of theology. His recent books include: Nere lune d’Italia. Segnali da un anno difficile (2004), Fiabe d’entropia. L’uomo, Dio, il diavolo (2005), L’armatura (2007) published by Garzanti; Che cos’è la giustizia? (with an audio CD-Rom, Luca Sossella Editore, 2007); Aspettando la cometa. Notizie e ipotesi sul climaterio d’Italia (2008), Savonarola (2009), Il brodo delle undici. L’Italia nel nodo scorsoio (2010), Discorso sopra lo stato presente dei costumi degl’italiani. Seguito dai pensieri di un italiano di oggi
(G. Leopardi, 2011); and L’opera italiana da due soldi. Regnava Berlusconi (2012) published by Bollati Boringhieri.
Event #3
Anna Salvo
Sorrow is like a telescope that helps us look into the distance: creatività and suffering

Event #4
Andrea Moro
I speak, therefore I am Like the starry sky: visions of language across the centuries

Event #28
Mauro Agnoletti, Ilaria Borletti Buitoni
Culture, environment, landscape. For a possible, sustainable future
