the first European festival on creativity

2015 Programme

Event #38

Alessandro Barbero

The historian’s responsibility. Ernst Kantorowicz: from the Freikorps to McCarthyism

Ernst Kantorowicz (1895-1963) was a leading expert on power during the Middle Ages. Influenced by Nietzsche, in his biography of emperor Frederick II he celebrated the ruler as a superman, capable of transcending his time and changing the course of history. A German nationalist, volunteer soldier in the first World War, in the years between the wars he enrolled in the Freikorps, who bloodily repressed the Bolshevik Revolution. Kantorowicz, however, was a Jew, and with the rise of Nazism he migrated to America, where he was offered a chair at Berkeley. In 1949, during the McCarthy era, the university forced its entire faculty to take an anti-Communist vow: Kantorowicz was one of the few who refused. His gesture cost him his job and sparked a debate that would have great resonance, paving the way towards the shift in perspective which would soon put an end to the extreme measures of the witch-hunt.

 

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Alessandro Barbero is a historian and a writer and a tenured professor of Medieval History at Università degli Studi del Piemonte Orientale e Vercelli. He writes for La Stampa and Tuttolibri. He is a contributor on the television program Superquark and the shows Il tempo e la storia and a.C.d.C., broadcast by Rai Storia. His publications include: Benedette guerre. Crociate e jihad («i Libri del Festival della Mente», 2009), Lepanto. La battaglia dei tre imperi («i Libri del Festival della Mente», 2010), Donne, madonne, mercanti e cavalieri. Sei storie medievali («i Libri del Festival della Mente», 2013), published by Laterza; Gli occhi di Venezia (Mondadori, 2011); Il divano di Istanbul (Sellerio, 2011); Dietro le quinte della Storia. La vita quotidiana attraverso il tempo, written with P. Angela (Rizzoli, 2012); Le Ateniesi (Mondadori, 2015); Costantino il vincitore (Salerno Editrice, 2016); Le parole del papa (2016) and Caporetto (2017), published by Laterza. Il divano di Istanbul (2011), Alabama (2021) and Poeta al comando (2022) and Brick for stone (2023), published by Sellerio.


All theevents2015


   

Event #1

Luciano Canfora

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Jim Al-Khalili

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Eraldo Affinati, Salvatore Lombardo

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Event #4

Anna Bonaiuto

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Event #6

Alessandro Barbero

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Aldo Colonetti, Italo Rota

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Event #18

Carlo Toffalori

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Event #18 BIS

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Matteo Nucci

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Event #19 BIS

Matteo Nucci

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Giuseppe Battiston, Piero Sidoti

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Alessandro Barbero

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Lina Bolzoni

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Event #38

Alessandro Barbero

The historian’s responsibility. Ernst Kantorowicz: from the Freikorps to McCarthyism

Event #39Children / Kids

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Event #41Children / Kids

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Event #42Children / Kids

Elisa Pezzolla

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Event #44Children / Kids

FabLab Imola

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Event #46Children / Kids

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Event #49Children / Kids

Centro DreamsLab

Try a 3D experience in history and science

Event #54Children / Kids

Lele Lomazzi

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Event #55Children / Kids

FabLab Imola

The 3D printer: an idea becomes an object

Event #56

Davide Sapienza

On a walk with a writer-traveller

Event #58Children / Kids

Margherita Loy

Let’s make the Pop Art of the 2000s

Event #59Children / Kids

Mara Cerri

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Event #60Children / Kids

Davide Sapienza

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