the first European festival on creativity

2015 Program

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 Barberois 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), published by Sellerio.


All theevents2015


   

Event #1

Luciano Canfora

Augustus: the political ethics of a republican monarch

Event #2

Jim Al-Khalili

The secret ingredient of life

Event #3

Eraldo Affinati, Salvatore Lombardo

An act of humanity to be performed

Event #4

Anna Bonaiuto

Anna Bonaiuto reads Elena Ferrante

Event #6

Alessandro Barbero

The historian's responsibility. Gaetano Salvemini: from Socialist interventionism to anti-Fascism

Event #7

Andrea Moro

Beyond the boundaries of Babel

Event #8Approfonditamente

Marco Rossi-Doria, Giulia Tosoni

Kids and school: what, how and where are they learning

Event #9

Massimo Ammaniti

How the sense of Us is born: from We-go to Ego

Event #10

Paolo Ferri

Generation 2.0

Event #11

Guido Barbujani

We're the Africans

Event #13Approfonditamente

Adolfo Ceretti, Simonetta Agnello Hornby, Alfredo Verde

Gender-based violence: Perpetrators, victims and models of intervention.

Event #14

Mario Brunello, Manolo

The mountain and silence

Event #15

Edoardo Albinati

In praise of the best student in class

Event #17

Aldo Colonetti, Italo Rota

The space we live in is nothing but an extension of our minds

Event #18

Carlo Toffalori

Mathematics, algorithms and freedom

Event #18 BIS

Carlo Toffalori

Mathematics, algorithms and freedom

Event #19

Matteo Nucci

Oedipus’ eyes and Plato’s complex

Event #19 BIS

Matteo Nucci

Oedipus’ eyes and Plato’s complex

Event #21

Giuseppe Battiston, Piero Sidoti

LA LA LA. When there is no answer

Event #22

Alessandro Barbero

The historian’s responsibility. Marc Bloch: from the Sorbonne to the Gestapo prisons

Event #24

Marco Martella

Returning to the garden

Event #26

Eugenio Borgna, Simonetta Fiori

Knowing ourselves and knowing others: a different way of being responsible

Event #27

Tito Baldini

 “Borderline” kids meet the adult world

Event #28

Melania G. Mazzucco

A painting for freedom

Event #29

Luca Mastrantonio

Cruciverba volant (unbuckle your seatbelts)

Event #31

Lina Bolzoni

Theatres of memory between enchantment and utopia

Event #35

James R. Flynn, Armando Massarenti

Without an alibi: a voyage across life’s greatest questions

Event #36

Géza & The Bohemian Vitruosi

Music in voyage, or a voyage into music

Event #38

Alessandro Barbero

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

Event #39Children / Kids

Massimiliano Tappari

Finding wonder close to home

Event #41Children / Kids

Sergio Noberini

Discovering Luzzati’s universe

Event #42Children / Kids

Elisa Pezzolla

Emanuele Luzzati in a workshop

Event #44Children / Kids

FabLab Imola

Let’s learn how to build our own toys

Event #46Children / Kids

Alessandro Sanna

How to draw animals with a happy hand

Event #49Children / Kids

Centro DreamsLab

Try a 3D experience in history and science

Event #54Children / Kids

Lele Lomazzi

Let’s become songwriters

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

What’s under the bed?

Event #60Children / Kids

Davide Sapienza

Adventure into Everywhere

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