What is missing from our time of ephemerality? This is the theme and question that the organizers of the Classics Festival want to answer, which will take place in Turin from November 30th to December 3rd and is organized by the Circolo dei Readers Foundation, chaired by Luciano Canfora.
The basic idea is to “identify an interpretative paradigm anchored in the memory of the past but capable of orienting the future.” Because history is not a ceaseless flow: If we find suitable reading aids – the curators thesis – we can recognize the existence of events that offer opportunities to reflect on collective life. And even the subtitle of this exhibition, now in its sixth edition, “East/West,” is more relevant than ever to interpret contemporary times that seem very confused.
On the banks of the Hellespont
The curator Ugo Cardinali will open the conference and give a lecture entitled “East and West: ambivalent categories in the global universe”, in which he will tell how the split between two worlds began on the banks of the Hellespont, where it was born in Constantinople, the ancient Byzantium, western culture, but for the Crusaders eastern. Then, on the same day, it will be the turn of President Luciano Canfora, who will speak on “Conflict or Encounter?” Discussion with Lucio Caracciolo and Giulia Pompili about the difficult relations between West and East, between claims to cultural superiority that have their origins in the Greco-Persian wars of the 5th century BC. have.
Between East and West
The festival – which offers two moments of reflection every day touching on different genres (lessons, dialogues, readings, dialectical debates, presentation of books, theatrical performances enriched with words from literature and philosophy, against the background of history) – will be the thread guide follow the still unresolved complicated relationships between East and West and take a look into the past to find a possible coexistence. The basic idea from which the festival was born is that “the toolbox is made accessible through the classics”, books that do not offer simplified solutions, but propose new dilemmas and that do not present a one-sided and glossed over view of people and the world, they give way to thinking.
The next day it is the turn of the Greek scholar Olimpia Imperio and then the philologist Maurizio Bettini. While on December 2, journalists Claudio Pagliara and Simonetta Rho and then Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi will discuss with Latinist Ivan Dionigi the concept of “radicalization” of the conflict between East and West; However, in the second meeting we will talk about “Female between East and West” with Eva Cantarella and Margherita Rubino. The festival will conclude the next day first with the Byzantine scholar Silvia Ronchey, who will tell “The True Story of Hypatia,” and then the lawyer Gianmaria Ajani with Laura Pepe and Stefania Stafutti, professors from the universities of Milan and Turin, respectively. who concludes the review with a discussion of law from “Confucius to Globalization.”
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