Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) was an innovative and wide-ranging thinker, whose theorisation of the role of the intellectuals has added a new dimension to the cultural and political understanding of current society. The most important of Gramsci’s writings, Prison Notebooks, were written during his imprisonment by the Italian Fascist regime. Published after his death, Gramsci’s Notebooks have never stopped to inspire new reflections and actions all over the world.
Today, he is widely studied and one of the most quoted authors in the world. The proliferation of books, articles, documentaries, and college courses on Gramsci’s ideas testify a gradual assimilation of his work into the mainstream of the Arts and Social Science academy.
This series of events suggests a reflection on the life of one of the greatest Italian authors, and on how he has become a global phenomenon.
Event in Italian with simultaneous translation
Donald Sassoon is Emeritus Professor of Comparative European History at Queen Mary University of London. Born in Cairo, lived and studied in Paris, Milan, London, and the USA. His works include One Hundred Years of Socialism (1996), Mona Lisa (2001), The Culture of the Europeans (2006), The Anxious Triumph. A Global History of Capitalism, 1860-1914 (2019), and, more recently, Morbid Symptoms. Anatomy of a World in Crisis (2021). His books have been translated in many languages. He was for ten years the organizer of the festival ‘La Storia in Piazza di Genova.’ He won various prizes such as the Deutscher Prize, the premio Acqui Storia, the Fondazione Premio Napoli, and the 2021 Premio Altiero Spinelli (Accademia delle Scienze of Bologna).
Salvatore Cingari is a full professor of History of Political Doctrines at the University for Foreigners in Perugia. He has been visiting professor at the University of Cairo and visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge. Among his recent publications Il giovane Croce. Una biografia etico-politica (2000), Benedetto Croce e la crisi della civiltà europea (2003), Dietro l’autonarrazione. Benedetto Croce fra Stato liberale e Stato democratico (2019) With a Gramscian perspective, he has studied the relationship between intellectuals, power and educational institutions in post-unification Italy: Un’ideologia per il ceto dirigente. Pensiero e politica al liceo Dante di Firenze (1853-1945) (2012). He is also interested in political and social theory: he edited Lessico postdemocratico (with Alessandro Simoncini, 2017) and reconstructed the history of meritocratic ideology in La meritocrazia (2020).
A series of events curated by Marzia Maccaferri, in collaboration with Geoff Andrews, Alessandro Carlucci, Peter D. Thomas and supported by ICI London and ASMI – Association for the Study of Modern Italy.