Alessandro Barbero’s history lessons-conferences are back, organized by Intesa Sanpaolo as part of the cultural activities held at the Turin skyscraper. The cycle, curated by Giulia Cogoli and now in its seventh edition, includes three new appointments entitled “How have we learned to live together? From oppression to democracy”.
The first lesson: Slavery
Tuesday 29 November, 6 pm
It starts tomorrow, Tuesday 29 November, at 6 pm live on the La Stampa website. The historian and writer, professor of medieval history at the University of Eastern Piedmont, known to the public for his extraordinary dissemination skills, will talk about the more or less known aspects of the models of coexistence. From slavery, on which the Roman Empire or the South of the United States were held up before the Civil War, to totalitarianism, a distinctive trait of the two most ferocious dictatorships of the twentieth century, Nazism and Stalinism, up to democracy, of which the Greeks they were the first to experiment with the regime, but of which many thinkers have affirmed with the utmost conviction that it was an evil to be avoided at all costs. So what is meant by democracy today?
The second lesson: Totalitarianism
Tuesday 6 December, 6pm
In today’s political culture, totalitarianism is identified with the two most ferocious dictatorships of the twentieth century, Nazism and Stalinism. Few remember that the term was invented in Italy to define the fascist dictatorship: coined by opponents and understood in a critical sense, totalitarianism was claimed and assumed as a program by Mussolini. Analyzing the reasons why fascism in Italy never actually succeeded in building a truly totalitarian regime is a way to explore the intrinsic diversity of Italian society and its irreducibility to a homogeneous paradigm.
The third lesson: Democracy
Tuesday 13 December, 6pm
Everyone knows that the term democracy is of Greek origin and that the Greeks were the first to experiment with the democratic regime. Today democracy is such an obvious value for us that it amazes us to discover how throughout our history, from Antiquity to the era of revolutions, many thinkers have affirmed with the utmost conviction that it was an evil to be avoided at all costs . But is what we continue to call democracy today, because we don’t have another word, still really the same thing the Greeks meant?