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What is missing from our time of the ephemeral? This is the theme and the question that the organizers of the Classics Festival which will be held in Turin from 30 November to 3 December organized by the Circolo dei Readers foundation chaired by Luciano Canfora, want to answer.
The basic idea is to identify “an interpretative paradigm, anchored to the memory of the past but capable of orienting the future”. Because history is not an incessant flow: if we find adequate reading tools – this is the thesis of the curators – we can notice 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 timely than ever to interpret contemporaneity which appears very confused.
On the banks of the Hellespont
The curator Ugo Cardinali will open the proceedings and will give a talk 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, on which it was born in followed by Constantinople, ancient Byzantium, Western in culture, but which was Eastern for the Crusaders. Following, on the same day, it will be the turn of president Luciano Canfora who will speak about “Clash or meeting?” discussing with Lucio Caracciolo and Giulia Pompili about the difficult relations between West and East, between claims of cultural superiority which have their origins in the Greco-Persian wars of the 5th century BC.
Between east and west
The festival – which every day will have two moments of reflection that will touch on different genres (lessons, dialogues, readings, dialectical disputes, presentation of books, theatrical performances, fueled by the words of literature and philosophy, against the background of history) – will follow the thread conductor of the intricate relationships still unresolved between East and West, with a look to the past in order to find a possible coexistence. The basic idea from which the festival was born is that “the toolbox is made available by the classics”, books which do not offer simplified solutions, but re-propose ancient dilemmas, and which do not present a one-sided and sugar-coated image of man and the world, they give way to think.
The following day it will be the turn of the Greek scholar Olimpia Imperio and then of the philologist Maurizio Bettini. While on December 2nd the journalists Claudio Pagliara and Simonetta Rho and then Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi with the Latinist Ivan Dionigi will discuss the concept of “radicalization” of the clash between East and West; in the second meeting, however, we will talk about “Feminine between East and West” with Eva Cantarella and Margherita Rubino. Closing the Festival the following day will be, first, the Byzantine scholar Silvia Ronchey who will tell “The true story of Hypatia” and then the jurist Gianmaria Ajani, with Laura Pepe and Stefania Stafutti, respectively professors of the universities of Milan and Turin, who will conclude the review with a discussion on law from “Confucius to globalization”.