The Villa Rossa lecture series came to a conclusion on Monday, April 8, 2013 offering an opportunity to the SUF students to immerse themselves to Italian politics and more so to the recently held election which drew a lot of media attention all over the globe. The topic of the evening : Is democracy superfluous? Crisis and civic voice in Europe
into a heated debate among the presenters who were introduced but the lecture series organizer Natalia Piombino. Paul Blokker and Debora Spini are both professors at the SUF . Prof. Blokker offered an insightful 101 crash course in Italian democracy in general and his powerpoint presentation , made it clear to the audience
where some of the problems in Italy stem from , also historically speaking , for example that particracy (partitocrazia), the domination of one political class, before the late nineteen – eighties was the only alternative to the Italian Communist party. Yet Prof.Blokker’s image of a cartoon from a recent edition of an United Emirates newspaper became the focal point of the evening which caught Prof. Spini’s attention especially and she elaborated on it in a very passionate way , which drew in the entire room filled with students of the current semester. The image depicted all four candidates of the recent election sitting around a table each trying to solve the puzzle on how to stack pieces of the tower of Pisa without tumbling and the president of the republic stands by watching passively.
The image also drew the attention of Prof.Natalia Piombino and all three Professors debated on the present situation, that is an historical moment in Italian history while the students watched and listened. Yet when asked how much they knew before this lecture about this historical moment in Italian history they seemed to be challenged.
Nevertheless , judging from the few post lecture / debate questions from the audience the evening’s topic and presenters gave an opportunity to rethink it’s image of Italy and certainly made them appreciate their understanding of democracy as they know it first hand from the place they come from.
A warm “Grazie ai professori “ Paul Blokker and Debora Spini!
References:
www.rivisteweb.it : The most authoritative Italian collection of journals in humanities and social sciences (more than 80 journals) also in English
