Mese: Gennaio 2022

Sara Abram

God’s oneness and the imminence of the “Day of Reckoning” are the most dominant subjects of the first revelations that Muḥammad, the prophet of Islām, announces to the tribes of Mecca (7^th cent.). The ultimate destiny of humanity as described by the Quran and the Sunna poses today, as well as in ancient times, questions that are by no means negligible. The project aims to frame how the vivid representations of the Universal Judgement, the pleasures of Paradise, and the torments of Hell have been assimilated and interpreted by the different intellectual currents of Islamic thought (traditionalist, theological-speculative and mystical-esoteric) to better place the perspective I intend to shed light on: the philosophical one. The interpretations of the so-called falāsifa, compared to the literal readings of the Quran and to the many Islamic “narrations” on the topic, turn out to be among the highest expressions of intellectual autonomy that the history of Islamic thought has ever known. The preliminary study of falāsifa’s conception of the soul and the hereafter – together with the identification of the ancient and late antique Greek sources that they used – will led to a better contextualization of the two case studies that I intend to analyze: the hitherto unedited Book on the Knowledge of the Hereafter by the mathematician and philosopher Abū Ḥāmid al-Isfizārī (10^th-11^th cent.) and the Treatise on the Philosophical Description of the Hereafter by the Persian physician and philosopher Abū l-Faraǧ ʿAlī ibn Hindū (d. 1029/1032).

Stefano Poggi

Between the end of the 18th century and the middle of the 19th century, a new conception of foreignness took root in Europe. Whereas before each individual coming from a different community was considered as a foreigner, with the rise of the administrative state foreignness became strictly related to belonging to a certain national community – and ultimately to citizenship.

This project aims to investigate this change by considering how Lombard-Venetian authorities regulated the foreigners’ mobility from the end of the Republic of Venice to the 1848 uprising. In order to do so, it will consider not only the conceptions and the legislation of the central élites but also local bureaucrats’ control practices of foreigner’s mobility.

Jinxiao Wang

Despite his profession as a military doctor for the Italian Navy, Ludovico Nicola di Giura (1868-1947) was known to the world as sinologist, translator, writer and traveller. This four-year research takes a global microhistory perspective to compile a biography for the figure based on his published works, manuscripts, private collection and first-hand archival sources from Italy and China. Featured with L. N. di Giura’s geographical mobility, social integration, and contribution to Sino-Italian cultural exchange, this research advances on three dimensions: 1) L. N. di Giura’s life-in-mobile, namely Medical education and travelling with the Italian Navy (1868-1900), Life in China (1900-1931) and Prefect and Mayor of Chiaromonte (1931-1947); 2) his integration into the contemporary Chinese upper class, including the various forces that guided the fate of the country and the local intellectuals; 3) his re-discovery of Chinese civilization despite being an initially ambitious “Civilizing missionary”, as well as his efforts on introducing Chinese culture and community to the Italian public with his commentaries, translation and literary creation. The study will not only bring to light a figure buried in history, but will offer a microscopic view into the history about Italy and China at the turn of the 20th century, which indeed represents a starting point for the discovery of absolute novelties in this context.