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The increasing multiculturalism and multilingualism of Italian society has not had no real impact on Italian state language policy and planning: community languages are not taught in Italian state schools, neither to students with a migrant background, nor to native students. Given this absence of provision in the state system, the learning of community languages is primarily achieved through complementary education. Drawing on qualitative data from interviews with school organisers and teachers, this paper discusses the reasons for Ukrainian language learning in two Ukrainian complementary schools in Italy.

This paper explores certain early developments in the Indian grammatical tradition pertaining to rule conflict. In particular, it studies Kātyāyana’s vārttikas dealing with conflict resolution and attempts to understand how they were integrated by Patañjali into his bhāṣya. It focuses specifically on the usage of the terms nitya and antaraṅga by Kātyāyana and their subsequent reception by Patañjali. It concludes that Patañjali has, for the first time in the tradition, with his own interpretations of these terms, presented and leveraged them as conflict resolution tools – which Kātyāyana never intended them to be.

This paper inquires the relationship between two Trans-Himalayan languages, namely Lohorung (Eastern Kiranti) and Old Chinese (Sinitic) by comparing their ‘soul’-related vocabulary. Several identified etymological cognates and rather unexpected parallels between the Lohorung maŋsuʔ ‘household shrine’ and the fēiyī 飛衣 ‘flying garment’ (i.e. T-shaped silk banner) excavated at the Mǎwángduī 馬王堆 site may in turn just add another perspective in understanding the function and meaning of this controversially discussed archaeological find.

The present paper considers the issue of the Sanskrit term ārya, starting from the use of ārya and arya as ‘freeman’ and ‘owner’ in opposition to dāsa ‘servant’ (or śūdra), from the Vedas to the Arthaśāstra and Pāli texts (in the form ayya). The original meaning is here interpreted as based on social classes rather than ethnic differences, although foreign populations could be considered as belonging to the dāsa or śūdra class. This social meaning can be found also in the Irish cognate aire ‘freeman, noble’, and in Iranic cognates like Middle Persian ērīh ‘nobility’. Derived terms from arya/ārya often have an honorific use, and from the social meaning, also a moral and spiritual meaning could be developed, which is more easily explained from the concept of ‘noble’ and ‘freeman’ than from that of an ethnic identity or kinship. If the original meaning of Indo-European *aryos was ‘freeman, noble’, it can be compared with the Afro-Asiatic root *ħar- ‘(vb.) to be superior, to be higher in status or rank, to be above or over; (n.) nobleman, master, chief, superior; (adj.) free-born, noble’. We can have thus to do with concepts of nobility and freedom developed in the common cultural frame of a society where slavery and social stratification were evolving.

This paper presents the figure of the Spanish writer Antonio Gala in his most unknown facet: as a poet. In doing so, we will focus on the research carried out within the “Phonodia” group of the Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia. This research consists of the description and analysis of the corpus of recorded poems by Antonio Gala, which add up to a total of eighty-four and are found in three audio publications: Testamento andaluz (1985), De viva voz (1997), and Miró a mi corazón (2014) – the last one in collaboration with the composer Rubén Jordán. With all this, not only the importance of Antonio Gala as a contemporary poet will be proven, but also the relevance of his poems in the framework of the relationship between the voice and poetry through sound files.

In this paper, I focus on the journal that Uruguayan writer Horacio Quiroga (1878-1937) wrote to record his visit to Paris, from March to July, in the year 1900. It remained as a manuscript until Emir Rodríguez Monegal transcribed it and published it in 1950 as Diario de un viaje a París (Journal of a Visit to Paris). This is the title under which we know this work today. There are several reasons why this text constitutes an outstanding autobiographical record. First of all, it stands out as a striking vision of Paris by a Latin American author. Paris was considered then the world capital of culture and civilization; nevertheless, the image of Paris provided by Quiroga is very different from the ideal city depicted by such authors as Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera and Rubén Darío. In the second place, the journal is also the record of a formative period in Quiroga’s intellectual development. Some critics contend that the trip to Paris determined Quiroga’s decision to become a writer, but in the present paper, upon the careful analysis of the entries in the journal, I argue that this journey only marks the beginning of an incipient literary call. Finally, the journal is also an extraordinary record of the everyday experiences of a Latin American traveler in Paris, at the turn of the twentieth century.

This paper gives an account of the specific Venetian relationships of Andrea Zanzotto, with a particular emphasis on intensive dialogue with Carlo Della Corte (whose archive is housed at CISVe / Interuniversity Centre for Venetian Studies. A Zanzotto’s memoir on his friendship to Della Corte closes the paper.

Due to the growing importance of people-to-people diplomacy in China’s global strategies, this is a momentous time for China’s international development volunteering. Drawing from underexploited Chinese sources, the paper shows that international volunteering has the potential for enhancing China’s public appeal globally and giving a ‘softer’ connotation to China’s aid to Africa. In this paper the policy, practices, and discourses about China’s voluntary service are examined and framed within the context of China’s soft power strategies. Moreover, the recent domestic debate on shortcomings of the ‘China Foreign Aid Youth Volunteers Program’ in Africa and the new directions suggested to the country’s leadership by influential Chinese academics are critically analysed. The focus is on the tailoring of a new political and ideological ‘space’ for the Chinese NGOs as implementers of future international volunteering programs. In spite of considerable debates and evolutions, Chinese international volunteering programs seems to remain under tight state control and to be best understood as social engineering efforts, with China’s soft power as their main objective.

The present paper is part of a larger project promoted by the University RomaTre on translations of Greek Patristic Texts (2nd-6th century CE) in the Latin and Syriac sources, between the 3rd and the 8th century CE. In this paper I give priority to the analysis of the cultural context of the Syriac monasticism without neglecting the more important aspect of evaluation. Some of these aspects are connected to the relationship between the hagiographic production and the historiographical tradition. This relationship is clarified, not only from the reconstruction of the manuscript tradition, but also from the opportunity to capture certain problems present in the preparatory phase of the heterogeneous Lausiac material. Therefore, their manuscript tradition must be analysed for each individual case. After a brief presentation of the status quaestionis of the studies conducted on Palladius’ text, the paper focuses on some aspects of this tradition that help us better understand the historical and cultural environment. The first aspect concerns the problem of the transmission of texts in monastic circles, the second aspect regards the original choices of Syriac translators.

The article reports on the design and piloting of the MobIta proficiency test. MobIta was designed as an entry test for a course of Italian for Business Purposes to assess reading and writing skills in the occupational and public domains of the Common European Framework. However, since the course was entirely online, we included in our test a part devoted to assessing language proficiency for online learning. After contextualising linguistic competence for online education, the paper illustrates the development of the test, focusing on the piloting stage. We conclude that language proficiency is an important asset for distance education and, since it can hinder the learners’ participation, must therefore be carefully considered.

The present paper aims to stimulate reflection on what learning and teaching English means nowadays in evolving and dynamic social, linguistic and cultural contexts. In the increasingly multilingual contexts which characterize the era of globalization, English becomes a fluid, variable, heterogeneous language, strictly connected to local identities and speakers’ linguistic needs. It is therefore suggested to re-examine traditional pedagogies in light of the changes and innovations which have contributed to expand and diversify English globally. A global language, yet with a myriad of different voices which claim to be heard and recognized. A new pedagogical space for English gradually emerges along with more meaningful roles for inspiring teachers, definitely more aware of new perspectives and implications. The paper attempts to offer new insight with the hope to enlarge traditional teaching horizons and practices.

In studies, more than forty, that the French academic Guy Tosi has dedicated to his favorite Italian author, Gabriele d’Annunzio, between 1942 and 1987, the name «Venice» appears many times. First, Venice is the city where d’Annunzio met French writers and artists: his translator Georges Hérelle, the musician Claude Debussy, the writer Maurice Barres, the dancer Ida Rubinstein. Secondly, Venice is associated primarily to the novel Il Fuoco that Guy Tosi has studied in numerous papers. Retracing these studies, importants also for the discovery of many previously unpublished documents (especially correspondences), this paper aims to highlight the main contribution of the French academic about contacts and reminiscences of French literature in the work of d’Annunzio.

The aim of the paper is to analyze the different effects that each medium (literature-cinema) may have on the experience of its readers and audience – what that medium is trying to cultivate, the limitations of each and how all of them in different ways bring greater attention to the historical phenomenon of the Armenian Genocide. With a focus on the renowned Italian-Armenian novelist Antonia Arslan’s Genocide narrative Skylark Farm the paper will first discuss the literary genre as an instrument that brings greater attention to the historical memory and then will focus on the theme of the Armenian Genocide in cinema and will deal with the dramatized version of the Skylark Farm by the Italian directors, the Taviani brothers.

The Armenian Genocide is still the object of a hard denial in the official attitude of Turkey's government and political circles. The Turkish term used to define what happened to the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire, in 1915, is tehcir meaning expulsion or deportation. The increasing pressure of international media, of public opinion and of the recognition process of the Armenian Genocide by a growing number of states induced, in recent years, the Turkish authotities to sustain the thesis that being a historical question, the issue of the Armenian Genocide must be discussed and resolved by historians. It happens however that, if a Turkish historian affirms the factuality of the Armenian Genocide, this can cause him/her serious problems. Hence the question seems to be entrapped in a deadlock. The paper wants to be an attempt to analyse some principles, factors and methodologies, which can help in showing a possible way out from the deadlock. It tries to elaborate some theoretical, practical and concrete proposals that will get the discussants on the way. It also examines some specific problems and hardships, which either side faces, and seeks to indicate ways that might be helpful, and tasks that might be necessary in order to overcome them. The main questions the paper faces are: the conceptual/semantic relation between genocide and tehcir in the Armenian case, the issue of trauma and the overcoming of trauma, and going beyond recognition.

This paper investigates John Donne’s rhetorical strategies and lyrical outcomes in the light of the increasing scepticism, following the crisis of the century-old epistemological and religious framework undermined by the Reform and the new science. It focuses, in particular, on the recurring use of paradox in the profane context of Songs and Sonnets, which shows how Donne draws upon the religious discourse preserving its ‘sacred’ form but adapting it to secular contents and persuasive purposes, devoid of any orthodox transcendence. Moreover, the analysis of Donne’s religious paradoxes reveals the poet’s will to compete with the religious authority by mimicking its argumentative style and its limit-expressions (according to Ricoeur’s definition), in order to build and defend his own ‘poetical truth’. Finally, the paper underlines how Donne’s poetry anticipates one of the main features of modern secularization: the role of the arts (poetry included) as the only possible fictional shelter able to compensate for the loss of religious faith.

Digital games are increasingly used as innovative tools for climate change communication. Our study uses the example of Eco to analyse, with the help of a validated set of criteria, how commercial games communicate climate change and the science behind it, which options for action are suggested to the player and how the interplay of the three pillars of sustainability (environmental, social, and economic) is presented in the game. The paper’s conclusions underline the potential for commercial, multiplayer survival games like Eco to act as educational tools for communicating complex environmental issues, bridging diverse player demographics, and fostering a deeper understanding of the challenges and solutions in addressing climate change and ecological sustainability. Our findings help test and advance existing concepts in environmental communication studies and sustainability studies.

The paper analyses the content of the relationes ad limina drawn up by German bishops between 1948 and 1958. In their abundance of information, these documents make it possible, among other things, to shed light on the episcopate’s view of the material and moral condition of the German Catholic population in the immediate post-war period and in the 1950s, as well as on the situation of the Catholic Church in the two German states (FRG and GDR) separated by the ‘Iron Curtain’. In the last years of Pius XII’s pontificate, a cause of great concern for the ecclesiastical hierarchy was on the one hand ‘practical’ materialism in a West Germany that was experiencing a phase of rapid economic growth, and on the other dialectical materialism in an East Germany under Soviet influence.

This paper analyses and publishes a diptych of texts on the origins of the Orsini family preserved in the manuscript Florence, BNC, II.VII.82. The texts are fully in line with the trend of ‘unbelievable genealogies’ developing in Italy during the 16th century. The first of the texts recounts the remote origins of the noble family and is attributed to an otherwise unknown son of Marsilio Ficino. The second one narrates Orsine events in the Carolingian era and is instead attributed to Francesco Petrarca.

The present issue closes magazén’s third annual volume, which presented a total of twelve original papers from international scholars who devoted their attention to the schemes and models of research that are defining our scholarly domain and revolving around the practice of [re]construction

Keio University, the oldest institute of western higher education in Japan, opened its first university museum, named Keio Museum Commons (KeMCo) in April 2021. To facilitate cultural encounters and interactions among the students, academics, as well as broader public audiences, KeMCo challenges in weaving the physical museum visit and the online digital experience. This paper aims to explore the practices and experiences we have acquired from the development and implementation and further clarify the fundamental principles of how university museums can create digital-physical hybrid experiences across the academic-public sphere.

Digital visualisation technologies including 3D modelling and virtual/augmented reality have revolutionised our critical engagement with the visual arts. The possibility of virtually [re]constructing highly fragmented contexts has opened infinite possibilities and new agendas for research. While the sustainability of Digital Humanities research is at the forefront of current debates, through specific case studies, with a particular focus on medieval historical heritage, this paper aims to critically engage with methodological aspects employed in the creation of digital reconstructions. These models need to balance the need for accuracy and academic certitude with the aesthetic quality of the objects themselves. Through an interdisciplinary and multifaceted approach, it will offer a commentary and a reassessment of the common notion that digital conservation as a discipline needs to offer a curative response in the fields of historical preservation, cultural heritage and archaeology.

Reconstructing history is a challenging task. What does it mean exactly and how to proceed? What are the advantages of the digital approach to history? How can we differentiate between digital art history and art history with digitised material? The present paper aims to provide insights into the ongoing research project LAWHA (Lebanon’s Art World at Home and Abroad: Trajectories of Artists and Artworks In/from Lebanon Since 1943) and the knowledge structure of its database. How does the data need to be modelled to provide answers to the guiding research questions? The project departs from the presumption that the digital can create more visibility for modern art from the Arab region and ultimately broaden the art canon. Is that too positivist an approach and can the digital really be the spearhead of real-life developments? What role do keywords play in that regard?

This paper analyses “the force of things” (Bennett 2010, 1) in Aeschylus’ Niobe, in particular the function of two material props (in a broader sense): the tomb of Niobe’s children and her mourning veil. These will be examined through both textual evidence and visual representations of the myth. Aristoph. Frogs 911-20 (test. 120 R) describes Niobe as seated, veiled, and silent for half of Aeschylus’ play (cf. also Vit. Aeschyl. 5-6 = test. 1.19-23 R). With such a static plot, material props are crucial; from a cognitive, physical, and psychological point of view they deeply affect the main character, as well as the other characters (including the chorus) and the spectators, who experience Niobe’s feelings through her contact with the material medium. The physical and psychological relationship between Niobe and the tomb affects her communication with the other characters, her own perception of reality and her capability to act. The grave locks Niobe into her grief, preventing her from moving forward – and physically away from it – and even from communicating with the outer world. The mourning veil is the material expression of this interrupted relationship. It acts as a material barrier, preventing communication between Niobe and the other characters: it weakens her physical and cognitive perception of the world, as well as her capacity to act, ‘sealing’ the character in her silence. Moreover, the veil separates Niobe from the world of the living, entrapping her in an exclusive relationship with her dead children.

The essay analyses the impact of the COVID-19 lockdowns during the pandemic on the practices of museum storytelling in the context of social networks, particularly in relation to the Museo di Palazzo Grimani in Venice, Italy. The spring 2020 lockdown constituted a totally new situation for museums, whose forced closure caused the fundamental daily relationship with visitors to fail in an unexpected and all-encompassing way. At this juncture, social media have provided the space for an effective rethinking and reconstruction of the Museum’s narratives, starting from their inherent potential and the need to interpret the external need, though not to substitute a real on-site visit. This paper is based on a practical and direct experience, thus trying to benchmark the specific case study of Palazzo Grimani and inserting it into the wider academic literature that developed out of the challenges fostered by the pandemic.

The paper sets out to analyse Eur. Hel. 818, and offers a fresh interpretation of the correct tradition to be accepted concerning it, with particular reference to the use of interpunction.

This paper examines how socio-political and cultural change is discussed in selected archaic and classical Greek texts (Thgn. 53-60, 287-92; Pherecr. fr. 155 K.-A.; Aristoph. Nub. 889-1023; Pl. Lg. 700a-701c). The analysis underlines the thematic, rhetorical and stylistic features and the moral preoccupations that are common to these sources. It is then argued that they all participate in an intertextual ‘discourse on change’. Furthermore, the article samples how close textual readings can be enhanced by the awareness that each single passage, as an instance of this tradition of discourse, is intertextually connected to the others.

The aim of this paper is to provide a new analysis of four latin fragments preserved on the verso of P. Gen. inv. Lat. 7 (2nd century AD). They have often been considered as an inventory of works of art linked to P. Gen. inv. Lat. 5, but content and palaeographical evidence indicate that they are two different texts. These four fragments contain two texts of mythographic content concerning Roman divinities and heroes, Egyptian mythology (the presence of Isis, Horus and Aegipan suggests a reference to episodes of the myth of Osiris), mutations of divinities and religious mysteries of Persephon, mentioned together with divinities and demigods traditionally linked to the underworld.

This article treats two anonymous epigrams (APl 62-3) preserved in the so-called Anthologia Planudea which, according to the lemma, were both inscribed on the same equestrian statue of the emperor Justinian I placed in the Hippodrome of Constantinople. Scholars have identified this statue with the one dedicated after a Persian victory and still surviving in the 8th century CE. The paper argues that not only do the two poems concern two different and separate objects, but also that just APl 63 could refer to a statue (and not necessarily the famous one accepted by most scholars), whereas APl 62 seems to allude to a smaller object belonging to the category of imperial luxury gifts.

Edipo all’alba is the first “Greek” tragedy by Pasolini: it was composed during the third year of his university education, but never made public until its posthumous collection in his complete works (most likely owing to the homoerotic content). Recent editions have proved to be damaging to the original because of several mistakes in copying and, as a result, to the precise comprehension of this composite play. On the basis of the last textual edition, just realised for the birth centenary, this paper tries to update the literature on Edipo all’alba shedding new light primarily on its ancient sources (Sophocles, Statius), which has been the least studied subject of the play.

The paper provides the first edition of three vase inscriptions, brought to light in 1976 from the so called ‘Santuario della Sorgente’, in the Greek site of Saturo. The texts, dating from 6th to 5th c. BC, are all related to local cults: two of them are dedicated to the Basilìs, a local goddess attested by other dedications, while the third is devoted to the cult of an anonymous goddess. The latter inscription also presents the verb ἀποδίδωμι, in a formula rarely attested elsewhere at this age. The cults practice witnessed by these new documents shows some similarities between the site of Saturo and inland Messapian sanctuaries.

Between 1965 and 1973, the United States and Great Britain were going to conceive and execute a plan which involved the deportation of about two thousand islanders to set up a military base on the island of Diego Garcia located right in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Beyond the strategic, political and financial stakes, only one form of cultural practices managed to capture the joys, the pain and the hopes of that population: the ségas and the çantés. Indeed, the musical culture became the medium of choice of a then mostly illiterate population. Hence, all the songs of the Chagos shared a common heritage: the permanent evocation of the lost islands. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to show how the collective imagination of the exiled population is essentially portrayed in songs that initially referred to everyday life in their former place of abode. Once the spoliation process came into effect, the songs started to focus on a return to a fantasy island which with time has acquired mythical overtones.

Besides introducing groundbreaking critical concepts such as double consciousness, colour line and the veil, W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk (1903) was among the first books to attribute universal dignity to black music. It did so by devoting a whole chapter to the ‘sorrow songs’, seen as “the articulate message of the slave to the world”, as well as by opening each chapter with epigraphs composed of bars of ‘black’ spirituals juxtaposed with lines of poetry by notable ‘white’ authors – Symons, Lowell, Byron, among others – in a musical/textual version of double consciousness. Reconsidering the composite formal structure of The Souls of Black Folk and the role of the spirituals as ceaseless reminders of freedom, the paper explores the ways in which Du Bois’s speculations on black music foreshadow contemporary sonic/textual strategies.

In many respects, classics may be considered as a language, that was aptly used to legitimate the imperialist exploitation of white people over the so called “Third World countries”. My paper is aimed at understanding whether and to which extent the Greco-Roman Antiquity as such can become a tool for telling a submerged history and for bringing forth its non hegemonic subjects. I will take into consideration a collective experience conducted by a theatre company in the south of Italy during the summer of 2018. Through a workshop involving immigrant people in the city of Palermo, Ali Farah, a Somali-Italian writer, staged an experimental rewriting of Sophocles’ Antigone, which starts from the telling of personal stories of migration through the Mediterranean sea. Grounding my analysis in the comparison between Antigone’s defiance of the power and the crossing of borders, I will underline the revolutionary message that the rewriting of this myth in contemporary Fortress Europe delivers.

The paper discusses the main results of a case study on migrant women learning Italian as a second language and the teaching strategies employed thereof. The study focuses in particular on the linguistic and educational needs of female learners who move to Italy as a re- sult of family reunification. After providing a critical overview of the course structure and teach- ing procedures which are generally implemented in this type of language training, the paper proposes an analysis of adult migrants’ L2 learning needs from a gendered perspective. In light of some critical issues emerging from the case study, a task-based and self-narrative methodo- logical framework is proposed, to try and meet migrant women’s heterogeneous needs.