Research

GLIBAL - The Global Dimension of the Libyan Conflict

Researcher: Matteo Capasso,  Length: 36 months (from March 1st 2022), Grant: € 269.002,56 (HORIZON2020)

Reconsidering mainstream analyses that present the war in Libya as the result of historically local problems, the project examines the war from a global perspective. GLIBAL investigates how those processes that were central to the development of US-led imperialism unfolded, were shaped, and contested in Libya from 1969 to the present. The project investigates both the material and ideological aspects that have shaped the relationship between Libya and US-led imperialism using archives and interviews across various locales. In doing so, it aims to clarify how the evolution of global governance patterns are linked to the outbreak of conflicts in the Global South. The project takes place at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca' Foscari with Prof. Matteo Legrenzi and at the MESAAS Department of Columbia University in New York with Prof. Timothy Mitchell.

RESONATE - Designing Resonant Frames: How to Effectively Communicate about Immigrant and Refugee Rights?

Researcher: Bilge Yabanci, Length: 36 months (from January 15th 2022), Grant: € 269.002,56 (HORIZON2020)

Human rights groups have sounded a distress call on the rising hate speech, xenophobia, criminalisation and stigmatisation of migrants and refugees all around the world. While immigrant and refugee rights movements (IRRM) have provided temporary assistance to refugees and migrants in numerous countries, they have failed to respond to the societal backlash against migration. RESONATE explores ways in which IRRMs can communicate with societies better to alter biased public opinion and promote rights for noncitizens. By focusing on Turkey, the largest refugee-hosting country, the project maps the capacities and communicative strategies of the emergent IRRM in the country. It combines novel research methods with insights from sociology, communication studies, and political science to be ableto alter stigmatising views and solicit broader support for the rights of non-citizens towards forging more inclusive societies.

TIDES - A Long Way to a New Cosmology: Theories of Tides in Pre-Modern Thought

Researcher: Ovanes Akopyan, Length: 24 months (from July 1st 2023), Grant: € 188.590,08 (HORIZON EUROPE)

This project aims to offer the first interdisciplinary study of pre-modern engagement with the relatively neglected yet highly problematic and significant natural phenomenon of tides. It argues that the flow and ebb effect was an essential component of cosmological discussions in pre-modern Europe and attracted the attention of all key scholars whom we currently associate with the so-called Scientific Revolution. Against the standard narrative of paradigmatic shifts owing its success to Thomas Kuhn, and following the most recent research in the field, the project thus demonstrates that the epistemological transformations cosmology underwent from the late Middle Ages to the late seventeenth century were more complex and ambiguous than is hitherto believed.

MC-EuCon - Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673) in the history of European ideas of consciousness

Researcher: Marrama Oberto, Length: 27 months (from September 1st 2023), Grant: € 188.590,08 (HORIZON EUROPE)

Questions about consciousness, its origin and nature, which dominate current debates in philosophy of mind and neurosciences, arose during the 17th century. The MC-EuCon project investigates Margaret Cavendish’s philosophy (1623-73), to provide a detailed interpretation of her theory of consciousness. Cavendish argued for a wholly material, yet wholly thinking universe. It is unclear whether her theory also implies the presence of consciousness throughout nature – in ways which anticipate present-day panpsychism. By targeting one of the earliest and most original responses to Descartes’s dualist theory, the project aims to develop our understanding of how problems about conscious life evolved and were addressed in Europe in the early modern period. The project is carried out at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari, supervised by Prof. Pietro Daniel Omodeo.

PYC- Palestinian Youth at the Crossroad: comparative perpsectives on Palestinian transnational youth politics

Researcher: Mjriam Abu Samra, Length: 36 months (from July 15th 2023), Grant: € 288.859,20 (HORIZON EUROPE)

Palestinian Youth at the Crossroads (PYC) is an interdisciplinary project that explores the political potential of contemporary Palestinian transnational youth activism in the United States and Europe. PYC aims at assessing the capacity and future perspectives of youth politics by providing a comprehensive mapping of youth and student experiences in the U.S. and Europe and looking at the socio-cultural dynamics that characterize youth initiatives, the way narratives and discourses are articulated and the social and political frameworks that shape their strategies. Mjriam completed her PhD in International Relations at the University of Oxford, UK and will undertake her outgoing research phase at the Department of Anthropology at UC Davis with Professor Suad Joseph.

HYB-KNOW - Hybrid Knowledge Society

Researcher: Justas Patkauskas, Length: 24 months (from September 1st 2023), Grant: € 188.590,08 (HORIZON EUROPE)

HYB-KNOW is a research project situated at the intersection of philosophy, history, and social theory. The project embarks on a critical genealogy of the concept of the “knowledge society” in the 20th and 21st centuries and considers the emergent disciplines of biopolitics, cybernetics, and Earth system science. The overarching objective of this project is to explore the feasibility of a hybrid knowledge society, characterized by a robust epistemic foundation capable of addressing the multifaceted knowledge-making demands of the 21st century. The project will be implemented in the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, under the supervision of Professor Pietro Daniel Omodeo.

Identifications - Identifications - A Psychoanalytic/Political Study of Performances Countering intra-European Cultural Racism

Researcher: Goran PETROVIC, Length: 24 months (from September 1st 2023), Grant: € 172.750,08 (HORIZON EUROPE)

The EU's expansion to Central and Eastern Europe brought with it the rise of right-wing parties. Factors like the European debt crisis, austerity measures, and a migrant influx spurred the institutionalization of these parties. Blaming immigrants and refugees for the economic decline, they foster citizen identification through discriminatory discourse. This project delves into the complex relationship between immigration, discrimination and performance. It investigates how civic and artistic performances mobilize identifications around anti-discriminatory discourses that can uphold democratic institutions. The study uses archival work and qualitative methods, informed by performance studies, critical race theory, psychoanalysis, political philosophy, and discourse theory, to explore identification processes challenging cultural racism, discrimination, and intolerance.

RIGHT - The ‘Right’ in human rights: Aristotelianism and Neo-Confucianism at the basis of the EU-China Dialogue

Researcher: Anna Eirini BAKA, Length: 36 months (from March 15th 2022), Grant: € 269.002,56 (HORIZON 2020)

RIGHT is an interdisciplinary project led by Dr. Anna Irene Baka. Its ambitious goal is to reshape how we think about human rights by integrating insights from Aristotelian philosophy and Confucianism. This synthetic approach fills a significant gap in current human rights theory and aims to provide a solid foundation for the ongoing EU-China Human Rights Dialogue. Dr. Baka is carrying out the first part of the project at Harvard University's East Asian Languages and Civilizations Department, working closely with Prof. Michael Puett. The second phase will be conducted at Ca' Foscari University's Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, under the guidance of Prof. Marco Sgarbi. The project is especially relevant, given the renewed emphasis on Confucianism by the Chinese Communist Party.

DEJMENA - Decolonial Environmental Justice from the Middle East to North America

Researcher: Walaa ALQAISIYA, Length: 30 months (from March 1st 2022), Grant: € 224.686,08 (HORIZON 2020)

DEJMENA—Decolonial Environmental Justice: from Middle East to North America aims to provide a reading of environmental justice at the intersection of indigeneity and feminist decoloniality. Building on the expertise that I have accumulated in engaging decolonial feminist socio-political praxis and theorising, the project draws on activists’ and indigenous communities’ struggles with ecological crises, particularly land and water grabs, across the settler colonial contexts of Palestine and Turtle Island. In doing so, it provides a novel and a much urgent grounding of the locally global impact and value of decolonial feminist ecologies. DEJMENA centres a decolonial feminist approach to the question of planetary crisis as it emerges from the historical and material specificity of everyday confrontation with and survival against the violence of settler colonial and capitalist regimes spanning global North and South contexts.

PARENT CITIZENS - Schools of Citizenship: Parent Councils at Public Schools in Italy, Spain, and France

Researcher: Jacob Garrett, Length: 24 months (from September 1st 2022), Grant: € 183.473,28 (HORIZON 2020)

In the wake of economic, climate, and violent crises throughout the Mediterranean region, Europe is in the midst of one of the largest historical waves of asylum seekers and immigrants. What are the appropriate and practically effective institutions to build shared values of tolerance, respect, and citizenship? While most European wide civic education initiatives focus on school children, the focus of this study is participation of immigrant parents at schools. In particular, I will research the institutional development of parent councils at schools in three of the highest immigrant recipient countries in Europe: Italy, Spain, and France. By focusing on this unique institutional infrastructure, the project aims to develop an experiential account and theoretical understanding of the participatory interactions of immigrant parents.

PostelEast - Guillaume Postel and the East: Universalism in the Global Renaissance

Researcher: Maria Vittoria Comacchi, Length: 36 months (from February 15th 2022), Grant: € 251.002,56 (HORIZON 2020)

Guillaume Postel (1510-1581), advocate of radical religious and political universalism, was the first lecturer of Arabic in Europe and collected numerous Arabic, Ottoman, and Hebrew manuscripts during his voyages to the Ottoman Empire. Although Postel engaged with anti-Muslim rhetoric in his political and religious works, the use he made of original Islamic sources and his unorthodox Christian believes allow us to see the complexity of his relationship with Islam and the Ottoman world. The overall objective of the PostelEast project is to reassess Postel’s political universalism, questioning whether and in which way the Ottoman and Arabic culture influenced his thought. The research will explore Postel’s experience of the Ottoman society, reconstruct his collection of Arabic and Ottoman manuscripts, and contextualize his understanding of Islamic sources given the intellectual context of the time.

INTERPHIL - The international congresses and the transnational shaping of philosophy (1900-1948) Spaces – Struggles – Identity – Knowledge

Researcher: Giuseppe Bianco, Length: 36 months (from January 1st 2023), Grant: € 255.768,00 (HORIZON 2020)

The project tackles the issue of philosophy’s disciplinary identity by studying the first ten international congresses in philosophy (1900-1948), relating them to the emergence in Europe of a new academic space.  INTERPHIL adopts an inter-disciplinary and multi-scalar approach to the congresses in order to explain the constitution of a European philosophical space, the progressive formation of a idea of Europe and the creation of international institutions. The project will isolate the scientific networks tied to the congresses, study intra/inter-national, intra/inter- disciplinary struggles to define philosophy from the other disciplines, problematize the clash between universalistic claims and situated epistemologies and, finally, localize the main features of the internationally legitimated philosophical corpus. 

HEIEL - Healthcare Encounters in Immigrants’ Everyday Lives

Researcher: Grazia Deng, Length: 24 months (from September 1st 2022), Grant: € 171.473,28  (HORIZON 2020)

The main goal of HEIEL is to examine how Chinese migrants in Italy perceive their bodies, manage their health, and experience the local healthcare system in the context of national austerity, rising anti-immigrant sentiments, and on-going political, social, and demographic transformations and how these perceptions and experiences affect their identity formation. This ethnographic study will provide a bottom-up narrative of migrant health amid ambiguous power dynamics in which migrant subjects are simultaneously economically privileged and socially vulnerable. It locates Chinese migrants' everyday healthcare practices at the intersection of their transnational migration process, dynamic social realities, and geopolitics. It is a multi-sited ethnography of encounters that examines healthcare seekers' interactions with various types of healthcare providers, institutions, and authorities. 

PlaGE- Playing at the Gateways of Europe: theatrical languages and performatives practices in the Migrant Reception Centres of the Mediterranean Area

Researcher: Rosaria Ruffini, Length: 36 months (from October 1st 2020), Grant: € 241.245,12  (HORIZON 2020)

The project investigates the use of theatrical languages and performative practices at the core of the Mediterranean migration process, during the transit-phase in the reception centres of Italy and Morocco. By adopting an interdisciplinary approach which combines Performance Studies and Social Studies, the research maps and analyses the emerging presence of cross-cultural performative practices at the thresholds of Europe. PlaGE benefits from a Euro-African perspective, enriched by the strategical collaboration of two universities located at the opposite sides of the Mediterranean Sea. The researcher will spend two years in Morocco, at the University Ibn Zohr of Agadir, and the third year at Ca’ Foscari, Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, under the supervision of prof. Fabio Perocco. The experimental part of the research will be conducted in collaboration with the Good Chance Theatre, the European network of artists working with asylum seekers.

EXIT - Exploring sustainable strategies to counteract territorial inequalities from an intersectional approach

Local coordinator: Fabio Perocco, Duration: 36 months (start 01/11/2022), Grant: € 228.791,25 (European Commission, Horizon Europe, HORIZON-CL2-2021-TRANSFORMATIONS-01)

The EU-funded EXIT project aims to explore the manifestations, root causes and implications of socioeconomic inequalities within and between regions that are often referred to as left behind. The three-year project - involving seven universities and four civil society organizations from eight countries – will also propose ways to tackle such inequalities through a rigorous programme of cross-disciplinary and multi-actor research with communities on the ground. The project will explore, from an intersectional perspective, how inhabitants, institutions and organizations in these areas perceive, experience and counteract inequalities. The comprehensive programme of research and dissemination will enable knowledge sharing and best practice transfer between countries and communities in order to restrategise their sustainable development and enhance social inclusion.

AUTOREN - Automata and Power in the Culture of Machines of Renaissance Florence, Milan and Venice (1400-1600)

Researcher: Cristiano Zanetti, Length: 36 months (from January 15th 2022), Grant: € 216.802,56  (HORIZON 2020)

Automata were, as pioneering art historian Eugenio Battisti observed, “perhaps the most abstract compositions of all occidental civilization”. Anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and especially cosmomorphic automata were among the most elaborate mechanical achievements of Renaissance Italy. They were not useful machines in the traditional way, such as mills, clocks, hosting devices, water-raising devices, etc., but rather apparently animated symbolic organisms that conveyed a multilayered intellectual message often undecipherable to our contemporary eye. This research project, at the crossroads of archaeometry and the historiographies of philosophy, art, science, and technology, focusses on the social, cultural and material history of symbolic machines in Renaissance Italy in the areas of Milan, Venice and Florence between 1400 and 1600. The research will be carried out at the California Institute of Technology and the Huntington Library of Pasadena (California) with prof. Mordechai Feingold, and at Ca' Foscari in Venice (the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage) with prof. Marco Sgarbi.

RENAISSANCE USSR - HUMANISM BEHIND THE IRON CURTAIN: ITALIAN RENAISSANCE STUDIES IN THE SOVIET UNION 

Researcher: Iryna Mykhailova, Length: 36 months (from November 1st 2021), Grant: € 251.002,56  (HORIZON 2020)

The main objective of this three-year project is to examine the Italian Renaissance Studies in the Soviet Union taken as an independent, but considerably isolated scholarly tradition, and to determine its place in the twentieth-century international discourse on Renaissance humanism and philosophy. The project seeks to comprehend why and how Italian Renaissance intellectual history was extensively studied in the Soviet Union, what was the contribution of the Soviet scholars to the field on the international level and to what extent it was informed by, on one hand, Western studies in the field, and, on the other hand, by the Soviet ideological context. Based on the archival papers located in Russia, Europe, and the United States, the project also aims to clarify how Soviet scholars, whose financial opportunities and academic mobility were significantly limited, participated in the international academic networks that is, on larger scale, how intellectual interchange between culturally and politically different academic communities took place.  

Glob-Pop-Nat - Populist nationalism in 'global' western India, 1920-1939

Researcher: Robert Upton, Length: 33 months (from October 1st 2021), Grant: € 193,758.96  (HORIZON 2020)

The project critically evaluates the assumed historical connections between European fascism and Hindu nationalism (Hindutva) in the interwar period in which Hindutva emerged. Through this it aims at a better understanding of the transnational nature of the radical populist right in the interwar period at a global level, and therefore a better understanding of populist right-wing movements generally in comparative and historical perspective. Transnational in its nature, the project also exploits a vernacular and interdisciplinary regional study of Hindutva in its birthplace of Maharashtra in western India, and is hosted in India at an intellectual centre for the study of nationalism, the Netaji Institute for Asian Studies, by Prof. Suranjan Das. At Ca’ Foscari, the project benefits from supervision at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage by Prof. Matteo Legrenzi. 

Inventing GPS – Technology and International Security in the Cold War and Beyond

Researcher: Andrea Chiampan, Length: 36 months (from September 1st 2021), Grant: € 237.768,00  (HORIZON 2020)

This project provides the first in-depth historiographical study of the Global Positioning System (GPS) development, highlighting the interplay of technological innovation with Cold War politics and prevailing military-strategic culture. Through the ‘applied history’ methodology, the project will also analyze the implications of satellite-navigation technology for the future of European security. 

INFO-POW - Assessment of the channels of information and their use in the posting of workers

Local coordinator: Fabio Perocco, Duration: 18 months (start 01/09/2022), Grant: € 63.220, 87 (European Commission, European Social Fund+ (ESF+) Social Prerogatives and Specific Competencies Lines (SocPL))

Info-POW brings together research institutions from five EU Member States (Austria, Belgium, Italy, Slovakia, and Slovenia) as well as social partners at both national and EU levels to promote the evidence basis through the collection and evaluation of original data, and the analysis specific to the posting process and posted workers' working conditions. 

The overarching aim of this research project is to identify and assess new as well as existing challenges and needs of undertakings (in the construction sector more specifically) in accessing and using relevant information regarding the process of posting workers and the undertakings' obligations as a result thereof. Previous studies have found that despite the existence of information provided through different channels, whether by state or non-state actors, information is insufficient and/or difficult to access by the stakeholders it should be provided for. It also remains unclear to what degree existing channels of information are used by posting undertakings and in what way(s). 

This study fills a gap in the understanding of how transnational posting undertakings and user undertakings find and use information in their interaction with national institutions and how that affects their overall performance in terms of the correct application of the posting rules and the protection of labour and social standards. The study focuses on the specific case of the construction sector as the main sector where posting occurs, and where both larger companies and SMEs as well as self-employed are active.

RESISTANCE - Raising awarnESs of MaritIme Spatial planning imporTANCE

Local coordinator: Giulio Pojana, Duration: 15 months (start 01/04/2022), Grant: € 90.000,00 (Cross-border cooperation program: Interreg Italy-Croatia 2014-2020)

RESISTANCE is an example of the cooperation of various experts, members of representatives of local, regional authorities, educational institutions, and international environmental organizations, who will jointly evaluate their already developed good practices for the sustainable use of marine and coastal resources. All involved PPs will work together to establish guidelines for preserving the wealth of the Adriatic Sea to reap maximum economic benefits while protecting the marine ecosystem. RESISTANCE will use the good practice, results, and all the benefits available from projects SOUNDSCAPE, ECOSS, ECOMAP, NET4MPLASTIC, DORY, ML-REPAIR, and SASPAS to develop sustainable growth, address pollution and contamination, and protect the unique biodiversity of the Adriatic Sea.

LEGITIMATH: Teaching and learning practices of calculus in the 18th century: the case of Italian mathematics and its European dimension

Researcher: Davide Crippa, Length: 24months (from February 1st 2022), Grant: € 171.473,28  (HORIZON 2020)

This project aims to explore the history of analysis focusing on acquisition and circulation of teaching and learning practices in 18th century Europe. Integrating history of mathematics and mathematical education, oral and cultural histories, this research project will reconstruct, on the basis of a number of manuscript sources, the function of oral knowledge in the processes of acquiring mathematical knowledge in the context of several learned communities in the Italian peninsula and through the transnational circulation of Maria Gaetana Agnesi’s textbook of analysis “Istituzioni Analitiche ad use della gioventú italiana” (1748), its reception outside Italy and its first French and English translations. Davide Crippa will research at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, under the supervision of prof. Marci Sgarbi. 

INT-NAT: The Inter-Nationalist

Researcher: Tania Saeed, Length: 24months (from December 1st 2021), Grant: € 171.473,28  (HORIZON 2020)

The project explores political ideologies of members of the South Asian diaspora (India and Pakistan) in the UK and US, focusing on the international affiliates of the ruling political parties in India, and Pakistan: India’s Overseas Friends of the BJP (OFBJP) and Pakistan’s Office of International Chapters-PTI (OIC-PTI). It also examines intergenerational dynamics by focusing on university students belonging to Indian and Pakistani students’ societies, as well as other South Asian diaspora groups that are politically active. The project cuts across discussions on gender, religion, ethnicity, caste, class, sect and sexualities. The aim of INT-NAT is to map South Asian nationalist and populist networks internationally, in order to understand their implications for politics in South Asia and abroad.  

CBA TRIESTE: The Cinematic Battle for the Adriatic: Films, Frontiers, and the Trieste Crisis

Researcher: Dunja Jelenkovic, Length: 36 months (from October 1st 2021), Grant: € 275.209,92  (HORIZON 2020)

The project analyses cinematic practices related to the Trieste Crisis (1945-1954), a diplomatic struggle over the Italo-Yugoslav border at the outset of the Cold War. Both countries produced a collection of films about these events, which coincided with the establishment of film festivals as important geo-political events. Taking festivals as lieux de mémoire, the project will explore how the conflict’s cinematic representation has been employed to construct desirable cultural memories related to its national and ideological concerns. It will systematize the information on this film corpus and compare the historical and contemporary production on this subject. It will result in a digital archive presenting a selection of films and relevant archival materials. In doing so, it will provide a contribution to the study of cinema, film festivals and cultural memory, and a practical toolkit for researchers and cultural programmers, which can act as a model for other, comparable studies.  

VICTIMEUR: The New Politics of Victimhood in Post-Communist and Post-Conflict Europe’

Researcher: Jessie Barton Hronešová, Length: 36 months (from October1st 2021), Grant: € 269.002,56 €  (HORIZON 2020)

The notion of victimhood is central in politics. The sense of being victimised by injustice, harms, wrongdoing and even crimes is leveraged by political leaders and the public across the world to evoke emotions and loyalties. The EU-funded VICTIMEUR project will focus on the political constructions of victimhood in post-socialist Central and Southeast Europe where sources of victimhood are ample and diverse. It will study how victimhood featured in politics and political competition of post-socialist Europe in the past 20 years and introduce a novel understanding of social and political victimhood linked to collective and individual grievances that go beyond demands and identities of direct victims of communism, conflict and injustice. The project will explore the role of victimhood in contemporary politics of Central and Southeast Europe.  

SOUNDEPTH: Sounding the Depths of Providence: Mineral (Re)generation, Natural Resources, and Human-Environment Interaction in the Early Modern Period

Researcher: Francesco Luzzini, Length: 36 months (from September 1st 2021), Grant: € 251.002,56 €  (HORIZON 2020)

SOUNDEPTH aims to understand how the debate on mineral generation in early modern Europe influenced the development of natural philosophy, the Earth sciences, and the role of humans as geological and environmental agents. The research approach will combine historical inquiry, laboratory replications, and the comparative exploration of mining sites. Francesco Luzzini will work at Johns Hopkins University (with prof. Lawrence Principe) and at Ca’ Foscari’s Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage (with prof. Pietro Omodeo).  

EPISTYLE - Style Matters: Scientific Pluralism and its Early-Modern Sources

Researcher: Matteo Vagelli, Length: 36 months (from September 1st 2021), Grant: € 251.002,56 €  (HORIZON 2020)

This project aims to map a conceptual history of style that provides a genealogy of scientific pluralism and theories of style in the sciences. The concept of style, which has emerged as a central term in the epistemological and scientific fields, has received little critical attention. Scholarly discussions of style have been largely disparate, scattered across disciplines, and sustained analysis of its resonance and significance, especially for the sciences, is lacking. Attempting to address this gap, EPISTYLE advances the hypothesis that a specific link between style and knowledge established during the early modern period continues to have relevant conceptual force today. Dr. Vagelli will work at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage at Ca’ Foscari, at the Harvard Department of the History of Science, and at the Cambridge Department of History and Philosophy of Science. He will be supervised jointly by Prof. Marco Sgarbi, Prof. Peter Galison, and Prof. Hasok Chang.  

ANTIQUITATES - Empirical Knowledge and Antiquarian Architecture in Sixteenth-century Venice

Researcher: Cesare Pastorino, Length: 24 months (from March 8th 2021), Grant: € 180 369,60  (HORIZON 2020)

The overarching aim of ANTIQUITATES is the investigation of the quantitative empirical practices of the early modern historical disciplines. In particular, the project considers antiquarian architecture in the Republic of Venice during the 16th century. It will consider a group of groundbreaking architects from Veneto, including Fra Giovanni Giocondo, Andrea Palladio, and Vincenzo Scamozzi. The activities of these architects moved seamlessly from texts to objects and back, merging the study of classical authors with archeological reconstructions, surveying, and practical mathematics. In their antiquarian analyses, these figures blended historical and quantitative empirical knowledge. Historiography usually associates quantitative methods with the early modern sciences. This project will show instead how the humanistic and antiquarian study of the past included established practices of measurement and quantification. 

BeCAMP - Beyond the camp: border regimes, enduring liminality and everyday geopolitics of migration in Italy and Spain

Researcher: Caterina Borelli, Length: 36 months (from April 1st 2021), Grant: € 269 002,56   (HORIZON 2020)

Despite the fact that migration figures do not support calls to emergency, the European political discourse is still highly dominated by the idea of a “refugee crisis”, a concept on which several right-wing parties have built their political capital. BeCAMP’s main goal is to analize migration management in two countries of first arrival, Italy and Spain, in order to investigate how the migrants’ reception system (particularly, that of asylum seekers), on the one hand, and the daily coping strategies of these subjects living inside or at the edges of such system, on the other, shift accordingly to the variations of politics and policies. By bridging the three key topics of border regimes, enduring liminality and everyday geopolitics, the proposed project aims at offering a well- informed, ethnographically rooted account of the life within and at the fringes of the Italian and Spanish migrants’ reception system, in order to counterbalance the dominant hate narrative and help build more human rights oriented policies. 

MARESIA- Maritime Rescue. International Norm Contestation and Seaborne Migration to Italy and Australia

Researcher: Eugenio Cusumano, Length: 36 months (from September 1st 2020), Grant: € 257209,92  (HORIZON 2020)

Between 2013 and August 2020, seaborne migration caused more than 16,000 deaths in the Mediterranean alone. While crucial to save lives, maritime Search and Rescue (SAR) operations are increasingly criticized as a pull factor of irregular migration. Despite being signatories to all relevant international treaties, Australia and Italy have developed different (although eventually converging) approaches to seaborne migration. Not only governments, but also seafaring organizations have understood the duty to rescue in different ways. Why do the interpretation and the enforcement of the duty to rescue change over time and across countries? My project seeks to answer this question by comparing maritime rescue off the coast of Italy and Australia between 1990 and 2020. Specifically, I will compare media coverage of seaborne migration, examine relevant legislation and official documents, and conduct interviews with seafarers and government officials.  By doing so, my project shed lights on how long-standing moral and legal obligations like the duty to rescue at sea change when applied to heavily politicized phenomena like irregular migration. 

PHYSIOGNOMONICA - Physiognomics as Philosophy: Reconceiving an Early Modern Science

Researcher: Cecilia Muratori, Length: 24 months (from May 15th 2021), Grant: € 183 473.28  (HORIZON 2020)

Physiognomics is the theory that there is a direct correlation between the inside and the outside of a living being, between body and soul. Ancient approaches provided impulses for Medieval and early modern re-elaborations, and the discipline flourished from the end of the 15th to the mid 17th century, with hundreds of publications in several European languages and a significant manuscript circulation. Yet 18th- and 19th-century developments of physiognomics led to establishing a partial view according to which physiognomics was a deterministic approach connected with the emerging theories of race and of criminality. This project will establish the reasons for physiognomy’s forgotten centrality to early modern philosophy, focussing on 1) the intersections of ‘science’ and ‘magic’; 2) definitions of the human being as a special animal; 3) concepts of the difference between mind and body.

VegSciLif -  THE EMERGENCE OF A SCIENCE OF VEGETATION IN EARLY MODERN NATURAL PHILOSOPHY: FROM CESALPINO TO MALPIGHI

Researcher: Fabrizio Baldassarri, Length: 36 months (from January 15th 2021), Grant: € 269 002,56,28  (HORIZON 2020)

This three-year research project aims to explore the emergence of a philosophy and science of plants in the century that goes from Cesalpino’s De plantis (1583) to Malpighi’s Anatome plantarum (1679), which influenced the development of a new science of life. Although under studied, a new approach to the study of plants and vegetation surfaces in this period, bridging the gulf between natural historical efforts to classify plants and natural philosophical investigations of vegetal bodies. By means of overlooked sources, the main objective of this project is to reconstruct these philosophical examinations through 4 sub-objectives: (1) the appropriation and reinterpretation of Aristotelian biology in botany; (2) the development of alchemical and mechanical frameworks to understand vegetal life; (3) the definition of plants as a crucial subject to reinterpret the physiology of living bodies; (4) the collecting attraction to plants diversity, and monstrosity, which preludes to the philosophical perception of inteconnected systems of life, forestalling biodiversity. While new scholarly attention has been recently devoted to the philosophical study of plants in the early modern period, the result of this research project will be a broad investigation into the concept of vegetation and vegetal life that paved the way to eighteenthcentury morphologies and systems of nature. 

READESCARTES - Reading Descartes: A Reassessment of the Shaping and Transmission of Knowledge in the Seventeenth Century

Researcher: Andrea Strazzoni, Length: 24 months (from March 1st 2021), Grant: € 183 473,28  (HORIZON 2020)

The project READESCARTES aims to shed light on the dissemination of the ideas of René Descartes (1596–1650) during the seventeenth century, by an analysis of a corpus of sources relatively unknown to historians: namely the textual commentaries on his works, dictated in university lectures in Northern European areas and extant to us mostly in handwritten form. In particular, the project will focus on the dictations by Johannes de Raey (1620–1702), who left no less than five commentaries on Descartes's Discourse on the Method, Principles of Philosophy and Metaphysical Meditations, and Johannes Clauberg (1622-1665), author of at least four commentaries on such works. Their dictations will be considered in their mutual relations, as well as with those of other authors. By adopting a historical-philological method of analysis, light with be shed on their bibliographical aspects, contexts of production, and on their philosophical and scientific contents.

SSRIME - Sunni-Shii Relations in the Middle East

Researcher: Toby Matthiesen, Length: 36 months (from February 1st 2021), Grant: € 251.002,56  (HORIZON 2020)

This research project will investigate Sunni-Shii relations in the modern Middle East, focussing on Iraq. As the location of the original Sunni-Shii split, home to large Sunni and Shii communities, Shii holy sites and the seats of the Shii clerical leadership, it is of tremendous symbolic and strategic relevance, and affects Sunni-Shii relations elsewhere. SSRIME seeks to combine insights from the Baath Party archives, Arabic-language publications, as well as oral history, to study the impact of Baath Party rule (1968-2003) and the invasion of 2003 on Sunni-Shii relations. SSRIME seeks to go beyond binary representations of the Baath regime as a “Sunni” regime, and the post-2003 period as one in which Shii rule asserted itself. Rather, it will look at the complicated and shifting relations of the Baath regime with members of non-Sunni religious communities, including the Shii clergy and Shii party members, and the similarly contested nature of post-2003 Iraqi politics, such as infighting between Shii parties and occasional alliances between Shia and Sunnis.

REALE - Reassessing Leibniz’s conception of number and the infinite

Researcher: Filippo Costantini, Length: 36 months (from January 1st 2021), Grant: € 237.768,00  (HORIZON 2020)

The aim of the project is to investigate Leibniz’s general conception of number in light of his mereological theory. Special attention will be given to how this mereological background affects Leibniz’s conception of the infinite, and in particular his denial of the existence of an infinite number. In this way, the project will reshape the standard view according to which Leibniz’s rejection of infinite number is simply based on a faulty argument. The project’s ambition is to bring out a Leibnizian foundational theory for mathematics based on mereology, which can offer an alternative theory to the standard set-theoretical one. The research will be carried out at McMaster University (Canada) under the supervision of prof. Richard T.W. Arthur, and at Ca’ Foscari University (Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage), under the supervision of prof. Luigi Perissinotto.

SN1604 - The Ophiucus Supernova: Post-Aristotelian Stargazing in the European Context (1604-1654)

Researcher: Matteo Cosci, Length: 36 months (from Jenauary 1st 2021), Grant: € 269 002,56  (HORIZON 2020)

“The Ophiucus Supernova: Post-Aristotelian Stargazing in the European Context (1604-1654)” is a research project that focuses on how the unexpected explosion of a supernova in European skies in 1604 (SN 1604 or “Kepler's supernova” as it was called) fundamentally affected the development of Renaissance scientific thought from a historical, philosophical and cultural point of view. In fact, the interpretation of the new star or stella nova turned out to be one of the main speculative battlefields where opposing conceptions of the universe collided. This research will take into account Kepler’s and Galileo’s influential accounts on the phenomenon, in parallel with the views of many other neglected observers of such a rare astronomical event.

NONORMOPERA - Sexual and Gender Non-Normativity in Opera after the Second World War

Researcher: Federica Marsico, Length: 36 months (from November 1st 2020), Grant: € 255768,28  (HORIZON 2020)

Federica Marsico is a musicologist specialised in the study of musical theatre from the perspective of queer musicology. Her three-year project NONORMOPERA, supervised by Prof. Michele Girardi, aims to shed light on the expressive strategies employed by gay composers to represent sexual and gender non-normativity in some operas of the second half of the twentieth century. By investigating the socio-historical context where the opera was composed, the author’s biography, the libretto and the score, the project will highlight how music can relate experiences of marginalisation and challenge discriminatory prejudices. Federica is currently hosted by the Schulich School of Music of McGill University in Montréal, where she is carrying on the outgoing phase of her project under the co-supervision of Prof. Lloyd Whitesell.

THREAT- Girolamo Cardano: Philosopher of Threat

Researcher: Jonathan Regier, Length: 24 months (from September 1st 2020 to August 31st 2022), Grant: € 183 473,28  (Horizon 2020 - MSCA IF)

As one of the most prominent natural philosophers to face imprisonment and trial during the modern Roman Inquisition, Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576) left behind a detailed account of human misfortune. Widely read in the latter part of the 16th century, Cardano’s ideas spanned numerous disciplines – from mathematics, medicine and astrology to natural and moral philosophy. Despite the diversity of subjects, Cardano’s projects and interests all led to a single principle: people live in a network of danger, from bodily illness and accident to chance events. The EU-funded THREAT project will establish an anatomy of threat in Cardano’s work, analyse his views of natural philosophy as a response to threat, and examine how his censorship by the Roman Inquisition represented a criticism of secular expert approaches to threat.

HealthXCross - Remaking Health in a Microbial Planet by Crossing Space, Time, Species and Epistemic Cultures

Researcher: Roberta Raffaetà, Length: 60 months (from September 1st 2021 to August 31st 2026), Grant: 1.367.062.00 € (Horizon 2020 - ERC-2020-STG)

The microbiome is the ecological community of bacteria and viruses that live in, on and around us humans. Microbes affect human health by connecting humans with their environment. HealthXCross will ethnographically explore how microbiome research is reconfiguring concepts and practices of health, analyzing how scientists innovate through open data platforms that aggregate data beyond conventional categorizations of time, space and species. HealthXCross has a participatory design with scientists, engaging them in defining what it means to be human on an interdependent planet in times of profound ecological, socio-technical and health transition.

Website

ISEED - Inclusive Science and European Democracy

Researcher: Eleonora Montuschi Length: 36 months (from February 1st 2021 to 31st January 2024, extended until 31 July 2024) Grant: € 2.723.287,00 (Horizon 2020 Framework Programme)

ISEED, coordinated at C’ Foscari and including a research consortium of 12 European and extra European partners,  will use existing experience in the broadly defined field of citizen science as a tool to explore under what conditions participative and deliberative practices can be successfully implemented in democratic governance for the purpose of building forms of knowledge-based democratic governance complementary to political representation. Calls for a more participative way of doing science go hand in hand with a rise of people literacy. And a larger involvement of citizens in the orientation of research and/or in the production of knowledge is valued for the sake of democracy – an orientation not only justified conceptually but supported for global strategic policy reasons. The project proposal developed thanks to the support of a Ca' Foscari SPIN grant for the project “Trust in Science - the pragmatic and ontic debates” (2018-2020).

Website

ISEED on CORDIS - From citizen science to participatory democracies

AdriArchCult - Architectural Culture of the Early Modern Eastern Adriatic

Researcher:  Jasenka Gudelj Length: 60 months (from September 1st 2020 to August 31st 2025) Grant: € 1.999.750,00 (Horizon 2020 - ERC-2019 - COG)

Between the 15th and 18th c. the Eastern Adriatic, partitioned between Venetian and Dubrovnik Republics, the Kingdom of Hungary-Croatia and Habsburg and Ottoman Empires, has been politically transformed into a vast archipelago, even mainland coastal towns divided from the hinterland. This process triggered the formation of fluctuating and floating architectural market functioning within a multilingual and multiconfessional context. The aim of the AdriArchCult project is an overall study of the architectural culture of the region, examining its political, religious, cognitive and practical sphere, and thus overcoming the divisions of historiographies in different languages and traditional approaches based on the national or centre/periphery paradigm. The result will be an innovative and dynamic vision of the architectural production of a region that connects the various faces of European culture. 

EarlyGeoPraxis - Positioned Cosmology in Early Modernity: The Geo-Praxis of Water-and-Land Management in Venice

Researcher:  Pietro Daniel Omodeo, Length: 48 months (from September 1st 2020 to August 31st 2024) Grant: € 319.996,00 (Progetto FARE – Bando 2018)

EarlyGeoPraxis investigates the link between cosmology and geological practice in the early modern period, focusing on the “water city” of Venice, an example of the nature-civilization relationship, in the light of questions raised by current debates on the Anthropocene about the consequences of the anthropic transformation of the earth-system. The project integrates the cosmological research which is currently conducted in the context of the ERC GoG “Institutions and Metaphysics of Cosmology in the Epistemic Networks of Seventeenth-Century Europe”. It examines the practical dimension of astronomy, in particular the materiality of cosmography, and the management of the territory that constitutes the socio-ecological basis of cultural policies. Comparative, historical and global studies will also be undertaken, in order to broaden the perspective of the investigation. 

THE DAMNED

Researcher: Andrea Brazzoduro Length: 36 months (from January 20th 2020 to January 19th 2023) Grant: € 221.605,44 MSCA (HORIZON 2020)

The Damned proposes a new study of the genealogy of the New Left from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. Breaking with current interpretations, The Damned reframes the European political geography to include the (post)colonial space, and reassesses the historical influence of the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962) – and Third Worldism more generally – in the genealogy of the new political cultures that flourished during the long 1960s. The Damned will focus on a threefold case study (Algeria, France, Italy) setting out new approaches to understanding the emerging of the New Left as a complex process encompassing local, national and transnational dynamics; a process shaped by, but also shaping, decolonisation. The goal is to contribute – at least – to complicating the narrative of the global 1960s, by shifting the focus from Berkeley and Paris to Algiers. 

CRAFT - To Craft an Authoritarian Regime: Politicization of Civil Society and the Judiciary in Turkey

Researcher: Bilge Yabanci Lenght: 24 months (from December 1st 2019 to November 30th 2021) Grant:  €178 157,48 MSCA (HORIZON 2020)

CRAFT investigates how civil society and the judiciary can become an instrument for social control and manufacturing consent in hybrid regimes. It focuses on the case of Turkey and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule since 2002 to present. Hybrid political regimes with limited democratic qualities and strong authoritarian tendencies are on the rise worldwide. The political science discipline focuses on the capture of the legislative and executive bodies in the study of these regimes and considers courts and civil society as domains of law and sociology. This project offers a new approach to study the dynamics of ‘crafting’ a hybrid regime through the concept of ‘politicization’ of civil society and the judiciary. The project helps to understand the societal aspects of building hybrid regimes through the consent of society, controlling social demands, creating a loyal elite coalition. It is based on a multi-method approach combining ethnographic fieldwork, interviews and quantitative analysis. It offers original contributions about the lasting repercussions of the politicization of non-partisan institutions on the civil-political and state-society relations in hybrid regimes. 

Mnemedance - Memory in Motion. Re-Membering Dance History

Researcher: Susanne Franco Lenght: 35 months (2019 - 2022) Grant:  € 49.043,75 (SPIN 2018, Misura 2, Call di Ateneo)

MNEMEDANCE aims to inquire into the relationship between dance and memory and to rethink dance history as a discipline that can make an impact on the adjacent areas of arts and humanities. Dance history may contribute to reconceptualizing the past as an ongoing process rather than a sum of acquired knowledge when adopting memory as a research tool. In dance, memory is always active because it implies the movement of the bodies performing and transmitting it. MNEMEDANCE investigates the dancing body as a tool for remembering and archiving experiences and cultures, and movement as a strategy for preserving and transforming meaning. It also aims to question the canonical genealogies of artists and traditions that historians have often employed without taking into account forms of removals, oblivion or resistance. It also seeks to challenge the common assumption that dance is a form of ephemeral and non-reproducible knowledge, analyzing the role of dancers and choreographers in the construction of collective knowledge and memories, their preservation, transmission and accessibility. 

Web site

Con3Post - Posting of Third Country Nationals: Mapping the Trend in the Construction Sector

Researcher: Fabio Perocco Lenght: 24 months (from January 1st 2019 to December 31st 2020) Grant:  € 77.210,03 (DG Employemnt EaSI Progress)

The recruitment of third country nationals (TCN), mainly from the Western Balkans, non-EU Eastern Europe and North African regions, to work as posted workers in the EU construction sector is a growing and under-researched phenomenon. Con3Post project will investigate the European labour market and mobility dynamics related to this trend by focusing on: labour rights and representation; social welfare and OSH; managing transnational workplaces in the European construction sector; monitoring violations and disputes relating to TCN. Experts and key stakeholders from seven EU Member States that represent a mix of TCN sending (Slovenia, Poland, Italy) and receiving countries (Austria, Finland, Belgium, Estonia) are brought together to establish transnational cooperation, share information and conduct empirical research on this trend.

MAJORdom Intersections of class and ethnicity in paid domestic and care work: theoretical development and policy recommendations based on the study of 'majority workers' in Italy and in the USA

Researcher: Anna Rosinska Lenght:  36 months (from August 1st 2018 to July 31st 2021) Grant: € 262.269 (Horizon 2020)

MAJORdom is about paid domestic and care workers (cleaners, nannies, elderly caregivers) who are citizens and members of ethnic and/or racial majority in a given country. These workers are overlooked in the debates that focus on minorities and migrants in this sector. They will be studied in the USA and in Italy, where their role is growing recently. In the course of the project, the Fellow will interview workers, their employers and experts, as well as she will carry out statistical data and policy analysis. The results will help us understand the role of gender, race, ethnicity, and class in contemporary inequalities. 
Thanks to her Global Fellowship, Anna Rosinska will spend two years at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, working with prof. Mignon Duffy, and one year at Ca’ Foscari, in the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, under the supervision of prof. Sabrina Marchetti. 

ENAMARE - Enactive model of aesthetic perception through rhythm and entrainment 

Researcher: Carlos Vara Sanchez Length: 24 months (from June 1st 2018 to May 31st 2020) Grant: €244.269,00 MSCA (HORIZON 2020)

The project aims to study the aesthetic component of general perception. Specifically, it explores the importance of the interaction between environmental, brain and bodily rhythms mediated by entrainment and other related phenomena. Dr Vara aims to characterize an enactivist concept of rhythm, based on John Dewey’s philosophy and recent scientific research, in order to elaborate a model of aesthetic perception using conceptual tools from dynamic systems theory. This will afford new perspectives on how our environment influences us and how we influence it in return.

SWP Shaming states: social sanction and state behaviour in world politics  

Researcher: Carlotta Minnella Length: 36 months (from January 15th 2019 to January 14th 2022) Grant: €244.269,00 MSCA (HORIZON 2020)

This project is situated within the remit of International Relations theory and will analyse the reaction of state elites, bureaucracies and public opinion to international naming and shaming campaigns in the fields of human rights and counter-terrorism, civilian protection in war, and concerns for global status and standing in the international arena. Some of the research questions the study aims to answer are: why are certain states sensitive to shame while others are not? Are state elites more sensitive to naming and shaming campaigns than a country’s public opinion? Does the source of the shaming matter?

BIVIUM Standing at the Crossroads. Doubt in Early Modern Italy (1500-1560)  

Researcher: Marco Faini Length: 36 months (from September 1st 2018 to August 31st 2021) Grant: €229.761,00 MSCA (HORIZON 2020)

This project aims to analyse the presence and the role of doubt in Italian culture in the first half of the sixteenth century, with special attention to its literary, philosophical, religious, and visual aspects. Doubt appears as a flexible and useful tool in order to understand the spiritual and intellectual anxieties in the first decades of the century. This project investigates doubt as a condition that affects the mind as well as the spirit and the body. Unlike already existing histories of Renaissance scepticism, BIVIUM has an approach that privileges social history over sheer intellectual history. The purpose of this project is not that of writing the history of a few isolated individuals dealing with recognizable philosophical traditions. Rather, it will reconstruct how, to what extent, and in what fields doubt was an everyday experience able to unsettle (and sometimes to deny) official narratives.

web site

A Teaching Toolkit for Fostering Scientific Curiosity (CURIO)

Researcher: Fiorino Tessaro, Lenght: 35 months, Grant: 11.532,00€ (Erasmus + KA2 2017-1-MT01-KA201-026985)

CURIO is a strategic partnership action funded under the ERASMUS+ programme. It is a 3-year project that aims to engage students and stimulate curiosity in scientific topics at the elementary school level through the creation of a digital toolkit. The CURIO toolkit will allow teachers and students to author scenarios that can then be played in a gamified, virtual environment.

Website: https://www.um.edu.mt/create/eu_projects/curio

Reinforcing Entrepreneurship in Adults through Communication Technologies [REACT]

Researcher: Massimiliano Costa, Lenght: 24 months, Grant: 49.818,00€ (Erasmus Plus - KA2 - Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices KA204 - Strategic Partnerships for adult education)

The strategic partnership project with the South Concept Cooperative (France) will be developed in order to strengthen awareness of the importance of lifelong learning pathways in adults; to promote a better understanding of entrepreneurial skills among adults. The objectives will be pursued through the implementation of a sample survey on best projects, learning tools and peer tutoring methods; definition and experimentation of innovative tools and practical methods that support adults to improve their entrepreneurial skills. The project also aims to promote an innovative tool for certification of skills.

Early Modern Cosmology - Institutions and Metaphysics of Cosmology in the Epistemic Networks of Seventeenth-Century

Researcher: Pietro Omodeo Lenght: 60 months (from November  01st 2017 to October 31st 2022) Grant:  € 1.999.976,00 (HORIZON 2020)

The focus of this project is the competing confessional discourses on cosmology of the seventeenth century, an epoch in which religious conflicts originated opposing ‘epistemic cultures’, which were embodied in scholarly institutions and networks such as the Protestant web of northern European universities or the global web of Jesuit colleges.

In the Early Modern Period cosmological controversies (over issues such as heliocentrism, plurality of worlds, space, infinity, cometary theory, celestial matter and fluidity) were heated and amplified by increasing political and confessional fragmentation. It considers parallelisms and contrasts, negotiations and intersections of seventeenth-century cosmological discourses between scholars, institutions and scientific communities belonging to different epistemic cultures. 

web site

GYSIART - A cultural history of comparative art practices and receptions in Cold War Europe (1945-1991)

Researcher: Matteo Bertelé Length: 36 months (from January 18th 2018 to January 17th 2021) Grant: €244,269.00 MSCA (HORIZON 2020)

The project is intended as a comparative survey within a polycentric and inclusive European focus area, including the two German republics, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and Italy. The main study cases will be provided by multilateral art encounters and the involved locations and actors, analysed as individual and collective art practices. Cold War art archives and collections at the Getty Research Institute and at the Wende Museum in Los Angeles will provide key resources.