Meet our Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellows 
Research results

Logo Azioni Marie Skłodowska-Curie, Ca' Foscari 1st Host Institution in Italy

Ca' Foscari University, top academic host institution in Italy for MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships awarded in the frame of the last calls since 2014, and in 2023 in the European top ten, is pleased to introduce its Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellows.

These post-doctoral researchers have been awarded a Fellowship providing them with the opportunity to acquire and transfer new knowledge and to work on research in a European context or outside Europe.

The community of post-doctoral researchers who have won a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship at Ca' Foscari now totals 180 alumni.

Contacts and reservations

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions - Postdoctoral Fellowships (PF) are individual funding opportunities aimed at boosting promising researchers' careers through worldwide and cross-sectoral mobility. Their duration varies from 12 up to 36 months, and fellows can carry out their research at an host institution in Europe and/or in a third Country, in this case followed by a return period at Ca' Foscari.

The International Research Office - Individual Funding Unit is available to provide information and support in the preparation of project proposals.

Links

Success stories: thanks to their project, many of our Marie Curie Fellows have developed their careers further.

Funded projects

Marie Curie Fellows at Ca' Foscari

Ovanes Akopyan

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

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.

Maryam Aslany

IMUCCA - Interdisciplinary Model for Understanding Climate Change Adaptation

This project is guided by a hypothesis: economic and social relations (class, gender, ethnicity, religion, caste) have an overwhelming impact on CC vulnerability and adaptation practices. Examining one of the regions where the impact of CC is most advanced – rural India – the project aims to generate detailed empirical data for tracing the connections between CC and existing forms of social stratification. Under the supervision of Prof. Monica Billio at the Department of Economics of Ca' Foscari, the project result will be turned into a generalisable model that can be used to understand and predict other agrarian societies’ experiences of CC, and their differential modes of adaptation. Drawing on economic sociology, socioecology and environmental economics, the project's empirical research will take place in two villages in Maharashtra, India, where agriculture is in the midst of an ongoing crisis caused by biophysical processes. 

Chloé Berut

POLiN - The POlitical conditions of Interoperability in European digital health policies

The POLiN project aims to explore the political condition of interoperability in European Union digital health policies. Interoperability standards are key to efficient digital health infrastructures, in particular for European initiatives such as the creation of a 'European Health Data Space'. While standards selection in digital health is guided by many different industrial, medical, political, legal, and ethical considerations, little is known about the political conditions under which various actors pursuing complex agendas may be willing to adopt common digital standards.Therefore, the aim of this project is to explore the political conditions favoring or impeding the adoption of interoperability standards in EU digital health. Chloé Berut will work at the Department of Linguistic and Comparative Cultural Studies of Ca' Foscari, under the supervision of Prof. Stéphanie Novak.

Mattia Brancato

TESCCO - Teaching science in the Colonial Era: knowledge weaponization and cultural integration from Europe to the Jesuit missions

The TESCCO project aims at offering a comparative study on the methods for teaching science implemented by the Jesuits at the end of the 17th century during their missions in China and North America, to show that the harmonization between religious motives and motives connected to cultural dissemination found in their activities couldn’t have been possible without a serious and wider philosophical reassessment of the role of science and its teaching throughout Europe. This study will cast a new light on the domination strategies adopted during the Colonial Era, connecting consistently for the first time the scientific developments of the early modern period with the many attempts of subjugation and cultural appropriation made at that time on behalf of a (supposed) superior and exclusive knowledge.  This project will be hosted by Ca' Foscari University of Venice at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage under the supervision of Prof. Marco Sgarbi, with a secondment at the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University.

Clarissa Cagnato

COMAL - Cuisine(s) of the Ancient Maya across the Lowlands: Reconstructing Plant Diets through Innovative Molecular and Imaging Approaches

COMAL aims at using novel analytical techniques never applied before on archaeological materials from Central America to bring to light which plants were consumed and the different ways in which these were processed by the ancient Maya that inhabited the tropical forests of the Maya Lowlands in what is now Mexico and Guatemala.  Clarissa Cagnato will carry out her research at the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics with Prof. Antonio Marcomini, and with a secondment at the Elettra Synchrotron in Trieste. COMAL will expand our knowledge on ancient dietary practices and will impact Maya people (direct descendants of the ancient Maya whose culture was impacted by the Spanish conquest in the 16th century) by shedding new light on their food heritage and the sustainability of their traditions.

Giovanna Corazza

GEODETIC – Geography and Cartography in Dante’s Comedy

GEODETIC aims to explore a scantily studied and undervalued aspect of Dante’s poem: the geography of our world. Alongside its imaginary afterlife sceneries, the Comedy shows 14th-century Italian and European geographies, most of which are still recognizable today. Dante outlines an unprecedented, detailed, and precise image of the world, but above all he reveals profound geographical awareness. This project proposes an updated analysis, integrating a philological approach with the territorial data through a specifically interdisciplinary methodology. After a complete examination of geographical areas described in the Comedy, a focus on selected places will allow the geo-historical reconstruction of the physical territories mentioned by the poet through relevant geographic, historiographic, literary, iconographic, and cartographic sources. The evaluation of Dante’s geographical knowledge in its own environmental framework will open up an innovative perspective on his geo-poetics as an essential constituent of the poem. Corazza will spend the first two years between Notre Dame University (USA) and the Department of Historical and Geographic Sciences and the Ancient World at the University of Padua, then the third year at the Department of Humanities of Ca’ Foscari University under the supervision of Prof. Tiziano Zanato.

Lorenzo Feltrin

LabEcoInt - Labour & Ecology in an International Perspective: Porto Marghera in the Phosphates Archipelago

This research, hosted by Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in partnership with the Geneva Graduate Institute, investigates the making and unmaking of Europe’s historical industrial areas uncovering the intersections between labour and ecological transformations from an international perspective. It does so by deploying theories of extractivism to the case study of the major industrial cluster of Porto Marghera (Venice, Italy), using the production of phosphate-based fertilisers as an entry point. While deindustrial studies focus on the history of industrial areas from a local or national perspective, less attention has been paid to the insertion of such industries in global hierarchies of labour and environmental degradation. By analysing Porto Marghera’s place in the Phosphate Archipelago, this research generates insights for today’s ecological transitions in mining, industry, and agriculture, at a time when fertilisers are once again in the spotlight due to concerns over sustainability and instability in food supply chains. At Ca’ Foscari, Lorenzo Feltrin will be supervised by Prof. Francesco Vacchiano at the Department of Humanities.

Maurizio Geri

NATOEUINNOCLIMAX – NATO-EU strategies on dual use technologies in the energy-resources-climate security nexus to fight Russian hybrid warfare

This research project seeks to explore possible common NATO and EU strategies to fight Russian hybrid warfare, in the crucial areas of energy-resources-climate security nexus, taking into account the role of dual use Emerging Disruptive Technologies (EDTs).  The project will focus on the development of strategic thinking in NATO and EU political-military institutions, to evaluate the gap between the strategic competition needs and the energy-resources-climate security policy results. Russian invasion of Ukraine was a game changer as a new type of hybrid warfare, with the Russian “weaponization” of new security realms, in particular the energy-resources areas of competition transformed in “energy-resources warfare”. At the same time two global trends are impacting the current strategic competition between Europe and Russia in these areas: climate change and technological revolution. The Universities involved in the project will be University of Venice Ca’ Foscari and Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University in Washington DC, USA, with a secondment in Brussels (at VUB University and German Marshall Fund).

Vilane Gonçalves Sales

SEA-LIMITHS - Sea Level Rise Impacts on Italian Hospitality

Climate change is causing sandy beach erosion and loss, which significantly impacts society and the hospitality industry. Although sandy beaches are crucial for the hospitality sector in most Italian beach destinations, policymakers often overlook detailed risk assessments concerning beach loss from climate change. This study examines the consequences and financial repercussions of sea level rise on sandy beaches, as well as the losses in the beach hospitality industry due to erosion and flooding in two important coastal regions of Italy - Veneto and Emilia-Romagna. By employing machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques, we analyze user-generated data in combination with land use maps to assess the economic losses in various hospitality sectors (accommodation, food and drink, sports and leisure) from 2050 to 2100, using different climate change scenarios. Vilane Gonçalves Sales will work  at the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics under the supervision of prof. Francesco Bosello.

Armelle Le Huërou

TRANSMAR - Angelo Clareno as a Marginal Translator of the Greek Fathers: Circulation of Texts and People in Europe before Humanism

The project aims to challenge the widespread prejudice of the medieval ignorance of Greek. It focuses on the emblematic figure of the dissident Franciscan friar Angelo Clareno and on several Latin translations of Greek patristic texts, some of which are undoubtedly his own, others attributed to him.  Translated for the first time into Latin, these works have been widely disseminated. The purpose is to establish by which paths and under which circumstances these Eastern texts were introduced into West and to measure their religious, social and cultural influence. Armelle Le Huërou will work at the Department of Humanities of Ca’ Foscari under the supervision of prof. Antonio Rigo.

Samuele Mazzolini

POPINLAT - Populism and institutions in Latin America. A comparative assessment between Ecuador and Argentina

POPINLAT scrutinises the oft-contested and under-theorised relationship between populism and institutions through a comparative analysis of the recent left-of-centre processes in Ecuador (2007-2017) and Argentina (2003-2015). This research innovatively brings into the analysis also the post-populist phase in order to assess the resistance and embeddedness of the institutionality left behind by the populist rule (2017-2020 and 2015-2019, respectively) and, as a result, allows to theorise on the possibility and conditions of emergence of a "republican populism". POPINLAT will be based at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of the University of Venice Ca’ Foscari under the supervision of Prof. Legrenzi, with the outgoing phase taking place at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales FLACSO-Ecuador in Quito. It also envisages a secondment at the London School of Economics (LSE) and a short stay at the National University of La Matanza, in the province of Buenos Aires. 

Justas Patkauskas

HYB-KNOW - Hybrid Knowledge Society

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.

Goran Petrovic

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

This research project will study the intricate interplay of performance and race. It will investigate the ways in which both left-leaning civic performances (civil protests, speeches, policies) and artistic performances (theatre, dance, music) are capable of mobilising processes of identification that draw upon anti-racist discourses that permeate and sustain democratic institutions. Turning to discourse theory, and using a self-critical, Western European lens, the project will explore processes of identification that contest cultural racism. Goran Petrovic will conduct his research at Ca' Foscari's Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage under the supervision of prof. Francesco della Puppa.

Ilaria Sicari

TAMIZDAT – Transnational Book Diplomacy beyond the Cultural Cold War: Towards a Socio-Cultural History of the Tamizdat

The term tamizdat (‘published abroad’) refers to Soviet and Eastern European texts, unpublished in the Eastern bloc and clandestinely smuggled and published in the West. Being the tamizdat an alternative transnational publishing practice, focusing on the individual activity of socio-cultural actors (activists of social movements, dissidents, editors, translators, literary agents, critics, diplomats etc.) involved in its production, circulation and reception, it will be possible to outline a comparative socio-cultural history of the Cold War in order to demonstrate that state and non-state book diplomacy was fundamental in avoiding the cultural isolation of the two blocs and in promoting the cross-border circulation of knowledge and ideas. Thus, focusing on the intense cultural exchanges of the time across and beyond the ‘Nylon Curtain’ (Péteri 2004)–an ideological and geopolitical border extremely permeable to cultural objects– the final aim of this research is to overcome, on the one hand, the traditional representation of Western and Eastern blocs as divided into two isolated cultures and, on the other hand, the interpretation of tamizdat as a mere ideological weapon of the ‘Cultural Cold War’. Ilaria Sicari will carry out her research at the Stanford’s Center for Russian and East European Studies under the supervision of prof. N. Naimark and at the University College of Leiden under the supervision of prof. G. Scott-Smith, while the incoming period will take place at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice with prof. D. Basosi.

Enrico Emanuele Prodi

GRECO - Gregory of Corinth: A Critical Edition of the Treatise On Dialects

The project is devoted to the treatise on the ancient Greek dialects written by Gregory Pardos, bishop of Corinth. This work is an important witness to the flourishing of classical studies in twelfth-century Byzantium. Gregory is an inheritor of a long tradition of studies and commentaries, not all of which survive to our day, and an active player in the lively cultural debate that surrounded the Greek language in his time. His treatise went on to enjoy considerable success among readers in the following centuries, as testified by the large number of manuscripts that preserve its text. The main objective of the project is to establish a critical text of the work, together with a study of its sources, methodologies, and reception. After a period dedicated to the study of the manuscripts which transmit the treatise, Prodi will conduct his research at Harvard’s Department of the Classics under the supervision of Prof. Alexander Riehle, and then at Ca’ Foscari's Department of Humanities under the supervision of Prof. Olga Tribulato.. 

Natalia L. Zorrilla Sirlin

GYNODICY - Gender-egalitarian fictions of origin in European philosophical culture (1673-1751)

This project aims at producing the first comprehensive study of the philosophical problem of “gynodicy”, that is: the incompatibility of, on one hand, a rational defence of women as naturally equal in capacities and in rights to men and, on the other, their factual subjection to men. GYNODICY concentrates on gender-egalitarian texts from the second half of the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth century that circulated within European philosophical culture and specifically on the gender-egalitarian fictions of origin these texts put forth with the objective of arguing against the naturalisation of women’s submission to men. The project seeks to recover a body of literature which has hitherto received scanty attention, despite its historical importance in the development of the intellectual foundations of the defence of the “equality of the sexes”. GYNODICY promotes a transnational approach to the circulation of gender-egalitarian ideas and an interdisciplinary perspective. Natalia Zorrilla will benefit from the expertise of her supervisors: Marguerite Deslauriers (McGill University, outgoing phase) and Marco Sgarbi (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, return phase). 

Marie Curie Fellows at Ca' Foscari

Mjriam Abu Samra

Palestinian Youth at the Crossroads: comparative perspectives on Palestinian transnational youth politics

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. Abu Samra will undertake her research at the Department of Anthropology at UC Davis with prof. Suad Joseph, and at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca' Foscari University with prof. Matteo Legrenzi.

Laura Alicino

SHAPE. Sharing the Pronoun. Extreme violence, social resistance and the shaping of cultural memory in Spanish American contemporary documentary poetry 

SHAPE investigates the role of 21st century Spanish American documentary poetry as a form of social and community resistance in the shaping of a shared memory about extreme violence in Latin America. This is a peculiar type of poetry using in the very body of the poem a variety of documents that have not been created by the poet. The use of those texts in an intimate and non-mimetic code such as poetry determines a stylistic short-circuit which has been commonly used to verbalise the tragic consequences of the systemic institutional and non-institutional forms of violence against women, migrants, indigenous or LGBTQ+ people. By means of an interdisciplinary approach involving literature, cultural history and ethnography SHAPE aims to build a model of interpretation of docupoetry not only as an aesthetic expression, but also as a powerful tool to preserve social memory about suffering and build a new imaginary for a better future. Laura Alicino will undertake her research at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill under the supervision of prof. Oswaldo Estrada and at the Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies of Ca’ Foscari under the supervision of prof. Luis Fernando Beneduzi.

Maksud Bekchanov

SIMARIS – Strategic Investments in Mitigation, Adaptation and Resource Recovery Innovations at Basin Scale

SIMARIS investigates long-term investments required for climate change mitigation, adaptation and resource recovery innovations at river basin scale. The objective will be achieved through applying a novel approach of integrating intertemporal macroeconomic growth model with process-based hydro-energy-economic model. This will also permit to offer demanded policy-relevant solutions to river basin managers and enriching water management research with novel methods.
Maksud Bekchanov will work at the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, under the supervision of prof. Carlo Carraro.

Victoria Beltran

PHOTOELECTROART - The photo-reactivity of artistic pigments: from the preservation of historical paintings to new opportunities as singlet oxygen generators

Two pigments widely used in historic-artistic pieces are madder lakes and geranium lakes. Under light exposure and in presence of oxygen, they generate singlet oxygen, a highly-reactive strong oxidant that promotes degradation reactions in historical paintings. Consequently, the main goal of this project is to gain knowledge into the generation of SO from these pigments and to apply it to the preservation of historical objects.
This project is based at Ca' Foscari's Department of Molecular Sciences and Nanosystems, under the supervision of prof. Ligia Moretto and in collaboration with prof. Karolien De Wael (University of Antwerp, Belgium) and dr. Ferenc Borondics (Synchrotron Soleil, France).

Alexandra Bivolaru

WATERSCAPES - Human-Environment interactions in and around Venice Lagoon: micro-ecologies and geoarchaeological narratives from Roman Period to Middle Ages

In and around Venice Lagoon, the role of the environment didn’t have enough importance so far in the historical interpretation of the settlements and societal structures transformations from Antiquity to the Early Middle ages (2nd c. BC to 9th c. AD). Moreover, the existent historical narratives insufficiently consider the "longue durée" approaches in identifying human-environmental entanglement. With WaterScapes project Alexandra Bivolaru, an experienced geoarchaeological scholar, will address this major scientific gap about social aggregations and environmental transformation in and around Venice Lagoon from Roman times to Medieval period. This interdisciplinary project aims to re-read the complex relationship between human interventions and natural dynamics in a multi-period waterscape archaeology approach. Alexandra Bivolaru will undertake her research at Ca' Foscari's Department of Humanities, with prof. Daniela Cottica, and with Dr. Alain Veron from CEREGE Laboratory, Aix Marseille University, France.

Vanessa Casato

Performing Lyric: A Comparative Study of the Ancient Greek and Japanese Traditions

This project will study side by side the fragmentary poetry of ancient Greek lyric and the still living performance tradition of Japanese Nō poetry. Greek lyric was originally composed for performance but has been purely textual for almost two and a half millennia. Japanese Nō on the other hand still has a thriving performance tradition, and it shares with the Greek material some key lyrical aspects. Vanessa Casato, who has thus far specialized in Greek lyric poetry, will spend two years in Japan studying the Nō and Nō-influenced Japanese performance tradition, before coming to Venice for a year to write on what this can tell us about Greek lyric specifically as a performance genre. She will be hosted at Tokyo University under the supervision of prof. Hyuga Taro and at Ca’ Foscari under the primary supervision of prof. Ettore Cingano.

Liberty Chee

KnowingDOM - Law, Economy and Seeing Woman’s Work: Knowledge Production and the ILO’s Domestic Workers Convention in Global Migration Governance

KnowingDOM will investigate how various actors engage the International Labour Organization in making knowledge claims about domestic work. This project will draw from notions of civic epistemology and the sociality of knowledge production in feminist science studies. The latter attend to different sources of epistemic authority, including voices 'from below'. This project will analyze the discourses, practices and actions culminating in the ILO's Convention on Domestic Work (C189) and inquire into how the ILO's norm-setting activities diffuse to and from a regional organization, the European Union. Liberty Chee will work with supervisor prof. Sabrina Marchetti at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari.

Mario De Grandis

DIVE - In Diversity We Trust: Preserving and Promoting the Literary Heritage of Chinese Minorities

DIVE research project intervenes in debates about authenticity, tradition, and state institutions by investigating an understudied type of cultural heritage: the origin myths of the 55 Chinese ethnic minorities. The bulk of the Chinese population has access to origin myths via state-authorized versions. These sources — which are heavily edited — shed light on how state-directed initiatives have shaped the practice of myth circulation on the national scale, thereby sustaining the discourse of China as a multicultural society.
The research will be conducted under the supervision of prof. Nicoletta Pesaro at the Department of Asian and North African Studies of Ca’ Foscari.

Fabio Fantuzzi

POYESIS - Perspectives on Yiddish Cultural Evolution and Its Legacy: Visual Arts, Theatre, and Songwriting Between Assimilation and Identity. A Case Study

After the 1905 Pogrom of Odessa, many Jewish people emigrated to Europe and the US, a phenomenon that caused the decline of entire communities and the dissolution of much of their culture. Among their privileged destinations was New York, which saw the rapid rising of Yiddish communities. In just a decade, several Jewish artists, writers, and actors started to gain recognition. Why was their contribution so essential and what did it have to do with their culture? This is just one of the many questions that the project POYESIS aims to analyse by studying the work and teachings of artist Norman Raeben and his influence on various leading artists (e.g., Stella Adler, Bob Dylan, Roz Jacobs, and many others) as a case study to examine the evolution of Yiddish culture and art. Fabio Fantuzzi will conduct his research at Columbia University’s Department of German Studies with prof. Jeremy Dauber and at the Department of Humanities of Ca’ Foscari University, under the supervision of prof. Stefania Portinari.

Veronica Ferreri

ARCHIVWAR – Archives in Times of War: Scattered Families and Vanishing Past in Contemporary Syria

In times of war, Syrian state archives have fallen victim to destruction and plundering. Simultaneously, Syrians in the diaspora have been saving and retrieving copies of mundane legal documents originally stored in these state repositories. ARCHIVWAR examines these documents and their centrality in preserving a connection to family members in Syria and in the diaspora. Combining ethnographic methods with oral history research, the project rethinks the archive as a form of care amongst Syrian transnational families based in Berlin. Through this re-reading the archive, the project ultimately aims to shed a light on a different political history of the archive partly disarticulated from state and (post)colonial forms of knowledge-power. Veronica Ferreri will conduct her research at University of Waterloo (Canada), under the supervision of prof. Secil Dagtas, and at the Department of Humanities of Ca’ Foscari, under the supervision of dr. Francesco Vacchiano.

Talitha Ilacqua

MODiterranean – Age of Moderation: Liberal Patriotism in the Mediterranean, 1814-1848

MODiterranean investigates the transnational conceptualisation and diffusion of moderation theory in Mediterranean Europe in the first half of the XIX century. Through a first-of-a-kind analysis, it explores moderate thinkers’ formulation of a third political way for the future of Europe between revolution and reaction, by focussing on their published and unpublished works and international correspondence across France, Switzerland, Italy, Greece and Spain. MODiterranean contributes to a geographical shift in the historical perspective of the XIX century from the Atlantic, often seen as the centre of all political and intellectual action, to the Mediterranean. Talitha Ilacqua will conduct her research at Yale University’s Center for the Study of Representative Institutions, under the supervision of prof. Isaac Nakhimovsky, and at Ca’ Foscari’s Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage with prof. Matteo Legrenzi.

Dayton Lekner

PPLMEC - Politics and Practices of Listening in Mao era People's Republic of China

This project aims to provide the first dedicated history of auditory cultures of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), by exploring the role of sound from three perspectives: as a tool of nation-building deployed by the state; as a medium through which the Chinese revolution was experienced at an individual level; and in the contestation between these two domains, as the soundscape became a site of contention and negotiation between the state and the citizen. The research will expand the field of global sound studies beyond its current Eurocentrism, apply Sound-Studies to China for the first in-depth and long term empirical study, and enhance European knowledge of modern China. Dayton Lekner will develop his project at the Department of Asian and North African Studies, under the supervision of prof. Laura De Giorgi.

Niccolò Maffezzoli

Estimating the ice volume of Earth's glaciers via Artificial Intelligence and remote sensing (SKYNET)

Estimating the ice volume of Earth's glaciers is a grand challenge of Earth System science. Besides being a critical parameter to their evolution, knowledge of glacier volumes is fundamental to quantify future global sea level rise and available freshwater resources across climate sensitive regions. Under current global warming glaciers are losing mass, making improved glacier ice volume estimates a top-priority to constrain future climate scenarios. SKYNET will tackle this challenge using Artificial Intelligence. Its goal is to develop deep learning models capable of exploiting the huge amounts of satellite imagery to improve the current estimates of ice volumes of all Earth’s glaciers, from continental alpine regions to polar glaciers in the periphery of Greenland and Antarctica. Niccolò Maffezzoli will work at the University of California Irvine with prof. Rignot and at the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics with prof. Carlo Barbante.

Oberto Marrama

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

Questions about consciousness, its origin and nature, which dominate 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 the first detailed interpretation of her theory of consciousness. By targeting one of the earliest and most original responses to Descartes’s dualist theories, the project will offer a rich opportunity for developing our understanding of how problems about conscious life evolved and were addressed in Europe in the early modern period. Oberto Marrama will work at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, with the supervision of prof. Pietro Daniel Omodeo.

Alessandro Mulieri

OTHREN - Othering the Renaissance. Conceptualizing Foreigners, Slaves and Infidels in Early Modern Political Thought (ca. 1520-1610)

OTHREN will provide the first comprehensive study of how six Aristotelian authors who lived ca. between 1520 and 1610 mainly in Italy or Spain (Antonio Brucioli, Piero Vettori, Giovanni Botero, Francisco Vitoria, Juan Sepulveda, Lucrezia Marinelli) theorized otherness and dealt with outcasts in their political works. It will focus on three concepts (foreigners, slaves, and infidels) and three figures of outcasts (Jews, Muslims, and Amerindians) that often overlapped in their political reflections. The project employs conceptual frameworks and interpretive lenses derived from post-colonial theory (the concepts of otherness, foreignness, infidelity, the opposition between West and East) in order to understand ideas and narratives that are included in texts lying within the expertise of the history of philosophy (e.g. commentaries on Aristotle) or intellectual history (e.g. treatises on heretics, infidels, and Amerindians authored in the 16th century). Alessandro Mulieri will complete his research at University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia) with prof. Eva del Soldato and at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca' Foscari with prof. Gianluca Briguglia.

Valentina Pugliano

FONDACO - Healing and Learning in the Fondaco: A Forgotten Network of Knowledge in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Mamluk and Ottoman Levant, 1400-1700

FONDACO aims to produce the first systematic study of an uncharted network of knowledge exchange connecting Christian and Islamic states across the Mediterranean and Levant 1400-1700. For three centuries Venice appointed physicians, surgeons and apothecaries to its colonies and outposts in the Mamluk Sultanate and the Ottoman Empire. These medical servants used their positions as springboards for rich intellectual explorations that brought them in contact with local populations and traditions. This project investigates how these diplomatic doctors turned into savants and, more ambitiously, how this network facilitated the development of key fields of scholarship in early modern Europe, notably natural history and antiquarianism, and how these were informed by the intellectual world of the Near East. In so doing, the project will overturn the image of intellectual stagnation traditionally attributed to the post-medieval Mediterranean world, and reshape our understanding of the connected history of the region. The research will be held with Marco Sgarbi at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari University.

Mauro Rizzetto

InTer AquAS – Integrating Terrestrial and Aquatic Archaeozoological Studies: Venice and the northern Adriatic lagoons between Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages

The project aims to highlight and interpret elements of continuity and discontinuity in the human-animal-environment relationship at the Roman-early medieval transition along the north-western Adriatic coast. Archaeozoological assemblages from three study-regions will be analysed: the Venetian Lagoon, the Marano-Grado Lagoon, and the coast of Romagna; these regions are characterised by the presence of wetlands, with lagoons, rivers and canals influencing the nature of human settlement and activities. The chronological and spatial comparisons proposed by the InTer AquAS project, the combination of terrestrial and aquatic faunal studies, and the implementation of biometrical and isotopic analyses, will provide a holistic approach taking into account the complex, changing relationships between humans, other animals, and the environment. Mauro Rizzetto will work at the Department of Humanities with prof. Sauro Gelichi and dr. Silvia Garavello, with a secondment period at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Barcelona (Spain) with dr. Silvia Valenzuela Lamas.

Marcello Sano

EXPEDITE - EXPloring opportunitiEs for developing a risk and resilience climate service baseD on bIg daTa and machinE learning

EXPEDITE aims to explore new pathways to remove barriers and challenges still existing in effective implementation of risk assessment and adaptation responses, in particular in the climatic field. The project will focus on exploring, testing and deploying machine learning and data science techniques and by developing and testing a climate service prototype, tailored to end-users; these may include institutional clients (such as Regions) in the private sector or individual consumers. A targeted dissemination and communication plan will allow EXPEDITE to share the research activities, outcomes and outputs with researchers, policymakers, the private sector and the general public. Marcello Sano will work at the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics with prof. Andrea Critto, with targeted secondments for advanced training in machine learning and data science at MALGA, University of Genoa and for climate service design and prototyping at GECOsistema srl, a specialised R&D consulting lab.

Eriselda Shkopi

Mig.Pro - Migrants’ protests: how the borders of citizenship are conceived, mobilized and constructed by migrants’ farm workers protests

Mig.Pro. project aims at shedding light on the political subjectivities of migrants’ agricultural workers in two specific contexts – Italy and Canada. Several forms of protests will be analysed; in particular struggles to access/be recognized: legal status, decent housing, health care. Framing this specific productive sector allows to: i) draw a deep analysis on the representations of working and life conditions; ii) bring forward theorization in the fields of social movements, migration and citizenship studies; iii) elaborate on the intersections among policies such as: migration; reception programmes; access to fundamental rights; agri-food-sector; and seasonal agricultural worker programmes. The study will be implemented through qualitative instruments by drawing in particular on participatory action research with an intersectional approach. Eriselda Shkopi will undertake her research in Canada at the University of Western Ontario (Arthur Labatt School of Nursing) with the supervision prof. Claudia Susana Caxaj and at Ca’ Foscari University (Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage) with prof. Fabio Perocco.

Diego Villar

MOTOBOOM: The Current Impact of Motorcycle Motorisation on Amazonian Indigenous Peoples

During the last century, the indigenous South American Lowlands have been colonized by steamboats, railways, trucks, chainsaws, fire-weapons and electric generators introduced by missionaries, extractive industries, armies, development projects, and NGOs. However, anthropological and historical research has largely neglected this mechanical colonisation of indigenous life; in particular, there are almost no studies that analyse the current tide of motorcycles that during the last few decades altered dramatically the interethnic landscape, and its social, economic and environmental repercussions which are significantly reshaping current indigenous reality. The goal of this research project is to develop a ground breaking and interdisciplinary analysis of the effects of motorcycle dissemination among the indigenous peoples of Bolivian Amazonia, and to achieve practical impact regarding public policies on road safety and prevention of accidents in marginal contexts. The project will be conducted under the supervision of prof. Valentina Bonifacio at the Department of Humanities of Ca’ Foscari.

Marie Curie Fellows at Ca' Foscari

Walaa Alqaisiya

DEJMENA - Decolonial Environmental Justice: from Middle East and North Africa to North America

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has proved the urgent need for more expansive theorising, research and action on Environmental Justice with indigenous communities by showing their huge vulnerability, yet revealing the value of their ecologies. This project provides a reading of environmental justice at the crosscut of indigeneity and feminist decoloniality. It draws on local activists’ and indigenous communities’ struggles with environmental (in)justice, particularly land and water protection, across the Levant, North Africa, and North America.
To accomplish this goal, Walaa Alqaisiya will work in collaboration with profs. Matteo Legrenzi (Ca’ Foscari, Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage), Lila Abu-Lughod (Columbia University, NY) and Michael Mason (London School of Economics and Political Science). 

Anna Irene Baka

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

RIGHT is an interdisciplinary research project bringing together philosophy with human rights policy-making, with the former providing a very rigid framework for the advancement of the latter. In particular, the project aspires to develop a cutting-edge definitional human rights framework on the basis of Aristotelianism and Neo-Confucianism (Daoxue 道学), thus filling a major gap in human rights theory and practice and offering a basis for the sustainable continuation of the EU-China Human Rights Dialogue.
Anna Baka will spend the first two years of the project at the East Asian Languages and Civilisations Department of Harvard University. The third year she will be hosted by the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage at Ca' Foscari under the supervision of prof. Marco Sgarbi.

Jessie Barton Hronešová

VICTIMEUR - The New Politics of Victimhood in Post-socialist Europe

VICTIMEUR will investigate how frames of victimhood have featured in the politics of post-socialist Europe in the past two decades, and whether and how such frames have influenced the current illiberal trends across the region. The project will specifically study different meanings, notions and constructions of victimhood and how they have featured in key moments of political contestation such as power transitions and crises. It will introduce a new understanding of social and political victimhood that clearly manifests itself in contemporary post-socialist Europe, linked to collective and individual grievances that vary from memories of historical injustice, East-West divisions, socialist political persecution, war suffering, and a recent sense of marginalization by capitalism.
Jessie Barton Hronešová will develop this project at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari under the supervision of Matteo Legrenzi and at the Department of Political Science at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill under the supervision of Milada Anna Vachudova.

Nicola Bassoni

YTOPIA – Yamatology of the Axis. Japan as a Nazi-Fascist Utopia of Political Renewal

YTOPIA aims to re-semanticise the term of yamatology to indicate the political discourses on Japan which emerged in the late 19th century and became mainstream until 1945, lasting until today in far-right milieus. YTOPIA tackles the history of yamatology by focusing on the discursive construction of the image of Japan in National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy, the interaction between European and Japanese actors, and the development of Axis' cultural politics. The leading hypothesis of YTOPIA is that yamatology can be interpreted as a utopian discourse that conveys values and aspirations of the ideological framework in which it is produced, as well as an intellectual mean to criticize the gap between the idea of a new kind of society and the socio-political reality of the time.
Nicola Bassoni will carry out his research project at the Faculty of Sociology of Kyoto Sangyo University and at the Department of Asian and North African Studies of Ca’ Foscari (under the supervision of prof. Toshio Miyake), with a three-month period at the University of Konstanz.

Giuseppe Bianco

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

The project analyses the construction 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 that aimed at unity across different schools of thought. The inquiry adopts an inter-disciplinary and multi-scalar approach in order to explain the constitution of a transnational philosophical space, the formation of philosophical ideas of Europe and the participation of philosophers in international institutions such as the League of Nations.
The project is based at Ca' Foscari's Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, under the supervision of Pietro Daniel Omodeo, and at Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), under the supervision of Yves Gingras. 

Pascal Bohleber

MICRO-CLIMATE - Micron-scale Ice Core Reconstruction of Abrupt Climate Changes

Understanding natural climate dynamics is fundamental to manage abrupt climate change, one of the grand challenges to global sustainability. One of the most important natural archives, polar ice cores offer the detailed study of past abrupt climate transitions. To decipher the sequence of events requires fine temporal detail, which can be delivered by Laser-Ablation Inductively-Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). At micron-scale resolution, however, it is pivotal to take into account interaction of impurities with the ice crystal matrix. MICRO-CLIMATE brings together, for the first time, two LA-ICP-MS setups to realize high-throughput and high detail analysis for the analysis of past abrupt climate changes in ice cores.
In his second Marie Curie fellowship, Pascal Bohleber will visit the University of Maine, USA, to collaborate with prof. Paul Mayewksi, before returning to the Department of Environmental Science, Informatics and Statistics at Ca’ Foscari under the supervision of prof. Carlo Barbante.

Alessandro Cabiati

MadLand - Madness in Fairy Land: (Re)Imagining Deviance in the Age of Psychiatry, 1820-1900

This interdisciplinary project investigates how in 19th-century Britain, France, and the United States literary fairy tales contributed to the cultural discourse on psychological deviance and abnormality, while also influencing medical debate. MadLand provides the first transnational and translinguistic investigation of the ways in which 19th-century fairy tales reflected, incorporated, and even questioned medical interpretations of deviance and abnormal behaviour. The project also explores the fairy-tale imagery of monstrosity, analysing how fairy-tale monstrosity in turn served as a point of reference for the codification of insanity by psychiatry in its formative period, 1820-1900.
Alessandro Cabiati will undertake his research at Brown University with prof. Lewis Seifert and at the Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies of Ca’ Foscari, under the supervision of prof. Laura Tosi.

Matteo Capasso

GLIBAL – La Dimensione Globale della Crisi Libica

Breaking with current interpretations that present the Libyan war as a result of historically self-inflicted and local problems, the project examines the war from a global perspective. It investigates how those processes that were central to the development of the US-led global capitalist order unfolded, shaped and were contested in the Libyan microcosm from 1969 to the present. The project will contribute to clarify the ways in which evolving global governance schemes are connected to the outbreak of conflicts in the Global South.
Matteo Capasso will work at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari with prof. Matteo Legrenzi and at the MESAAS Department of Columbia University NY with prof. Timothy Mitchell.

Andrea Chiampan

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

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.
Andrea Chiampan will develop his project at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage at Ca’ Foscari under the supervision of prof. Matteo Legrenzi and at the Department of History of the University of Toronto under the supervision of prof. Timothy Sayle. 

Maria Vittoria Comacchi

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

The project investigates the religious and political universalism of the French polymath and traveler Guillaume Postel (1510-1581). The aim is to bring out the crucial role that his encounter with the Ottoman Empire and the European intellectuals who showed a renewed interest in Islam played in his universalism. The project focuses on the historical-intellectual genesis of a key text, his “De orbis terrae concordia” (1544), its limits, polemics, and originality, the ideas Postel held about the Ottoman Empire and Islam after 1544, and his significant contribution to the dissemination of ‘oriental’ books across the Mediterranean. It thus explores Postel’s influence in the apparently contradictory development of European orientalism on the one hand and cosmopolitanism and religious tolerance on the other.
Maria Vittoria Comacchi will work with Kaya Sahin at the Department of History of the Indiana University Bloomington for the first two years and with Marco Sgarbi at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice during the third year, besides a research period at the Department of Antiquity and Middle Ages Studies of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

Lorena Córdoba

NAMELESS-STORIES - The Invisible Women: Nameless and Forgotten Stories of the Rubber Boom (Bolivian Amazonia, 19-20th centuries)

The project aims to reconstruct and revalue female agency during the ‘Rubber Boom’ in Bolivian Amazonia. The goal is to rescue the testimony of indigenous women neglected by the historical sources on the account of their ethnic condition, as well as the social agency of the Creole or European female laborers who were ‘silenced’ by the sexist bias of regional historiography or rendered invisible as immigrant settlers.
Lorena Córdoba will work at the Department of Humanities of Ca’ Foscari under the supervision of prof. Valentina Bonifacio.

Davide Crippa

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

This project aims to explore the history of differential and integral calculus focusing on acquisition and circulation of its 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 uso della gioventú italiana” (1748), its reception outside Italy and its first French and English translations. Davide Crippa will work at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, under the supervision of prof. Marco Sgarbi, and will spend a research period at the Sarton Centre for history of Science of Ghent University, working with prof. Maarten van Dyck.

Valentina Dal Cin

NapApps - Napoleonic Job Applications: from Personal Pleas to Modern Curriculum Vitae in Early 19th-Century Europe

NapApps project studies the emergence of job applications in Napoleonic bureaucracy at the beginning of the XIX century. Its goal is to analyse the transition from the pleas characteristic of the ancient regime to the modern curriculum vitae, by using statistical text analysis on a massive corpus of archival sources. Napoleonic France spread across Europe the revolutionary model according to which public employments would be open to all citizens, based on "their virtues and talents". Consequently, through these 'writing to power' sources, the project will study the emergence of a rhetoric of knowledge and skills, based on the understanding of new values, thus assessing the socio-cultural impact of political changes.
Valentina Dal Cin will develop her project at the Department of Humanities at Ca' Foscari (supervisor: prof. Dorit Raines), and at CESTA (Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis) at Stanford University (supervisor: prof. Giovanna Ceserani).

Giulia Dal Maso

CHINGREEN - On the financialization of green: Chinese operations along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)

The project CHINGREEN is an in-depth qualitative study of Chinese "green-finance" operations along the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI). It explores the increasing expansion of the complex Chinese green finance nexus by asking to what extent this is (re)shaping the ongoing process of financialization of nature.  Through in-depth qualitative studies of Chinese banks green landing practices in the two-biodiversity hotspots of the BRI (South East Asia and Central Asia), the study will investigate how financial products and infrastructures are defined and capitalised as “green” and what is their impact on the ground.
Giulia Dal Maso will develop the first two years of the project at the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore, and the third year at the Department of Asian and North African Studies of Ca’ Foscari under the supervision of prof. Daniele Brombal.

Grazia Deng

HEIEL - Healthcare Encounters in Immigrants’ Everyday Lives

HEIEL aims to investigate how Chinese immigrants in Italy perceive their bodies, manage their health, and experience the local healthcare system and how these perceptions and experiences affect their identity formation. This ethnographic study will locate immigrant subjects’ everyday healthcare practices at the intersection of their transnational migration process, dynamic political and social realities, and geopolitics. It will examine Chinese immigrants’ interactions with various types of healthcare providers and institutions, both formal and informal, which would affect their healthcare choices and practices. The project will provide a new bottom-up narrative of immigrant health amid ambiguous power dynamics that immigrant subjects’ encounter in an increasingly pluralistic EU welfare state.
Grazia Deng will be based at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari under the supervision of prof. Matteo Legrenzi. 

Marisa Di Martino

REWRITE - Rewriting Migrant Identities across Women’s Literature

REWRITE explores the transformation process in migrant women’s identities, by studying the self-reflexivity in migrant women writers from a critical discourse analysis, advocating for social change. By discussing with the EU’s Pillar of Social Rights, REWRITE aims to bridge the gap between gender-based human mobility and social change via the comparative analysis between the European integration policies and their impact of migrant women’s identity reconstruction processes from an intersectional perspective.
This project is developed at the Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies of Ca' Foscari under the supervision of prof. Luis Beneduzi and at the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing – Wolfson College of the University of Oxford.

Jacob Andrew Garrett

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

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. While most European wide civic education initiatives focus on school children, the focus of this study is participation of immigrant parents at schools. Parent councils at public schools are uniquely situated as civic educational institutions and remain nearly absent from citizenship education initiatives in Europe. This absence in the scholarly literature and European institutional initiatives is surprising given the established finding that schools are the primary public institution where immigrants interface with others and participate civically. To advance knowledge on immigrant integration, PARENT CITIZENS investigates the institutional development of parent councils and the participatory interactions of immigrant parents in three of the highest immigrant recipient countries in Europe: Italy, Spain, and France.
Jacob Garrett will work at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari under the supervision of prof. Matteo Legrenzi.

Dunja Jelenkovic

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

Dunja Jelenkovic is a cultural historian, specialized in film festivals and (post-)Yugoslav documentary cinema. In CBA TRIESTE, she will analyse cinematic practices related to the Trieste Crisis (1945-1954), a diplomatic struggle over the Italian-Yugoslav borderlands at the outset of the Cold War. She will compare Italian and Yugoslav (Slovenian, Croatian) and historical and contemporary perspectives on the struggle for this territory, by investigating three levels of cinematic action: film production, film festival circulation, and film reception through awards and press reviews. The project will make widely accessible a collection of related cinematic cultural heritage through a digital archive. 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.
Dunja Jelenkovic will work at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage under the supervision of prof. Marco Dalla Gassa, with a secondment at the University of Ljubljana (prof. Marta Verginella).

Francesco Luzzini

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

This interdisciplinary project 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).

Iryna Mykhailova

RENAISSANCE USSR – L’Umanesimo dietro la Cortina di ferro: studi sul Rinascimento italiano in Unione Sovietica

The main objective of 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.
Iryna Mykhailova will work at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari with prof. Marco Sgarbi and at the Department of History of Harvard University under supervision of prof. James Hankins.

Cecilia Muratori

PHYSIOGNOMONICA - Physiognomics as Philosophy: Reconceiving an Early Modern Practice

‘There’s no art/ To find the mind’s construction in the face’ declared King Duncan in Macbeth. According to early modern physiognomists, Shakespeare’s character was tragically mistaken. Physiognomics, understood as the theory that there is a direct connection between the inside and the outside of a living being, experienced a revival in early modernity. This project will lead to a comprehensive study of early modern physiognomics as a philosophical practice, and will involve the publication of a key manuscript source.
Cecilia Muratori will develop this project at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage at Ca’ Foscari under the supervision of prof. Marco Sgarbi, with a period of secondment at the Centre Alexandre Koyré in Paris, where she will work with prof. Catherine König-Pralong.

Annamaria Pazienza

In&Around - Patterns of land-use and human mobility in a time of climate changes (Italy, 6th to 11th cc.)

The period from the Sixth- to Eleventh- century in Italy is one of the most profound political and social laboratories in European history. Centred on this region and period, the In&Around project aims at exploring the interaction between climate variability and human agency with a lens towards management of the environment and in the light of shifting political regimes. By way of the innovation-through-interdisciplinary approach, it will combine new long-duration and high-resolution climate records from recently cored lake sediments in Rieti and Lucca (Central Italy) with data derived from written sources and already extant climate reconstructions, thus offering an important contribution to an expanding field of study, and capturing details on past issues of contemporary significance, like human mobility and workforce relocation.
Annamaria Pazienza will develop her research at the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics of Ca’ Foscari with prof. Davide Zanchettin, and at History Department - College of Liberal Arts of the University of Nevada, Rena - US with prof. Edward Schoolman.

Tofik Ahmed Shifa

CoCaWS - Confined catalysis in layered materials - a transformational approach for efficient water splitting 

The issue of energy crisis has become a serious concern. The escalating CO2 level in the atmosphere is also equivalently concerning. Therefore, the development of sustainable energy sources is a tremendous help in the meeting of the global future energy need. CoCaWS aims at exploring new efficient catalysts for overall water splitting  to tackle the problem of global energy crisis through ecofriendly hydrogen production. Particular emphasis will be put on different kinds of layered materials (transition metal dichalchogenides - TMDS, and Metal phosphorous trichalcogenides - MPX3). These materials have attracted significant interest due to their promising energy applications and striking fundamental properties. Based on various strategies for performance enhancement on TMDS and some pioneering experimental works on MPX3, the researcher will also investigate the MPX3 family, exploring reaction mechanisms, properties of active sites, and etc.
Tofik Ahmed Shifa will develop his research at the Department of Molecular Sciences and Nanosystems of Ca’ Foscari with prof. Alberto Vomiero.

Thea Sommerschield

PythiaPlus - Machine Learning for the Study of Ancient Epigraphic Cultures

PythiaPlus will explore the nature of the epigraphic cultures of the Greek and Roman worlds using recent advances in Artificial Intelligence. By revolutionising our ability to access and analyse the data through the implementation of Machine Learning models, this research will enable and undertake the interpretation of the epigraphic patterns and parallels discovered by the models across the texts and metadata of thousands of Greek and Latin inscriptions, transforming our understanding of epigraphic communication.
Thea Sommerschield will be working at the Department of Humanities of Ca’ Foscari (under the supervision of prof. Lorenzo Calvelli), and will collaborate with Google’s DeepMind in London, the Athens University of Economics and Business, and with the Digital Curation Unit of the IMIS Athena Research Centre.

Stefan Szwed

DemSupPra - Democracy Support Practice After the Third Wave: Adapting to Change?

DemSupPra aims to assess the significance and impact of three recent developments on the practices of international election observation and assistance: rapid technological change; ‘social learning’ by autocrats, which made assaults against democratic institutions including elections less visible (‘fake compliance’); and the use of the ballot box to ‘backslide’ or advance illiberal democracy (‘majoritarianism’). It asks how have these elements affected the two democracy support practices, and how have democracy supporters adapted to these developments? In doing so, the project also sets out to answer the policy relevant question, whether election observation and assistance are still fit for purpose.
Stefan Szwed will develop his project at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari under the supervision of prof. Matteo Legrenzi and at the Columbia University’s Harriman Institute.

Livia Tagliapietra

GISARC – Greek in Sicily after the Roman Conquest

When Sicily fell under Roman control in the third century BCE, Greek was the hegemonic language in the region. GISARC will investigate the linguistic effects of Roman domination in Sicily through the analysis of the surviving epigraphic texts and the application of an interdisciplinary perspective, which combines linguistic analysis of the texts and investigation of historical and archaeological data. In particular, GISARC will assess the use of Greek and Latin in different types of texts, and how the status and function of each language evolved during the period under examination; moreover, this research project will identify any differences in the use and survival of Greek in different areas of Sicily and contextualise any such differences in the light of historical data; last but not least, GISARC will describe the effects of language contact as evidenced in the epigraphic texts (namely, any influence of Latin on the use and evolution of the local Greek and vice versa).
Livia Tagliapietra will work in the Department of Humanities at Ca’ Foscari under the supervision of prof. Olga Tribulato.

Robert Edmund Upton

GLOB-POP-NAT - Populist nationalism in 'global' western India, 1920-1939

The project critically evaluates the assumed historical connections between interwar European fascism and Hindu nationalism (Hindutva) as the latter emerged. 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 involves research hosted by the Netaji Institute for Asian Studies (India). Under the supervision of prof. Matteo Legrenzi at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage at Ca’ Foscari, the project aims at a better understanding of the transnational nature of the radical populist right in the interwar period at a global level, and through this it seeks a better understanding of radical right movements in comparative and historical perspective.

Matteo Vagelli

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

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. 
Matteo 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.

Bilge Yabanci

RESONATE - Designing Resonant Frames: How to Effectively Communicate about the Rights and Inclusion of Immigrants and Refugees?

Immigrant and refugee rights movements (IRRM) have lately shown success in offering temporary assistance and integration programs in numerous countries. However, they have mostly failed to respond to the societal backlash against immigrants and refugees. How can IRRMs communicate with societies better, alter hostile public opinion and promote rights for noncitizens? To answer this question, RESONATE will employ an innovative and solution-oriented approach that combines cutting-edge research methods with insights from sociology, cultural and communication studies and political science focusing on the case of the IRRM in Turkey
Bilge Yabanci will work at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca' Foscari with prof. Matteo Legrenzi and at the Northwestern University - Buffett Institute for Global Affairs with prof. Ipek Yosmaoglu.

Linda Zampol D'Ortia

EMOPractices - Emotions as Practice in the Early Modern Jesuit Missions in the Asia-Pacific

This project sets out to address the role of emotions in the early modern Jesuit missions. Applying a practice-based approach, it will analyse the emotional scripts embedded in manuscript and printed texts produced in the context of six Catholic missions in Asia and in the Pacific, to shed new light on these intercultural encounters and the connected emergence of the image of the Other.
After developing her project for two years at the Australian Catholic University, Linda Zampol D’Ortia will work at the Department of Asian and North African Studies of Ca' Foscari under the supervision of prof. Giovanni Bulian.

Cristiano Zanetti

AUTOREN - Automata and Power in Renaissance Florence, Milan, and Venice (1400-1600)

Automata were, as pioneering art historian Eugenio Battisti observed, “perhaps the most abstract compositions of all occidental civilization”. Anthropomorphic, and especially cosmomorphic automata were among the most elaborate mechanical achievements of Renaissance Italy. They were not useful machines, but rather 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, focuses 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.
Cristiano Zanetti will work at the California Institute of Technology with Prof. Mordechai Feingold, and at Ca' Foscari (Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage) with prof. Marco Sgarbi. 

Marie Curie Fellows at Ca' Foscari

Fabrizio Baldassarri

VegSciLif - The Emergence of a Science of Vegetation in Early Modern Natural Philosophy and the Sciences of Life: from Cesalpino to Malpighi

This three-year research project aims to explore the emergence of a philosophy and science of plants in the century that goes from author Cesalpino’s “De plantis” (1583) to Malpighi’s “Anatome plantarum” (1679), which influenced the development of a new science of life that brigded historical natural efforts of classification and natural philosophical investigations. 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 eighteenth century morphologies and systems of nature. Fabrizio Baldassarri will research at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, under the supervision of prof. Domenico Bertoloni Meli, and at Bloomington Indiana University.

Camilla Bertolini

MAREA - MAtchmaking Restoration, Ecology and Aquaculture

Bivalve aquaculture is considered to be one of the most sustainable, although some potentially negative environmental impacts arising from high deposition rates of faces and pseudofaces on the seabed have been identified. Habitat restoration management can be integrated within aquaculture practices to limit their negative impacts and it can bring positive environmental changes while obtaining both economical and cultural returns. This project aims to integrate restoration with aquaculture, namely the reintroduction of native flat Oyster reefs under mussels culture sites and harvest oyster spat recruiting as seeds in the original farm area to obtain economical returns and start a local oyster farming chain, while leaving the reef intact to provide ecosystem services. This will be done combining modelling and experimental approaches, with a pilot site in the Adriatic sea. Climate change scenarios will be applied to identify the potential of this approach over the long term. Dr Bertolini will work at the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics of Ca' Foscari with prof. Roberto Pastres.

Benedetta Bessi

MapAeg - Mapping the Aegean: Cristoforo Buondelmonti's Liber insularum (15th c.) and the Origins of Classical Archaeology

MapAeg aims at the study of the “Liber Insularum Archipelagi” (1420) by the Florentine Cristoforo Buondelmonti: it is the first example of ‘isolarium’ (book of islands) and a fundamental text for the rediscovery of ancient Greece and the birth of classical archaeology. It is also an important document of the geopolitical situation of the Aegean and its islands during the years immediately before the fall of Constantinople. A digital humanities component will be implemented in collaboration with Stanford University, where Benedetta Bessi will spend the first two years, coming then to the Department of Humanities of Ca’ Foscari under the supervision of prof. Antonio Rigo.

Giulia Bonazza

Shades of Black - The Darker Shades of Black. The Value of Skin Colour in the Mediterranean and Atlantic Slave and Labour Markets, 1750-1886

The projects aims to examine how the skin colour of captives, slaves, serfs, workers on galleys and sex workers affected their value in economic transactions before and after the legal abolition of slavery in the period 1750-1886. The hypothesis is that skin colour and shades thereof were a major factor in influencing both the slaves’ exchange value and the salary level of free workers. The research will compare case studies, for the Mediterranean, in the Italian area, France and Spain, and for the Atlantic in Cuba and the French Antilles. Giulia Bonazza will research at the Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies of Ca’ Foscari (supervisor: prof. Petri Rolf) and at the Columbia University.

Caterina Borelli

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

The project is conceived as an anthropological approach to the second reception system for asylum seekers in two European countries of first arrival. The focus will be put on how the migrants’ reception system and the multiple devices of control and management of asylum seekers and illegalized migrants, 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. The starting hypothesis is that the border, far from being a mere dividing line, is in reality a much more complex and broader entity, which begins well before and ends long after the border in the strict sense, and which follows the migrant over time in the form of welfare systems, bureaucracy etc. Borelli will spend the first two years of the project at the New School of Social Research in New York, and the third year at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of the Ca' Foscari University, under the supervision of Prof. Fabio Perocco.

Elisa Cazzato

SPECTACLE - The lure of the foreign stage: Italian art and artistry serving the French and European spectacle 

Spectacle is a multidisciplinary investigation in histories of culture, art, stage design, theatre, and community networks at the end of the eighteenth century. It focuses on the activity of Italian artists and artisans (stage designers, circus performers, and firework makers) that contributed to the creation of spectacle across Europe. The project aims to define the cultural meaning of ‘spectacle’ and ‘spectacularity’ at the turn of the nineteenth century. Elisa Cazzato will research at the New York University and at the Department of Linguistics and Cultural Studies of Ca’ Foscari (supervisor: prof. Gerardo Tocchini), in addition to a period at Université Paris-Sorbonne.

Filippo Costantini

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

The aim of the project is to investigate Leibniz’s general conception of number in light of his mereological theory and how this background affected Leibniz’s conception of the infinite, 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) and at Ca’ Foscari - Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage with prof. Luigi Perissinotto.

Eugenio Cusumano

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

Between 2013 and 2019, over 15,000 migrants died in the Southern Mediterranean alone. The moral and legal duty to rescue lives at sea, however, is increasingly problematized as a hindrance to effective border control. This research project examines Australia and Italy’s different interpretation and implementation of the maritime rescue norm, its causes and its implications. Eugenio Cusumano will spend part of his research at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari (supervisor: prof. Matteo Legrenzi) and part at the University of Queensland - Australia.

Maziyar Ghiabi

ProMENAd - When States Prohibit: the politics of drugs and ‘addiction’ across the Mediterranean

The project tackles the question of what happens when states prohibit mind-altering drugs. It explores the modern history of drugs, their prohibition and the practice of ‘addiction’ recovery. The Mediterranean region had been left out of the field studies, though it has historically adopted staunch prohibitionist policies. Taking the case of Italy and Lebanon since the ‘psychoactive 1960s’ and the outset of the ‘war on drugs’, the project will analyse drug consumption and the state-society relations in terms of health and security over the last five decades. Maziyar Ghiabi will work at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari with prof. Matteo Legrenzi and at the American University of Beirut - Lebanon.

Alessandro Iandolo

Parallel Lives - Parallel Lives: Dependency and Backwardness

This project will investigate the relationship between economic development and global trade, by exploring the connection between two alternatives to neoliberalism posed in the second half of the twentieth century: Soviet economic thinking and “dependency theory” (the predominantly Latin American approach that stressed the structural inequality between a rich “core” and a poor “periphery” of countries). The project will look in particular at the debate in the USSR on the idea of “backwardness”, which socialism was supposed to overcome, and its impact on dependency theory in Latin America. It will also investigate the significance of this transnational exchange of ideas for the development of global trade policy through the Economic Commission for Latin America (CEPAL) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Alessandro Iandolo will develop his project at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari under the supervision of prof. Matteo Legrenzi and at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies of Harvard University.

Dmytro Kiosak

FUZZFARM - Modelling of the early agricultural spread in south of the Eastern Europe

The project aims at modelling the early agricultural spread, the process that brought agriculture and the settled way of life to large portions of Europe in VII-V mill. BC. It is focused on the archaeological record of south Eastern Europe (roughly modern south-eastern Poland, Ukraine, Moldova, and eastern Romania). The ecological, economic and social constraints faced by early farmers to select a certain micro-region for colonization will be studied and incorporated into an agent-based fuzzy model, to simulate the process of early agricultural expansion in actual geographic space. Dmytro Kiosak will work at the Department of Asian and North African Studies under the supervision of prof. Paolo Biagi.

Marie-Louise Leonard

Occupational Health - Ill-health, Work and Occupational Health in Early Modern Italy (ca. 1550-1750)

This project investigates the relationship between ill-health and working life in early modern Italy (ca.1550-1750). Italy is a crucial site for analysis as it had a diverse workforce in highly urbanised areas while also being at the forefront of developing public health procedures in Europe, including the regulation of dangerous jobs and growing concerns about the health consequences of working practices. Using methodological approaches from the history of epistemology, the project examines how concerns about work activities were integrated into medical discourse and diagnosis, how workers understood and shared health problems, and how occupational health shaped early modern society. The project is based at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, supervised by prof. Marco Sgarbi.

Michele Lodone

PROPEL - Prophecy, Public Sphere and Emotions in Late Medieval and Renaissance Tuscany: From Dante to Savonarola

In Medieval and Renaissance Europe, prophetic discourse was one of the most incisive means for proposing or opposing alternative models of political and religious order. A large number of short prophecies circulated at that time throughout the continent, which have never received a thorough analysis. PROPEL will be the first systematic investigation – between material philology, media studies and history of emotions – of the circulation of prophetic texts in Florence and in Tuscany, bearing in mind two key figures as chronological limits: Dante Alighieri (d. 1321) and Girolamo Savonarola (d. 1498). Michele Lodone will work at the Department of Humanities of Ca’ Foscari with Prof. Antonio Montefusco, and at the University of Chicago - US with Prof. Justin Steinberg.

Federica Marsico

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

Federica Marsico is a musicologist specialised in the study of musical theatre from the perspective of queer musicology. Her project NONORMOPERA 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. The research will be carried out during the first two years at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University in Montréal, and during the last year at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari with prof. Michele Girardi.

Toby Matthiesen

SSRIME - Sunni-Shii Relations in the Middle East

SSRIME investigates the entangled history of Sunni-Shii sectarianism in the Middle East by looking at the case study of Iraq under the Baath Party (1968-2003). SSRIME thus seeks to explain the root causes of instability in the Middle East, which has fuelled the refugee crisis. Starting from the circumstances that engendered the Sunni-Shii conflict, SSRIME studies the relationship between the Iraqi state and the Shia up to the 2003 Iraq War for sectarianism, thus opening possible similar study approaches to other countries in the region, in particular to Syria under the Baath party. Toby Matthiesen will combine the study of the Baath Party of Iraq archives at Stanford University with oral history studies and fieldwork in Iraq, spending the last year at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari under the supervision of prof. Matteo Legrenzi.

David McOmish

ENNSE - European Networks and the New Sciences in Edinburgh

The project will explore how the intellectual culture of the Venetian Republic and Rome shaped the development of scientific knowledge in 17th-century Britain. It will offer a detailed textual, philosophical, and bibliographical study of a large, unpublished manuscript of lecture notes and commentary on natural philosophy, astronomy, and mathematics, which was the main teaching manual in cosmology and mathematics at Edinburgh at that time. It will trace the epistemic networks that contributed to the transformation of university education in the early-middle 17th century at what would become the centre of Britain's Enlightenment culture. David McOmish will carry out his research at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage with prof. Pietro Omodeo.

Cesare Pastorino

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

Cesare Pastorino, historian of early modern science and ideas, will study the empirical and experimental practices between sciences and humanities and the patronage networks of architects and antiquarians of the Republic of Venice in the sixteenth century, in figures like Andrea Palladio and Vincenzo Scamozzi. The ultimate purpose of “Antiquitates” is to lay the foundations for a new area of research on the role of quantification, measurement and experimentation in the study of antiquity during the early modern period. Pastorino will work at the University of Princeton with prof. Anthony Grafton and at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari with prof. Marco Sgarbi.

Mauro Puddu

IDENTISS - IDENTIty-Scapes of Sardinia: productivity, burials, and social relationships of AD 100-600 west-central Sardinia

Identity is today a highly debated topic across Europe. Often though, it is spoken about as an immutable tool, acquired with birth, and it has been appropriated by discourses on exclusivity and exclusion. Can archaeology contribute to the discussion with its vertical perspective over time, returning identity to its relational nature? IDENTISS faces this question studying the material traces of the past exposing the complexity and fluidity of identity-scapes through the understanding of human relationships. The project centres on funerary and settlement contexts of Roman-period rural Sardinia. Mauro Puddu will develop his research at the Department of Humanities at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, under the supervision of prof. Sauro Gelichi, in collaboration with the Museum of Broken Relationships, Zagreb, Croatia.

Jonathan Regier

THREAT - Girolamo Cardano: Philosopher of Threat

The project addresses the deep history of threat and individual agency in managing threat. It asks about antecedent culture wars, with the expectation that a larger perspective will help us to rethink our current categories. In particular, it will examine the corpus of Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576), the most widely-read natural philosopher of the time, as well as Roman Inquisition’s documents about him, in order to chart an early-modern transformation of great significance: the shift in the management of threat from spiritual expertise to secular expertise. The individual, by Cardano’s reckoning, lives in a network of danger, from bodily illness and accident, to chance events, to faults of intellect and memory, to the vagaries of human passion. Assisted by tools from the digital-humanities, the project will establish an anatomy of threat in Cardano’s work and examine how the Roman Inquisition’s censorship of Cardano represents a criticism of secular expert approaches to threat. Jonathan Regier will carry his research at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage with prof. Pietro Omodeo.

Rosaria Ruffini

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

The PlaGE 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 will map and analyse the emerging presence of cross-cultural performative practices at the thresholds of Europe. The analysis and its experimental application will benefit from a Euro-African perspective, enriched by the strategical collaboration of two universities located at the opposite sides of the Mediterranean Sea. After two years in Morocco, the research will be achieved at Ca’ Foscari, Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, supervised by Prof. Fabio Perocco.

Tania Saeed

INT-NAT  - The Inter-Nationalist

Under the supervision of Professor Matteo Legrenzi, at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, Tania Saeed explores the complex nexus between right wing populism in South Asia and the global networks that have contributed to its success, as well as their implications for populism in the Global North. The uniqueness of this project is its focus on South Asian populist networks in the UK and US. The study focuses on the Indian ruling political party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in relation to its international affiliates the Overseas Friends of BJP (OFBJP), and the Pakistani ruling political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and its Office of International Chapters-PTI (OIC-PTI). The project uses mixed methods with the objective to map horizontal and vertical trajectories of these network thereby creating a multidimensional framework, to examine diversity within these groups in relation to gender, religion, ethnicity, caste, class, sect and sexualities, and to explore intergenerational differences through younger members of these groups and members of Indian and Pakistani university student societies. The result will be a study on populist networks between North and South and on the success of these ideologies among minority communities in the North.

Tatjana Skrbic

EMPHABIOSYS – EMergence of new PHAses in BIOpolymer SYStems

Proteins are the molecular machines of life: Skrbic will study their folding and misfolding dynamics and ultimately the protein-DNA interactions using a highly interdisciplinary approach, which encompasses biology, chemistry, computer science, physics, and mathematics. The starting ingredient of this study is a model for proteins recently developed by Skrbic and her supervisors, to bridge conventional polymer phases and those adopted by biomolecules. This project is directly relevant to tackle the societally important problem of human health: it will be useful for making nifty machines in lab and eventually could form the basis for the creation of artificial life itself. The first two years of the project will be carried out at the University of Oregon, under the guidance of prof. Jayanth Banavar, while the third year will be hosted by the Department of Molecular Sciences and Nanosystems of Ca’ Foscari, under the supervision of prof. Achille Giacometti.

Tomislav Sočanac

CompSubjInf – Competition between subjunctive and infinitive in the history of German, Balkan Slavic and Romance languages

The project CompSubjInf will study the historical development of the competition between the grammatical categories of the subjunctive and the infinitive across a range of different European languages. We speak of subjunctive-infinitive competition in this context because certain languages have replaced the infinitive with the subjunctive (e.g. Balkan languages), while others underwent the reverse process, replacing the subjunctive with the infinitive (e.g. Germanic languages). The project will track the diachronic stages along which the phenomenon in question developed, as well as propose to account for the underlying grammatical factors that are responsible for it, thus further advancing our understanding of the linguistic mechanisms behind language change in general. Tomislav Sočanac will work at the Ohio State University with prof. Brian Joseph and at the Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies of Ca’Foscari with prof. Iliyana Krapova.

Rama Srinivasan

RE-NUP - Spousal Reunification and Integration Laws in Europe

RE-NUP will study the implementation of integration laws and the deployment of cultural expertise in three European countries through the perspective of spousal visa applicants. The project will focus on the modes through which laws influence and are, in turn, shaped by the divergent ways in which the institution of marriage is defined and practiced in South Asia and Europe. It will be hosted by the Department of Asian and North African Studies, under the supervision of prof. Livia Holden, where the fellow will also contribute to the existing programs on Intercultural Education. Rama Srinivasan will be also affiliated with the Marco Polo Centre for Global Europe-Asia Connections at Ca' Foscari and the Centre for History and Anthropology of Law, University of Paris in secondment.

Andrea Strazzoni

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

The main objective of this project is to provide an assessment of the reception of the thought of the French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650), by a study of the handwritten sources testifying to the teaching and dissemination of his ideas in Europe. These have been so far studied by looking mostly at printed sources: on the contrary, this project will focus on handwritten commentaries, marginal annotations, and academic lecture notes. Andrea Strazzoni will develop his research at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari under the supervision of prof. Marco Sgarbi.

Liliana Velea

WeCENT - Weather, Climate and Environmental information for Tourism

WeCENT will build on the latest advances in the exploitation of Earth Observation data to develop and make available climate and environmental information tailored for touristic purposes. The results will lead to development of innovative integrated information addressing tourism actors, by bringing satellite-based information in the day-to-day life. Liliana Velea will carry out her research at the Department of Humanities of Ca’ Foscari with prof. Alessandro Gallo.

Amsalu Woldie Yalew

MEND - Modelling Energy for Sustainable Development in Ethiopia 

Energy access, as well as its source, type, and mix, are key for economic development. Least developed countries (LDCs), such as Ethiopia, heavily rely on traditional biomass energy sources, in particular for cooking fuel. In fact, although electricity constitutes a potential export item (in Ethiopia about 95% of electricity comes from hydro-power), a significant amount of import spending goes on petroleum products. The consequence is non-negligible indoor air pollution that causes more than 50,000 deaths annually and nearly 5% of the burden of disease in the country. This research project intends to fill the gap in the existing literature on energy transition in Ethiopia and the interaction among energy sources, the economy and the environment in LDCs. Amsalu Woldie Yalew will be hosted by the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics and the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, supervised by prof. Carlo Carraro.

Marie Curie Fellows at Ca' Foscari

Bilge Yabanci

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

Hybrid political regimes with limited democratic qualities and strong authoritarian tendencies are on the rise worldwide. In these realities, civil society and the judiciary can become an instrument for social control and consent manufacturing. 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, focusing on the case of Turkey and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule from 2002 to present. CRAFT will use multi-method approach combining ethnographic fieldwork, interviews and quantitative analysis. Bilge Yabanci will work at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage with prof. Matteo Legrenzi.

Antonella Diana

URBAN_CHINA: Urbanization in China’s Southwestern Borderlands. The case of Jinghong, Xishuangbanna

Antonella Diana is an anthropologist who has carried out research on cultures and societies of China and mainland Southeast Asia. Her research project URBAN_CHINA investigates the spatial, social, and subjective dynamics of non-metropolitan and non-industrial urbanization in China’s south-western borderlands under post-socialism. In particular, in the case study of Jinghong, the emerging capital of the Xishuangbanna, the research will focus on Tai ethnic neighbourhoods. Drawing on an interdisciplinary and integrated analytical approach, URBAN-CHINA will contribute to shedding new light on the relationship between the production of living space and the exercise of political power, between state and ethnic minority groups, between the latter and the Han ethnic majority, as well as between centre and periphery in contemporary China. Antonella Diana will carry out the project at the University of Sassari and at Ca’ Foscari (Department of Asian and North African Studies under the supervision of prof. Laura De Giorgi), in collaboration with the IUAV University of Venice.  

Federico Dallo

Federico Dallo

PIONEER: OPen WIreless OzoNe SEnsor NEtwoRk for smart environmental monitoring of remote areas: crossing the Alps along the 12th east meridian on the trail Munich Venice

Atmospheric observatories are currently the main source of data for meteorology and climatology, in particular those remote areas, such as in polar areas and at high altitudes as representative of the "background" concentration of atmospheric gases. Monitoring in remote areas is however not always possible, being very complex and today extremely expensive. The project aims to develop a new typology of autonomous low-cost observing system in support of the traditional (and satellite) observation networks and to build the first low-cost monitoring network on transboundary pollutant transport phenomena crossing the eastern Alps. Federico Dallo, chemist developing quantitative analytical methods for the assessment of atmospheric pollution in remote areas, will collaborate with the University of California, Berkeley and the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate of the CNR in Bologna, under the supervision of Prof. Carlo Barbante at the Department of Environmental Sciences of Ca' Foscari.

Linda Armano

DiaETHICS: Map value transformations in a consumer research: sensory experiences and cultural interpretations shape concepts of “ethical diamond” and “mining work ethic” in a global interconnection

Linda Armano retraces the cultural interpretations that, from the mine to retail, enrich the ethical value of diamonds. Her project develops an ethnographic research in Diavik diamond mine in Canada and in an Italian jewelry. Linda analyzes, from a multi-sited ethnographic approach, how the concept of ethical diamond and the idea of work ethic are interpreted culturally by miners, customers and jewelers. Linda’s supervisors are prof. Vladi Finotto from Department of Management at Ca’ Foscari University and prof. Annamma Joy from Dept. of Management at University of British Columbia (Canada), where Linda will stay two years.

Elena Bacchin

PoliticalPrisoners: a transnational question in 19th century Italy

This research project is a transnational historical investigation which examines the international role and representations of Italian political prisoners during the XIX century. Its goal is to investigate how and to what extent political prisoners were key figures not only in the construction of an Italian nationalist discourse, but equally in the foreign understanding of and commitment for the Italian Risorgimento. The project will offer a new approach in studying political imprisonment emphasising its international and humanitarian dimension and will challenge the current state-of-the art. Finally the research will help to understand the historical evolution of a European sensitivity and a commitment towards political detainees, refugees and people persecuted for political opinions and the evolution of international protection and humanitarian discourses.
Elena Bacchin’s research project will take her to Columbia University in New York and then to Ca’ Foscari's Department of Humanities, under the supervision of prof. Simon Levis Sullam. 

Matteo Benussi

MeMuRu: Places of Remembrance in Muslim Russia: Islamic Heritage and Moral Landscapes

The goal of this project is to map Islamic places of remembrance in Central Russia’s Volga region, and analyse their social, political, and affective life. The research seeks to fill this gap in our knowledge by looking at the concrete places where the post-Soviet Islamic revival manifests itself, as the past few years have witnessed the rediscovery of numerous Islamic sites throughout the Russian Federation. This project will offer fresh contributions to ongoing debates on post-socialist and Islamic personhood; memory, state-Muslim relations in Russia; and the spatial manifestations of religious life amongst Eurasian Muslims.
Matteo Benussi is an anthropologist and will spend with this research two years at Princeton University, before concluding his project at the Department of Humanities of Ca' Foscari with prof. Gianluca Ligi.

Cristina Blanco Sío-López

NAVSCHEN: Navigating Schengen. Historical Challenges and Potentialities of the EU Free Movement of Persons, 1985-2015

Cristina Blanco Sío-López currently works as Assistant Professor in European Culture and Politics at the University of Groningen, after spending the last year as Santander Senior Fellow at the University of Oxford. Her research project takes her to the European Studies Center (ESC) – Jean Monnet EU Center of Excellence (JMEUCE) of the University of Pittsburgh for two years. She will then join Ca’ Foscari’s Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, relying upon the supervision of prof. Matteo Legrenzi. NAVSCHEN will produce the first dedicated critical historical analysis on the transnational roots, debates and conditions for the implementation of the EU’s free movement of persons. The project will address the empowering value of these normative legacies to tackle current challenges to human mobility rights in the European integration process, including its global governance reverberations.

Tamar Blickstein

LANLOSS: Landscapes of Loss: Mapping the Affective Experience of Deforestation Among Diverse Social Groups in the South American Chaco

LANLOSS considers the affective life of environmental upheavals driven by agribusiness and deforestation in the South American dry forests of the Gran Chaco, and evaluates how these processes impact legacies of colonialism in the region. LANLOSS involves interdisciplinary collaborations with climate scientists and biogeographers in Berlin and Argentina. Tamar Blickstein develops her research at Ca’ Foscari's Department of Humanities, with the supervision of Dr. Valentina Bonifacio. 

Andrea Brazzoduro

The Damned: Algeria, Antifascism, and the Third Worldism. An anticolonial genealogy of the Western European New Left (Algeria, France, Italy, 1957-1975)

"The Damned" project proposes a new study of the genealogy of the New Left in Western Europe from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. The project reframes the European political geography to include the (post)colonial space, and reassesses the historical influence of the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962) in the genealogy of the new political cultures that flourished during the ‘long 1960s’, associating a renewed antifascism with anticolonial struggles. 
After two years at the University of Tlemcen (Algeria), Andrea Brazzoduro will continue his research at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca' Foscari, under prof. Matteo Legrenzi’s supervision. 

Monia Chies

HYSOTIB: Global dynamics of hydro-sociality in river heritage landscapes of the Qinghai Tibetan Plateau

Monia Chies is an anthropologist with a background in Chinese and Tibetan studies. Her research project investigates key socio-cultural issues connected with the management of river heritage landscapes of Qinghai (PRC) in the so-called “Asia’s water tower” comprising the headwaters of the Yellow, Yangtze and Mekong rivers. She first spends two years at the University of Auckland (NZ) in order to specialize in river science and one year at Ca’ Foscari in Venice, Department of Economics where, under the supervision of prof. Francesco Vallerani, she will work on issues of fluvial heritage within the framework of the Global Network of Water Museums (IHP - UNESCO).

Matteo Cosci

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

Matteo Cosci is a historian of philosophy. His SN1604 research project focuses on the so-called “Kepler’s supernova”, the last supernova that was naked-eye visible from the Earth. For the five decades after its outburst in 1604, the interpretation of that “stella nova” was one of the main speculative battlefields where opposing conceptions of the universe collided. The research, assisted by a team of Terra-astronomers based at Jena University, Germany, will examine how the unexpected explosion of the supernova in European skies fundamentally affected the development of the later Renaissance cosmological thought from an historical, philosophical and cultural point of view. The first phase of the research will be conducted at the Department of History of Science at University of Oklahoma with the collaboration of of the Catholic University, Washington D.C.; the second phase will take place at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage at Ca' Foscari under the supervision of Prof. Marco Sgarbi.

Federico D'Onofrio

FARMACCOUNTA: Farm Accountancy Data as a Source for the History of European Agriculture

The research aims to study farm accountancy data collected by the International Institute of Agriculture during the Interwar in order to assess the usefulness of farm accountancy data for the analysis of global trends in agriculture around the Great Depression and prepare the creation of a database of historical farm accountancy data in the future. The project will contribute to our understanding of the impact of protectionism, transnational networks and international organisations during the interwar period, a time of international economic tensions that increasingly resembles our own. 
The economic historian Federico D'Onofrio carries out his research at the Department of Management of Ca' Foscari University, supervised by prof. Giovanni Favero.

Marinella Davide

ACTION: Assessing Climate TransItion OptioNs: policy vs impacts

The project aims at enhancing transparency and comparability among climate policies while offering insights into a just transition toward the sustainable development. The pledge-and-review approach, launched by the Paris Agreement, calls for new systematic tools to assess domestic commitments toward the achievement of global objectives, which also consider national specificities. Falling at the intersection of public policy, climate change economics and climate science, ACTION will develop a quantitative approach to evaluate, empirically, national climate policies in terms of stringency, determinants, and economic impacts. The research will be carried out between Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Ca’ Foscari University, under the supervision of prof. De Cian.

Matteo Favaretto

InProV: An inventory of the prosimetra in vulgar tongue in the early centuries of Italian Literature (1250-1500)

InProV aims to provide an inventory of those texts consisting of prose and verse (prosimetra) written in vulgar tongue from the 13th to the end of the 15th century. Two well-known examples are Dante’s "Vita Nova" and Sannazaro’s "Arcadia". The examination of the prosimetra included in the inventory will enable researchers to gain a deeper understanding of the use of this hybrid form in the early centuries of Italian literature. In this period the prosimetrum was a third alternative to the tradition either in verse or in prose before evolving into a mere literary exercise.
Matteo Favaretto is a philologist and an expert of Italian literature. He will spend two years at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, before moving to the Department of Humanities at Ca’ Foscari, supervised by prof. Tiziano Zanato. 

Anna Gasperini

FED: Feeding, Educating, Dieting: a Transnational Approach to Nutrition Discourses in Children’s Narratives (Britain and Italy, 1850-1900)

Gasperini is an expert of Victorian fiction and culture, and medical history. Mentored by prof. Laura Tosi, at Ca' Foscari she researches food in late-nineteenth-century English and Italian children's literature. Her project, titled "FED", compares images of mal/nutrition in narratives by English authors such as Dickens, Burnett, and Carroll and Italian authors such as Capuana, Collodi, and De Amicis. The goal is to highlight the trans/national nature of nineteenth-century discourses on child nutrition as a health concern and their circulation through fiction, examining how these “mal/nutrition narratives” promoted global/local values related to issues of gender and social hierarchies.

Ali Kharrazi

CIFTRESS: Climatic Impact on Food Trade RESilience and Security

Global climate change adversely affects crop yields and undermines humanity’s food security and resilience; while previous research has focused on regional agricultural adaptation, the opportunities and vulnerabilities of trade networks have remained less explored. CIFTRESS examines the joint climate, agro-environmental, and economic induced changes to the trade network topology of five staple foods, i.e., maize, rice, wheat, barley, and soybeans, up to the year 2050 in the European and Mediterranean region. The results of this research will increase our ability to interpret the ‘in-direct’ trade flow relationships of climatic impacts on staple food trade linked to the notions of food resilience and security. 
Ali Kharrazi will work between the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics of Ca' Foscari and the Euro-Mediterranean Center for Climate Change, mentored by prof. Carlo Carraro.

Urška Lampe

IT-POW FAMILIES: families and memories of Italian prisoners of war in Yugoslavia after World War II 

Urška Lampe is researcher at the Institute IRRIS (Koper, Slovenia) and editor of two high-impact scientific journals Acta Histriae and Annales Series Historia et Sociologia. Under the supervision of prof. Alessandro Casellato, at the Department of Humanities of Ca' Foscari, she researches the “big history” of Italian Prisoners Of War in Yugoslavia after World War II throughout some “small” case studies focused on three family stories, using the paradigm of microhistory, the methodology of oral history and the tools of public history. 
She aims to effectively promote the project results among the non-academic society through an attractive transferable interactive outdoor exhibition in three languages (English, Italian and Slovenian). 

Luca Lombardo

VERTEXCULT: Vernacular Textual Cultures in Dante’s Tuscany: Education and Literary Practices in Context

VERTEXCULT undertakes a systematic investigation of the vernacular literary texts used for the intellectual education of secular people in north-western Tuscany between the half of the 13th and the first twenty years of the 14th century in order to clarify the cultural context of Dante’s formation in Florence. It will focus on the doctrinal literature (both in poetry and prose) flourished in late-medieval Italy, which is often unpublished and almost never made the object of critical studies. The project aims to define the vernacular, namely, the non-Latin, cultural context and texts circulation between the death of Frederick II (1250) and the death of Dante (1321), who within this historical context had reached the highest cultural dignity of the vernacular as the literary language of the legal-notary ruling class, before Petrarch and Humanism marked a radical return to the Latin.
Luca Lombardo is a Dantist and Italianist. His research brings him for the first two years to the University of Toronto, Canada and for the third year at Ca’ Foscari with prof. Tiziano Zanato at the Department of Humanities.

Niccolò Maffezzoli

ICELEARNING: Artificial Intelligence techniques for ice core analyses

The Earth climate history can be studied by analyzing ice cores, cylinders of ice drilled out of ice sheets such as Greenland and Antarctica or alpine glaciers. Among the impurities that are deposited and then found in ice cores are insoluble particles, such as aeolian mineral dust, volcanic glass particles, particles of biological origin such as pollen and algae. The detection of these particles is crucial to understand the past conditions and interactions between the components of the climate system: the atmosphere, the biosphere and the oceans. At Ca' Foscari, Niccolò Maffezzoli develops a technique for the automatic detection of insoluble particles in ice cores using Artificial Intelligence Pattern Recognition techniques. Niccolò works with pof. Carlo Barbante at the Department of Environmental Science, Informatics and Statistics.

Chiara Mannoni

LawLove: The origins of the legal protection of the heritage. Legislation on the safeguard of monuments and artworks issued in 15th- to 18th-century Europe

LawLove will analyse the old laws on the protection of artworks and monuments that were issued in the European countries in the early-modern and modern centuries (1400s –1700s). By developing a comparative analysis of these old regulations through both a juridical and an art historical approach, LawLove will evaluate the systems established in 15th- to 18th-century Europe to administer, protect, supervise, conserve, maintain, classify and record what was thought of as “heritage” in each region. In the perspective of promoting a protocol for classifying and safeguarding the EU heritage, LawLove will found a first history of legislation on the protection of the artifacts in Europe, which at the moment is completely lacking.
Chiara Mannoni spends three years at Ca’ Foscari's Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage to investigate on the origins of legal protection of cultural and artistic heritage, together with prof. Chiara Piva.

Sabrina Minuzzi

MAT-MED: Materia Medica in Transit. The Transforming Knowledge of Healing Plants

The project focuses on circulating Materia Medica – the body of knowledge concerning the medicinal properties principally of plants, but also of animals and minerals – in 16th-and early 17th-century Italy. Through an interdisciplinary approach which embraces the history of science and the history of book, “MAT-MED in Transit” investigates local and exotic Materia Medica as a window into the natural knowledge and healing practices common in different socio-cultural contexts. 
Sabrina Minuzzi is a historian and an expert in early modern books and medicine. Minuzzi carries out her research between Brown University (USA) and the Department of Humanities at Ca’ Foscari, with prof. Mario Infelise.

Maria Chiara Rioli

REL-NET - Entangled Interfaith Identities and Relations from the Mediterranean to the United States: The St James Association and its Transnational Christian-Jewish Network in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Mixed religious identities and interfaith relations represent one of the most crucial and debated phenomena in the XXI century. The revival of the religious dimension in the world is evident in the growing religious implications in modern and contemporary wars. The project tackles these global issues through the analysis of a significant case study that has been overlooked in the historiography: the history of Christian–Jewish transnational networks between Israel, Palestine, the Middle East, Europe and the United States after the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. 
Maria Chiara Rioli will move first to Fordham University and then to the Ca’ Foscari Department of Asian and North African Studies, under the supervision of prof. Marcella Simoni.

Mattia Zangari

WoMent: 'Mad for Him'. Women, Religion and Mental Illness in the Late Middle Ages and in the Early Modern Age

WoMent analyzes the hagiographical texts of late-medieval and early modern women who were deemed to be mystic, blessed, or saints. The project looks to determine to what extent extreme religious experiences (ecstasies, visions, physical sensations) might be attributable not to unexplainable relations with the Godhead, but to very explainable medical causes. This research will consider five cases of mental illness in hagiographical texts of six religious women. The research will start from textual sources and an analysis of iconographical sources will follow in order to document the way women saints lived. Zangari moves first to the University of Toronto, Canada to continue then at the Department of Humanities of Ca' Foscari, with the supervision of prof. Antonio Montefusco.

Marie Curie Fellows at Ca' Foscari

Marco Faini

Marco Faini - BIVIUM: Standing at the Crossroads: Doubt in Early Modern Italy (1500-1560)

A scholar of the Italian Renaissance, Marco will spend the first two years of his fellowship at the University of Toronto and return to Ca’ Foscari for the final year. Marco works on the social history of doubt in sixteenth-century Italy. In a period of tumultuous cultural, political, and religious change, accepted ideas were shaken and doubts on traditional knowledge arose. Marco will investigate the nature and the extent of this condition of uncertainty, exploring how doubt was conceptualized, visualized, and practiced across different social classes. His tutor will be Marco Sgarbi in the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage.

Andrea-Bianka Znorovszky - MARIA: Marian Apocryphal Representations in Art: From Hagiographic Collections to Church Space and Liturgy in Fourteenth-to-Sixteenth-Century France

Andrea-Bianka Znorovszky investigates the contribution of liturgy and liturgical tradition to the dissemination of Marian apocryphal depictions and their transition from hagiographic collections to church space. Her project also demonstrates the fundamental role of apocryphal material to the development of Marian iconography, and implicitly, to European church tradition. She received her PhD (2016) and Master’s Degree (2011) in Medieval Studies from the Central European University, Budapest. Her supervisor will be Dr. Flavia De Rubeis, professor at the Department of Humanities.  

Ahmad Guliyev

Ahmad Guliyev - SAFVEN: West meets East in Venice: Cross-cultural interactions and reciprocal influences between the Safavids and Venetians

Ahmad Guliyev, from Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, will analyze the significance of symbolic communication, ritual and ceremony in Safavid-Venetian diplomatic relations. The study will shed light on the cultural and political meanings of gifts, reciprocity in gift exchanges, connections between gifts and identities, institutional, ceremonial and economic aspects of material exchanges in Safavid-Venetian diplomatic encounters. Reconstructing the lives and daily experiences of early modern diplomats will help us to better comprehend social aspects of diplomacy and practice of diplomacy in different cultural contexts in that period. SAFVEN will last 2 years and will be supervised by Professor Maria Pia Pedani at the Department of Asian and North African Studies.

Thomas Coward

Thomas R.P. Coward – ILLR: Intellectual Life and Learning on Rhodes (168BC-AD44)

Thomas Coward holds a PhD from King’s College London. He is currently a Term Assistant Professor of Classics at George Mason University. His main interests are Greek poetry and music, ancient scholarship, and fragmentary texts and authors. His research will demonstrate the pivotal and under-appreciated role of Rhodes in the knowledge economy of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean. It analyses all forms and participants of Rhodian intellectual life, and their impact and legacy. It shows the transformation of the island from a predominately economic and political power to a cultural one. His supervisor will be Prof. Ettore Cingano in the Department of Humanities.

Carlos Vara Sánchez - ENAMARE: Enactive model of aesthetic experience through rhythm and entrainment

At Ca’ Foscari, Carlos will study the aesthetic component of everyday perception. His dual background will allow him to use an interdisciplinary approach grounded on philosophy, but integrating research results from biology and neurosciences as well. Specifically, his project explores the interaction between environmental and bodily rhythms mediated by the phenomenon of entrainment. He aims to work on the elaboration of a model, which will use conceptual tools from the dynamic systems theory, to gain a better understanding on how we synch up to the world and its consequences. His tutor will be Professor Roberta Dreon of the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage.

Pascal Bohleber

Pascal Bohleber – GOLD-ICE: Next generation analysis of the oldest ice core layers

Climate archives like polar ice cores allow us to study the dynamics of our earth system and thus to prepare better for future climate change. However, much is still to be learned from the oldest, and thinnest, ice layers of Antarctica- calling for analysis at unprecedented detail. Just-in-time to meet this challenge, the project will exploit Laser-Ablation Inductively-Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) for novel ice core analysis at highest resolution. Previously untapped paleoclimatic evidence will be explored in deep polar ice core layers, through carefully avoiding misinterpretation of the high-resolution signals. This creates exciting new research opportunities, also within future ice coring projects. Pascal will work with Professor Carlo Barbante at the Department of Environmental Science, Informatics and Statistics.

Elena Ghezzo

Elena Ghezzo – REFIND: Remote strategies for fossil finding: multispectral images and species distributional modelling applications for large-scale palaeontological surveys.

Elena Ghezzo is a vertebrate palaeontologist, specialized for the studies of European carnivorans. Shewill go to the University of Oregon, at Eugene, for two years and then will return to Venice. She will define a standard for the computed analyses of multispectral satellite images with hight resolution, in order to find fossils of mammals, extinct whales and dinosaurs, exposed on the desert surfaces. Moreover, she will apply new geographical tools for reconstruct the palaeoranges of extinct species. Her tutor will be professor Stefano Malavasi of the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics.

Tarlazzi

Caterina Tarlazzi – NATURA: Reassessing Realism over Universals in the Time of Peter Abelard

Caterina is a historian of philosophy specialising in the medieval Latin tradition. Her research combines an interest for logic and metaphysics with an interest for manuscript unpublished sources. After studying in Padua, Cambridge, and Paris, she was British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Cambridge and a Research Associate of St John's College (Cambridge) for three years, before joining the ERC Consolidator Grant "9SALT. Reassessing Ninth Century Logic: A Synchronic Approach to the Logical Traditions" at Universität Wien (PI: Christophe Erismann). She was then awarded a four-year FNS Ambizione Fellowship at the Département de Philosophie, Université de Genève. For her MSCA, she will work at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, and Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari, where she will be supervised by Richard Cross and Marco Sgarbi respectively. She will investigate realist theories of genera and species from the 12th-century on the basis of mainly unpublished sources, exploring their relations to both Peter Abelard’s thought, and contemporary essentialism.

Edoardo Gerlini

Edoardo Gerlini – WHEREAL: World Heritage and East Asian Literature – Sinitic writings in Japan as Literary Heritage.

Edoardo Gerlini's Global Fellowship envisages a two-year outgoing phase at Waseda University and one year at Ca’ Foscari University, Department of  Asian and North African Studies, under the supervision of Professor Bonaventura Ruperti. His research focuses on pre-modern texts of Japanese literature, in particular the so called Sinitic or Sino-Japanese writings, that constitutes an important part of the shared cultural heritage of East Asia, where Classical Chinese was the language of culture and diplomacy of the East Asian sub-continent, at least until the 19th century. The aim is to formulate a new definition of ‘literary heritage’ as an alternative to the dichotomy of tangible/intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO, through an interdisciplinary approach comparing the different debates on ownership and authorship.

Andrea Berardi

Andrea Berardi – EUTERPE: EUropean TERm Premium Estimation

The project addresses a very relevant issue for policymakers, which consists in identifying in real time some unobservable variables that determine the movements of interest rates. In particular, the research focuses on the estimation of the term premium, a measure of the investors’ perceived risk of holding government bonds. The purpose of the project, which will be carried out at the Department of Economics under the supervision of professor Monica Billio, is to implement an innovative system that can equip the European policymakers with a novel analytical tool for their monetary policy decisions and that has various applications in the financial industry.  Andrea Berardi, a former professor of quantitative finance, restarts his academic career after a break as financial manager in the Swiss pharma industry.

Nicole Tabasso

Nicole Tabasso – ION: Information Diffusion on Networks

Nicole Tabasso will carry out her two-year project at Ca’ Foscari University, Department of Economics, under the supervision of Prof. Sergio Currarini. Her project looks at what drives the spread of rumours, and why they appear to be so difficult to eradicate. The particular focus is on the role that interaction patterns between people play – people are part of a network of communication, and who talks to whom, and how often, plays a crucial role in the spread of information, both true and false. By increasing our understanding of what factors benefit the spread of rumours and misinformation, my project aims to help in the fight against digital mass misinformation, which causes serious harm all over the world.

Anna Rosinska

Anna Rosinska - 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

Thanks to her Global Fellowship, Anna Rosinska will spend two years at the University of Massachussetts and one year at Ca’ Foscari, in the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, under the supervision of prof. Sabrina Marchetti. MAJORdom is about paid domestic and care workers (cleaners, nannies, elderly care givers) who are 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 conduct statistical data and policy analysis. The results will help us understand the role of gender, race, ethnicity and class in contemporary inequalities.

Animesh Gain

Animesh Gain - SECurITY: Social-ECological Interdependencies in TransboundarY water resources systems.

Being a recipient of Outstanding Young Scientist Award of European Geosciences Union (EGU) and Alexander von Humboldt fellowship, currently he is working at Kiel University, Germany, within the cluster of excellence, ‘the Future Ocean’. For his Marie Curie Global Fellowship, he will be working on assessment of human-water interdependencies of international river basins, with an aim to enhance transboundary cooperation. During the outgoing phase, he will be working at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for two years, with Prof. Susskind (Environmental Policy & Planning Group) and during return phase at Ca’ Foscari with Prof. Giupponi (Department of Economics).

Carlotta Minnella

Carlotta Minnella - SWP: Shaming States: Social Sanction and State Behaviour In World Politics

Carlotta Minnella will carry out her research for two years at Duke University and will return to Ca 'Foscari - Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage – during the third year, under the supervision of Prof. Matteo Legrenzi. 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 practices 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? 

Alexander Araya

Alexander Araya - RIGHTS UP: The right to the city and the ambivalence of tourism: a comparative approach to media discourses and social movements' dissent in Venice, Amsterdam and Barcelona.

Alexander is a researcher, freelance sociologist and media advisor from Costa Rica, who will spend two yeard at theDepartment of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies, under the supervision of Professor Francesca Coin. His project will focus on the right to the city, observing the ambivalent role of tourism and following protests and social movements that claim access to their city and its resources—mainly in Venice, Amsterdam and Barcelona. The expected results are a better comprehension of the needs of European local communities with impact at policy-making levels.

Marie Curie fellows at Ca' Foscari University

Damiano Acciarino

Damiano Acciarino - ATRA: Atlas of Renaissance Antiquarianism

Outstanding scholar of Italian literature who obtained his doctoral degree at Ca' Foscari, Damiano will go to the University of Toronto, Canada for two years, and then return to Venice to fulfill his research objectives. He will implement the digital atlas of ancient studies of the Renaissance, connecting documents that are currently difficult to relate and thus opening new research opportunities on the history of thought and the evolution of European civilization. His tutor will be Professor Riccardo Drusi of the Department of Humanities.

Beatrice Daskas

Beatrice Daskas - MYRiCE: The church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople: the MYth and its Reception across the Centuries

Byzantine scholar with competencies in philology and history, she will carry out her research project at Ca' Foscari after a research experience at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Monaco of Bavaria. She is currently a visiting scholar at the Institute for Iranian and Persian Gulf Studies at Princeton University. She will be studying the cultural history of Byzantium and its reflections through the centuries, focusing on the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople and its symbolism. She will also compare her research results with another monument which has carried messages over the centuries: the Basilica of San Marco in Venice. Her tutor will be Antonio Rigo, professor at the Department of Humanities.

Matteo Bertelé

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

He was awarded his graduate and doctoral titles at Ca' Foscari, where he now teaches Russian and European History of Art. The Marie Curie Fellowship will take him to the University of California at Santa Barbara, to study the impact of art on culture and society during the Cold War, in particular regarding the two German Republics, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and Italy. He will carry out his research thanks to the collections of the Getty Research Institute and of the Wende Museum in Los Angeles. His tutor will be Professor Silvia Burini of the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage.

Elise Franssen

Elise Franssen - RASCIO: Reader, Author, Scholar in a Context of Information Overflow. How to master and manage knowledge when there is too much to know?

After her Phd in Arabic literature in Liege, Belgium, she will come to Ca' Foscari University to study al-Safdī, an intellectual of the Mammelucco period (1250-1517). Examining and digitizing the list of his works and annotated manuscripts, she will re-build a crucial part of the cultural life of the period. Her tutor will be Professor Antonella Ghersetti, at the Department of Asian and North African Studies.

Pauli Lappi

Pauli Lappi - MILO: Mining, Lobbying and Efficient Environmental Policy

He carries out his research activities at the University of Helsinki; thanks to his project he will work at the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and statistics of Ca' Foscari for two years, under the supervision of Professor Carlo Carraro. MILO investigates environmental policy from the economics viewpoint with a focus on polluting exhaustible resource production. MILO has two research objectives. First, it will analyze the properties of the economically optimal environmental policy targeted at exhaustible resource production, and second, it will study the properties of the policy instruments when the policy-making is affected by lobbying.

 

 

Ca' Foscari Alumni in Europe and in the World

Daniele Vecchiato

Daniele Vecchiato - VehmeLit: Legal Cultures and Literary Trials in the Age of Goethe

Daniele Vecchiato got a Ph.D in Germanistic in a joint Ph.D programme with the Humboldt University in Berlin. He was awarded various research fellowships in Germany and in 2015 he received the Ca’ Foscari Research Award for Ph.Ds. Thanks to the Marie Curie European Fellowship, he will study at King’s College London, to investigate the reasons behind Vehmic’s secret court in German literature between XVIII and XIX centuries, from both a comparative and an interdisciplinary point of view.

Deborah Nadal

Deborah Nadal - AREE: The Social Anthropology of Rabies Epidemiology and Elimination

After getting a Bachelor's and Master's Degree from Ca’ Foscari, she obtained a Ph.D. at the University of Verona in 2014 and in 2016 she was awarded a Marie Curie Global Fellowship. Her project, “SAREE”, is focused on rabies in rural India: her study will combine anthropology, epidemiology and medicine methods, in order to better understand this serious but overlooked illness and to identify culturally convincing strategies to contain it. She will be working under the supervision of professor Cleveland in Glasgow (UK) and professor Rabinowitz in Seattle (USA).

Francesco Piraino

Francesco Piraino - SufisEthics&Politics

Francesco Piraino will study the role of Sufi confraternities in the political areas between Europe and Maghreb (Belgium, France, Morocco and Algeria). Some of these confraternities are actually playing a key role in the cultural, social and political mediation process. His research will take place at KU Leuven University in Belgium. He graduated from Ca' Foscari University in Philosophy, in Sociology at the University of Padua, and obtained a joint Ph.D. in Sociology at Pisa’s Scuola Normale Superiore, in collaboration with the EHESS in Paris. He also had the chance to be visiting researcher at the Universities of Lund (Sweden), Aarhus (Denmark) and Cape Town (South Africa). Since 2016, he has been a consultant for the Centre for Comparative Studies of Cultures and Spiritualities at the Giorgio Cini Foundation.

Alice Equestri

Alice Equestri - Renaissance Idiocy: Representing Idiocy and Intellectual Disability in Early Modern English Literature, 1500-1640

Ca’ Foscari research fellow Alice Equestri has been awarded a Marie Curie European Fellowship in the call 2016. Her project will give her the chance to spend a research and training period at University of Sussex, Brighton, in the United Kingdom. She will be working there under the supervision of professor Andrew Hadfield, an expert of early modern English literature.

Marie Curie fellows at Ca' Foscari University

Alessandra Gilibert - COMPUS: Civic community and public space in the ancient Near East. The case of Hittite Anatolia at the end of the Late Bronze Age (14th-13th centuries BCE)

Alessandra Gilibert studies the relationship between public space and political life in the ancient Near Eastern city, with the city of Hattusha, capital of the Hittite Empire, as case-study. The project COMPUS uses a multi-level, computer-aided methodological toolbox to extract social meaning from ancient urban design, reconstruct the political dimension of urban space, and find out how past communities generated places of gathering, negotiation, and dissent. The biennial research is located at Ca' Foscari Department of Humanities, under the supervision of Lucio Milano, full professor of Ancient Near Easter History at our University.

David García-León - WATER DROP - Droughts and Water Scarcity in the EU: Economic Impacts, Adaptation, Policy Implications and Integrated Assessment Modelling.

David is an Environmental Economist from Spain; his project will be carried out at the Department of Environmental Science, Informatics and Statistics under the supervision of Prof. Antonio Marcomini. WATER DROP will investigate drought risks and water scarcity in Europe, which are expected to intensify as a result of climate change, seeking to measure the economic impacts of agricultural droughts at the geographically finest level, using high-resolution agricultural and satellite data. It will also assess the evolution of the relation between drought stress and agricultural production over time, quantifying the presence of adaptive behaviour to climate change. The results of this project will help policymakers and relevant stakeholders to design more efficient early warning and drought mitigation tools.

Suzana Blesic

Suzana Blesic - CLARITY: Uncovering information in fluctuating CLimate systems: An oppoRtunity for solving climate modeling nodes and assIst local communiTY adaptation measures

Suzana Blesic is an associate research professor at the Institute for Medical Research in Belgrade. She holds a PhD in theoretical physics, finished a post-doc at CNRS Marseilles and has worked in laboratories in Sweden and Japan. CLARITY intends to use valuable information from fluctuations in climate records to analyze, interpret and incorporate into Bayesian modelling strategies the observed, reconstructed and simulated climate data, in order to obtain projections that can be of assistance to community needs. The supervisor of this research is Angelo Rubino, professor of  Oceanography, Meteorology and Climatology at the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics.

Further information: CLARITY website; Participant Portal

Panagiotis Ch. Athanasopoulos

Panagiotis Ch. Athanasopoulos - TASTGCEP: Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae Ia IIae translated by Demetrius Cydones and Bessarion’s incomplete Compendium of the translation – A Critical Editio Princeps

Panagiotis Athanasopoulos prepared his Doctoral Dissertation at the Department of Philology, University of Ioannina, Greece. Since 2013 he is a research collaborator of the “Thomas de Aquino Byzantinus” international research project (Laboratory of Arts, University of Patras – Hellenic Institute, Royal Holloway, University of London). His project aims to provide scholarship with critical editions of the Byzantine translations of some of Aquinas’ writings and, thus, to contribute to the research on the relations between the Catholic and Orthodox theological and intellectual traditions.

Pervinca Rista - GoldOpera: Carlo Goldoni and Europe’s New Opera Theatre

Pervinca Rista, researcher and professional musician, will study the evolution of Classical opera to shed light on the important innovations in musical theatre introduced by Venetian playwright and librettist Carlo Goldoni. The project ultimately aims to create the basis for the restoration, publication, and performance of historical operas that have vanished from the traditional repertoire, to bring to a larger public new knowledge of a form of art that had a global impact, and therefore a deeper understanding of our shared cultural heritage. Her supervisor will be Pier Mario Vescovo, at Ca' Foscari Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage.

Enrico Emanuele Prodi

Enrico Emanuele Prodi - ASAGIP: Ancient scholarship on archaic Greek iambic poetry

Enrico Emanuele Prodi holds a D.Phil. from Oxford. He is currently in the 4th year of a Research Fellowship at Christ Church, Oxford. His main research interests are papyrology, archaic Greek lyric, and ancient scholarship on archaic and Classical literature. His research will be devoted ancient scholarship on archaic iambic poetry, chiefly Archilochus and Hipponax, from the fourth century BC to the twelfth AD. Systematic investigation of all available sources will allow its history, characteristics, transmission, and use to be examined. The project ‘ASAGIP: Ancient Scholarship on Archaic Greek Iambic Poetry’ will be supervised by Prof. Ettore Cingano in the Department of Humanities.

Xanthi Penteli

Xanthi Penteli - SCouT: Sparse Composite Likelihood Inference in Count Time Series

Xanthi Pedeli got her PhD in Statistics at the Athens University of Economics and Business. Her curriculum includes professional experience in both the academia and the private sector, research activities related to both theoretical and applied statistics and involvement in a number of European research projects. At Ca’ Foscari University, she will work on the simultaneous order selection and estimation of autoregressive and moving average terms in count time series models, with the aim of supporting statistical methods for public health surveillance and detection of disease outbreaks. SCouT will be supervised by Prof. Cristiano Varin in the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics. Websitehttps://scout-eu-project.weebly.com/

Ca' Foscari Alumni in Europe and in the World

Olivia Casagrande

Olivia Casagrande - MAPS-URBE: The invisible city - Mapuche mapping of Santiago de Chile

Graduated at Ca' Foscari in Cultural Anthropology, Ethnology and ethnolinguistics, after the award of a PhD (Doctor Europaeus) at the University of Verona, Olivia Casagrande obtained a Global Fellowship at the University of Manchester, with a period of research and training in Santiago, Chile. Her project aims to explore the artistic and cultural reality of the younger generations of Mapuche indigenous people within the urban context of the capital. Through a collaborative methodology that includes participatory mapping and storytelling, she will analyze the indigenous experience of the city and the links with the ancestral territory in the south of the country.

Franco Luciani

Franco Luciani - SPES: Servi Publici: Everybody's Slaves

After receiving a PhD from Ca' Foscari University of Venice in 2011, Franco Luciani was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Neuchatel (Switzerland), Ca’ Foscari University and the University of Trento. Thanks to the SPES project, Franco is moving to Newcastle University in the UK to embark on a full-scale study of the role of public slavery in the Roman world. The SPES project sets out to provide a full-scale reconsideration of the position of public slaves in the Roman economy and society through a multidisciplinary and comparative study.

Michele Costola

Michele Costola - EARLINESS.eu: European early warning system for systemic risk

Michele Costola will study the implementation of a new European early warning system, able to identify and signal economic vulnerabilities in order to allow policy makers to intervene in a timely manner. The project is called EARLINESS.eu - European early warning system for systemic risk and its aim is to implement a EWS for systemic risk to prevent and mitigate financial instability by exploiting the linkages among the financial markets and the real economy. EARLINESS.eu will be implemented at the House of Finance - SAFE Institute (Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe) at the Goethe University in Frankfurt with a secondment period at the European Central Bank.

Alessia Castagnino

Alessia Castagnino - TransIt: Translating science in the long Italian Eighteenth-Century. The role of translators and publishers as “cultural mediators” (1760-1790s)

PhD in European Social History at Ca' Foscari University, at present works as post-doctoral researcher at the University of the Republic of San Marino. Her Marie Curie Fellowship at the European University Institute (Department of History and Civilization, Florence), will analyse the role of  translators and publishers as “cultural mediators” (1760-1790s). This project is conducted under the supervision of prof. Ann Thomson and is focused on the strategies of translation of English and French scientific works in Italy during the last decades of the Eighteenth-Century. The aim is to reflect on the role played by translators and publishers and on the idea that translations were a lens through which to analyse the quality of the dissemination and reception of European scientific culture in the Italian peninsula.

Marie Curie fellows at Ca' Foscari University

Valentina Ciciliot

Valentina Ciciliot - CAT-CAM: The Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR): an Historical Analysis Between US and Europe

Valentina Ciciliot will explore how globalization and the interaction between different religious cultures have been crucial to the Christian confessions in the modern world. The project CAT-CAM implies a period of research at the University of Notre Dame Du Lac (USA) and a reintegration period at Ca' Foscari University, in the Department of Linguistics and Comparative Cultural Studies. The supervisor is Giovanni Vian, Professor in History of Christianity and the Church. Through the analysis of new spiritual and religious forms, as Pentecostalism and new charismatic movements, Valentina will study the deep transformations affecting Christianity in Europe and in the rest of the world.

Maria Simona Morosin

Maria Simona Morosin - NPA: Neurodidactics of Performing Arts: The Impact of Drama Teaching on Second Language Acquisition

Maria Simona Morosin joins Neuroscience, Education and Theater, investigating the impact of theater practice on language learning. She will base her research on the current understanding of Neuroscience of Education, dealing with cognitive brain functions such as thinking, memory, attention, emotions. The project "NPA - Neurodidactics of Performing Arts: The Impact of Drama Teaching on Second Language Acquisition" is a Global Fellowship which implies a three-year research at the University of Sydney and Ca’ Foscari. Her supervisor is Paul Puppa, professor of Theater History at the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage.

Ivan Franceschini

Ivan Franceschini - Chinese Labour: Shifting Dynamics of Chinese Labour in a Global Perspective

Ivan Franceschini will work in China, analysing perceptions and expectations of those who work in the 'world's factory', in reference to the future European investment in the country. "Chinese Labour - Shifting Dynamics of Chinese Labour in a Global Perspective" is the title of his project, which will last three years and will lead Ivan in Canberra, at the Australian Centre on China in the World. His supervisor is Professor Renzo Cavalieri, Professor of East Asian countries Law in the Department of Asian and North African Studies.

Veronica West-Harling

Veronica West-Harling - Family, Power, Memory: Female Monasticism in Italy from 700 to 1100

Veronica-West Harling, an historical medievalist, will study the religious who lived in Italians convents between 700 and 1100, with a comparative and interdisciplinary approach. The center of her research will be the relationship between female figures, religious beliefs and behavior, politics and society, with the aim of understanding issues rooted in our history and still open in modern society. "Family, Power, Memory: Female Monasticism in Italy from 700 to 1100" is the title of the two-year project that will be conducted under the supervision of Stefano Gasparri, Professor of Medieval History at the Department of Humanities.

Teodoro Katinis

Teodoro Katinis - SPERONI: Sperone Speroni (1500-1588) and the Rebirth of Sophistry in the Italian Renaissance

Teodoro Katinis will analyse the singular figure of Sperone Speroni, a philosopher and scholar from Padua who lived in the sixteenth century.  He will bring to the attention the interest of this intellectual for the Sophists, on whom he wrote in vernacular. The study of Katinis will last two years and is entitled "SPURS - Sperone Speroni (1500-1588) and the Rebirth of Sophistry in the Italian Renaissance". It will contribute to a broader international project on Aristotelianism in Italian Renaissance, funded by an ERC Starting Grant and led by Professor Marco Sgarbi of the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca' Foscari, in collaboration with the British University of Warwick.

Arianna Traviglia

Arianna Traviglia - VEiL: Visualizing Engineered Landscapes: an archeological approach to unlock environmental resilience and sustainability in antiquity

VEiL project (Visualising Engineered Landscapes) investigates the processes and dynamics of ancient landscape engineering in order to inform models of sustainable practices for contemporary landscape management. Focused on the exceptionally well-preserved territory skirting Aquileia (Italy), one of the wealthiest and largest cities of the Roman Empire, this project integrates archaeological, historical, environmental and geospatial information to investigate the forms, impact and endurance of the complex Roman rural parcelisation system, known as Centuriation. To achieve this research agenda, Marie Curie fellow Arianna Traviglia, with the supervision of prof. Andrea Torsello, develops new methods based on Artificial Intelligence and Computer vision to automatically identify over aerial and satellite imagery the traces left from ancient territorial infrastructures that still survive in the organisation of the contemporary landscape.

Chengfang Pang

Chengfang Pang - NanoERA: Nanomaterials Ecological Risk Assessment: A study of the long-term effects and risks of nano scale Iron Oxide used in plastic composites in the acquatic environment

Chengfang Pang will analyze the behaviour of nanoparticles in the aquatic ferric oxide (n-Fe2O3), used in large scale in the dye for plastics. The aim will be to develop methods and data to predict the long-term effects of the use of this nanomaterial and related environmental risks. The project will last two years and will have as supervisor Antonio Marcomini, Professor of Environmental Chemistry and director of the Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics of Ca' Foscari.

Ca' Foscari Alumni in Europe and in the World

Mariachiara Barzotto

Mariachiara Barzotto - SkillUp: Skill development and firm upgrading to sustain the competitiveness of the EU manufacturing sector

Mariachiara Barzotto, lecturer at the Department of Economics of Ca 'Foscari, obtained the title of Doctor Europaeus in 2014. Mariachiara will explore paths that combine strategies of upgrading of enterprises with the development of skills to improve the competitiveness of European manufacturing industries. Her project ‘Skillup - Skill development and upgrading firm to sustain the competitiveness of the EU manufacturing sector’ is a European Fellowship that will allow the Researcher to carry out her research at the Birmingham Business School - University of Birmingham (UK) for a period of two years.

Chiara Fabbro

Chiara Fabbro - MaSCheNav: Mass Spectrometry-Based Chemoproteomic Profiling of Nav1.7, a Voltage-Gated Sodium Channel

Chiara Fabbro got the PhD title in Science and Technology Chemical and Pharmaceutical University of Trieste. After a Postdoc fellowship at the University of Namur (Belgium), she arrived at Ca 'Foscari as a Researcher at the DSMN, where she works on the synthesis of new materials for applications in art restoration. Thanks to the Marie Curie Fellowship she will work at Imperial College - London. Her project aims to study ion channels involved in the transmission of the pain signal, using techniques of chemoproteomics forefront, for the development of new therapies.

Marco Noè

Marco Noè - SOCUPols: Supported organocatalysts and their applications in the upgrade of bioderived polyols

After a brief experience in the private sector, Marco Noè obtained the PhD title in Chemical Sciences at Ca' Foscari in 2012. With his project ‘SOCUPols: Supported organocatalysts and their applications in the upgrade of bioderived polyols: desymmetrisation of glycerol to Obtain building blocks for fine chemicals and pharmaceutical production’, he will work for two years ICIQ - Catalan Institute of Investigació Química. The main objective is to get new systems for the development of products derived from biomass, promoting the transition to renewable sources.

Laura Carnelos

Laura Carnelos - PATRIMONiT: From Cheap Print to Rare Ephemera: 16th-Century Italian 'Popular' Books at the British Library

Expert in Book History and Library Science, she got her PhD in 2010 in Venice. After several scientific experiences between Ca' Foscari University and the University of Verona, thanks to her project PATRIMONiT she will carry our her research at the British Library (UK). Here she will explore some of the 16th century Italian texts which are not stored in any library of our country, considering the historical circumstances related to their survival and international circulation with a new highly interdisciplinary methodology.

Daniele Morselli

Daniele Morselli - EntreLab: The Entrepreneurial Laboratory for teacher training. A capability approach for entrepreneurship education in vocational education

Psychologist, he has worked as a clinician and educator in the Feuerstein Centre of Jerusalem for the rehabilitation of children with severe learning difficulties. In 2014, he got a joint PhD title in Cognitive Sciences and Education between Ca 'Foscari and the University of Melbourne. His doctoral research project involved a comparative model on Italian and Australian entrepreneurship training. EntreLab will develop a close partnership involving Helsinki and Ca 'Foscari University (as a partner), on the entrepreneurship training of teachers through an innovative methodology on technical and vocational training.

Laura Candiotto

Laura Candiotto - EMOTIONS FIRST. Feeling reason: the role of emotions in reasoning

Laura Candiotto, Research Fellow in Theoretical Philosophy at Ca' Foscari, where she works with Prof. Luigi Vero Tarca, worked with Luc Brisson (CNRS, Paris Sorbonne) and presented the results of her research in important international conferences in France, Spain, Germany, Poland and Italy. Through her Marie Curie project she will undertake training and research at the University of Edinburgh, investigating the complex relationships between emotions and rationality, from ancient philosophy to contemporary epistemological theories, in order to put new scientific basis for the study of embodied, located and extended cognition.

Alessio Sopracasa

Alessio Sopracasa - Digiseal: Byzantine seals in a digital age: new tools for European research

Alessio Sopracasa is an associate member of the 'Centre de recherche et d'Histoire de Byzance Civilisation' and holder of PhD title in Byzantine history at the Université de Paris IV Sorbonne, achieved in co-supervision with Ca' Foscari. He spent a long period of research and teaching in Paris and for many years he devoted himself to the study of economic history and commerce in the Eastern Mediterranean area. At the same time, he developed a deep interest in the Byzantine sigillography that, along with 'Digital Humanities', is the basis of DigiSeal, which will take place at the King's College - London. Thank DigiSeal, in fact, he will will join sigillography with the language TEI-XML, creating a large body of digital Byzantine seals, which will set a new standard and will provide new evidence and new tools for the development of further research in many other sectors.

Marie Curie fellows at Ca' Foscari University

Valentina Bonifacio

Valentina Bonifacio - ArchFact: Building an archive of conflicting memories. A history of Carlos Casado's tannin factory in Paraguay (1889-2001)

Adjunct Professor at Ca’ Foscari University Venice, Department of Humanities, anthropologist and documentary filmmaker, Valentina was awarded a Marie Curie IOF fellowship in 2013. With his project ArchFact Valentina will travel to Paraguay to gather evidence about the history of the family Stastre-Casado (1889-2000) and their large tannery, which for the first time hired Indians as laborers. She will study the memories of the various protagonists and their role in the formation of the country’s contemporary political identity. Contact:  valentina.bonifacio@unive.it

Diego Calaon

Diego Calaon - Voices of Venice

Archaeologist and researcher, Diego Calaon was professor of Medieval Archaeology at Ca’ Foscari University. Awarded in 2013 of a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship, he will be hosted by the University of Stanford, California to return, after two years, to Ca' Foscari, Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics. His project The Voices of Venice wants to stimulate a critical review of one of the key European events from the point of view of history and society, the birth of the Serenissima. Contact:  calaon@unive.it

Filip Alexandrescu

Filip Alexandrescu - NEXSUS: Network-based Expert-Stakeholder Framework for Sustainable Remediation

Filip Alexandrescu has worked for some years at the University of Toronto, Canada. Since August 2011, he has been a researcher at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany. Awarded in 2013 of a Marie Curie Fellwoship, he chose Ca’ Foscari University, Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics, as the host institution where to develop his project NEXUS. The project aims at improving the development and the evaluation of management processes of sustainability in contaminated soils. Contact:  filip.alexandrescu@ufz.de

Darko Darovec

Darko Darovec - FAIDA: Feud and blood feud between customary law and legal process in medieval and early modern Europe. The case of the Upper-Adriatic area

Professor at the University of Ljubljana, Darko Darovec, has chosen Ca’ Foscari University, Department of Humanities, as the host institution for his Marie Curie Fellowship. His project FAIDA: Feud and blood feud between customs and legal process in medieval and early modern Europe will focus on the area of the northern Adriatic during the late Middle Ages and early modern era. Contact:  darovec.darko@gmail.com

Ca' Foscari Alumni in Europe and in the World

Giulia Fiorani

Giulia Fiorani - RENOVACARB: Novel applications of renewable based molecules for the preparation of cyclic carbonates and polycabonates

Research Associate at the Department of Molecular Sciences and Nanosystems, Ca’ Foscari University, Giulia Fiorani has worked on the development and optimization of sustainable synthetic protocols. Awarded in 2013 of a Marie Curie Fellowship, her project will focus on the development of new functional molecules and new plastics from renewable materials such as the scraps of the agri-food industry. The research will take place at the ICIQ, a non-profit research center on Molecular Sciences located in Tarragona, Spain. Contact:  giulia.fiorani@unive.it

Paola Tomè

Paola Tomè - Tortellex: Giovanni Tortelli's Orthographia and Greek studies in XVth century Europe

Fellow in Medieval Latin Literature and Humanities at Ca’ Foscari University Venice, Department of Humanities, Paola has participated in various research projects of national scope and in 2012 was awarded a "Andrew Mellon" research visiting fellowship at the "Center for Renaissance Studies", University of Warwick (UK). Awarded in 2013 of a Marie Curie Fellowship, she will be hosted by Oxford University to study the diffusion and promotion of the study of greek language in the fifteenth century Italy and Europe. Contact:  paola.tome@unive.it

Alessio Cotugno

Alessio Cotugno - A-Speroni: Sperone Speroni and his Legacy (1500-1588): Literature, Philosophy and the Vernacular

Research Fellow at Ca' Foscari University (2008-2013), Department of Humanities, Alessio lectured in courses related to the disciplines of Italian Linguistics at the Universities of Udine and Venice. Awarded of a Marie Curie fellowship in 2013, he will develop his research project at the Department of Italian and the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, University of Warwick. His project will analyse the role of the Paduan philosopher Sperone Speroni (1500-1588) in the promotion of the vernacular in Italy and France. Contact:  alessio.cotugno@unive.it

Laura Odasso

Laura Odasso - AMORE: Awareness & Migration: Organizations for bi-national family Rights Empowerment

Fellow researcher at the Laboratory of European cultures and societies, University of Strasbourg, and professor in collaboration with the Master MIM program, Ca 'Foscari University, Laura studied European migration policies and mixed couples. Awarded of a Marie Curie Fellowship in 2013, Laura will develop her research project between the cities of Strasbourg, Bruxelles and Turin. The project aims to bring an action-research approach to the study of migration policies regulating access to citizenship and residence permits. Contact:  la.odasso@gmail.com

Marie Curie fellows at Ca' Foscari University

Viviana Re

Viviana Re - Bir Al-Nas: Bottom-up integrated approach for sustainable groundwater management in rural areas

Research fellow at Ca’ Foscari University Venice, Department of Molecular Sciences and Nanosystems Viviana was awarded in 2012 a Marie Curie IOF. Her project, Bir Al-Nas, covers the multidisciplinary study of the quality of groundwater in the area of Cap Bon (North Tunisia). Bir Al-Nas will be developed for the first two years in Tunisia, at the National School of Engineering of Sfax and in the third year at Ca' Foscari University at the Department of Science molecular and nano-systems. Contact:  re@unive.it

Ca' Foscari Alumni in Europe and in the World

Mauro Masiol

Mauro Masiol - CHEERS: “Chemical and Physical Properties and Source Apportionment of Airport Emissions in the context of European Air Quality Directives”

Mauro holds currently a PhD in Environmental Sciences at Ca’ Foscari University, Department of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics. Awarded in 2013 of a Marie Curie Fellowship, he will be hosted by the University of Birmingham (UK) to implement his project CHEERS. The project focuses primarily on  the determination of the impact of aircraft emissions upon particulate matter concentrations and on the fine particulate matter (PM2.5) source apportionment to quantify the impact of aircraft, road traffic and other airport emissions upon local air quality. Contact:  masiol@unive.it

Toshio Miyake

Toshio Miyake - BETWATE: Beyond “the West” and “the East”: Occidentalism, Orientalism and self-Orientalism in Italy-Japan Relations

Currently adjunct lecturer in Contemporary Japanese society at Ca' Foscari University, Department of Asian and North African Studies, Toshio was awarded of a Marie Curie Fellowship in 2011. His project BETWATE, investigated the reasons of the reciprocal popularity of Italy and Japan, by focusing on mutual discourses and practices regarding “Japan” and “the East” in Italy, and regarding “Italy” and “the West” in Japan, respectively. Contact:  miyake@unive.it

Last update: 12/03/2024