Italy Made! How passions make history

“Life! Motions Motives and Emotions” is the three-day symposium oriented toward the different aspects of human action, with a focus on the process of creation of Italy.
“Being Italian is not easy” asserts Professor Giulia Sissa, organizer of the meeting. “We are always negotiating our interrupted history and our paradoxically divisive national project. Such an unconventional, unfinished identity requires more than celebration and self-praise: our conference will question the passions that made Italy and make the Italians - those that are still missing and those that are, alas, overwhelming.”

The symposium, hosted by UCLA and the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles, took place on November 17, 18 and 19, and gathered almost fifty scholars from NISA, a network of Italian scholars operating in the field of Social and Humanistic Sciences. Main supporters of NISA are Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimo @ NYU and SUM of Florence, which make of the network an important international reality.

The most diverse topics have been explored by the guests, all of them somehow connected to a main theme: human feelings. The conference, in fact, was based on the idea that historical processes –and so the unification of Italy- are a consequence of human passions and emotions. All human actions are moved by feelings, and so even political choices.

The first day of “Life! Motions Motives and Emotions” was therefore dedicated to Italy and its present reality with a conference entitled “Italy Made! Passions and Project.” Scholars focused on the political culture of the Country and the collective feelings that made the process of unification possible. “Theatre and especially Opera played a fundamental role” says professor Sissa.”Va‘ Pensiero is still the most solemn and touching expression of love for our Country.”

Supported by the Center of Jewish Studies at UCLA and by the Viterbi Program in Mediterranean Jewish Studies, the conference also aimed at underlining the role of the Jewish community in the unification of Italy.
Passions seen from the most important philosophers’ and writers’ point of view were at the centre of the second day of the symposium, entitled “The Renaissance of the Passions” and organized in collaboration with the Ahmanson Foundation and the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at UCLA.

The third and last day was instead focused on “The Emotional Turn”. Emotions are now being recognized by anthropologists, sociologists and even economists as the main factor that moves individuals and entire communities to their actions. The “creation” of Italy and the complex – sometimes also contradictory- contemporary Italian society are the result of all these biological and cultural factors.

The event was also supported by The Embassy of Italy in Washington D.C., The Consulate General of Italy in Los Angeles and the Italian Cultural Institute in Los Angeles.
Much more than an obvious historical reconstruction, “Life! Motions Motives and Emotions” proved itself as a new and much deeper analysis of Italy and the Italian thought.

Alessandra Mastroianni
collaborator