La conferenza intende esplorare l’evoluzione del concetto di libertà accademica da una prospettiva globale e interdisciplinare.
In apertura verrà chiarito come la libertà accademica si distingua dalla libertà di espressione. La conferenza persegue tre obiettivi principali: intende valutare lo stato della libertà accademica nei diversi contesti geopolitici, esaminare le sue dimensioni politiche, e interrogarsi sui suoi fondamenti epistemologici. Infine, in un’epoca sempre più segnata dall’intelligenza artificiale, ci si chiede quali possano essere i benefici e i rischi che essa comporta per la libertà accademica e per il pluralismo della ricerca umanistica.
L’evento è co-organizzato con il Dipartimento di Studi sull’Asia e sull’Africa Mediterranea dell’Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia e KIFO – l’Institute for Church, Religion, and Worldview Research di Oslo.
programma
9:30 – 10:00
Welcome Greetings
- Francesco Piraino (Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)
- Laura De Giorgi (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)
- Sindre Bangstad (KIFO – Institute For Church, Religion & Worldview Research)
10:00 – 11:00
Keynote speaker Pippa Norris (Harvard University), “ ‘Professors Are the Enemy’? Two Faces of Academic Freedom in the USA”
11:00 – 11:30 Coffee Break
11:30 – 12:30 Panel: Academic Freedom in Israel
- Mordechai (Mordy) Miller (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), “Theological Roots of Anti-Academic Sentiment in Contemporary Religious Zionism”
- Nir Avieli (Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), “The Impossible Academic Freedom of Israeli Critical Social Scientists: ‘Lefty Arab-lovers’ or ‘Genocidal Maniacs’?”
14:00 – 15:30 Panel: Academic Freedom in Africa
- Sindre Bangstad (KIFO – Institute For Church, Religion & Worldview Research), “Academic Freedom vs Academic Freedom: A South African Case”
- Kwadwo Appiagyei-Atua (Africa Coalition for Academic Freedom), “A Critical Review of African Documents on Academic Freedom”
- Erica Bellia (University of Cambridge), “ ‘The Striptease of Our Humanism’: Questioning European Culture from Africa in the Early 1960s”
10:00 – 11:30 Panel: Academic Freedom in Russia, Iran, and in Diaspora
- Giovanni Savino (University of Naples Federico II), “Universities and Academic Freedom in Wartime Russia: A Genealogy of Authoritarian Control”
- Lidia Yatluk (University of Groningen), and Sofya Smyslova (University of Cambridge), “Reclaiming the Right to Research: Academic Freedom, Tacit Knowledge, and Exile”
- Shirin Zakeri (Unitelma Sapienza University of Rome), Minoo Mirshahvald (University of Copenhagen), and Ehsan Kashfi (University of Copenhagen) “Academic Freedom Beyond the State: Diasporic Pressure, Digital Intimidation, National Identity, and Iranian Scholars after ‘Woman, Life Freedom’ ”
11:30 – 12:00 Coffee Break
12:00 – 13:00 Panel: Academic Freedom in Asia
- Ala Uddin (University of Chittagong), “The Political Economy of Knowledge: Market Forces, Funding Pressures, and the Limits of Academic Autonomy in Bangladesh”
- Simon Yin (Hefei University of Technology in China), “Academic Freedom in China’s Hong Kong since 1997”
14:30 – 16:00 Panel: Academic Freedom in Europe
- Annelies Moors (University of Amsterdam), “Politicizing the Academy: Academic Freedom in the Netherlands”
- Maja van der Velden (University of Oslo), “Academic Freedom and Academic Boycott: An Analysis of the Debate in Norway”
- Maryna Lakhno (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology), “The Invisible Governance of Knowledge: Rethinking de facto Academic Freedom in Switzerland”
10:00 – 11:30 Panel: The Epistological Challenge of Academic Freedom
- Peter Dziedzic (Harvard University), “Akbarian Humanism: The Perfected Human, Perpetual Self-Disclosure, and an Islamic Epistemology of Serendipity”
- Joseph L. Clarke (University of Toronto), “Showing, Not Saying: Academic Freedom beyond the Logocentric Paradigm”
- Federico Dal Bo (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia), “Leo Strauss and the Post-Liberal Return to Esotericism: Academic Freedom in an Age of Compulsory Engagement”
11:30 – 12:00 Coffee break
12:00 – 13:00 Panel: Academic Freedom and the Impact of AI
- Arie Perliger and Randi Froude (University of Massachusetts), “The Double-Edged Algorithm: Artificial Intelligence, Digital Technologies, and the Transformation of Academic Freedom”
- Andrea Alessandro Gasparini (University of Oslo), “Rethinking the Role of Academic Libraries in the Age of ChatGPT”
14:30 – 15:30 Panel: Law and Policies for Academic Freedom
- Alessandra Lazzarini (University of Padua), “Defining Academic Freedom in Europe: Courts, Soft Law and Integration Tools in Higher Education”
- Silvia Zabeo and Dario Pellizon (Ca’ Foscari University), “Research Freedom as a Foundational Value of the European Epistemic Communities: Policy Frameworks, Stakeholder Responses, and Institutional Practices”
15:30 – 16:00 Plenary
La conferenza si terrà in lingua inglese.
