Harrison for Fox Photos Ltd, Holland House library after an air raid, London, 1940. Seattle, Getty Images. Wikimedia Commons
Academic Freedom and the Challenges of Humanism(s)
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
Martedì, 21 aprile 2026
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”
Mercoledì, 22 aprile 2026
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”
Giovedì, 23 aprile 2026
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.
Prenotazione
Harrison for Fox Photos Ltd, Holland House library after an air raid, London, 1940. Seattle, Getty Images. Wikimedia Commons
