Orientalism revisited is the title of a conference organized in Rome by the Association Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations, the Austrian Forum of Culture in Rome in partnership with the Department of Philosophy at Rome 3 University. Participants will discuss Eastern and Western, Northern and Southern perceptions of one another since the Arab revolts and the beginning of democratic processes in several countries. The legacy of Edward Said’s influential work Orientalism, the critique of colonial European attitudes toward the “Orient,” and the flourishing of postcolonial studies in literature, art, philosophy and social sciences have deeply altered the cultural landscape both Western and formerly colonial societies. This conference will also look at the different schools of orientalism in different European countries, as well as at the unchanging parameters of foreign policy in these countries toward the Near and Middle East, and vice versa.

Orientalism Revisited will explore a topic that has gained new meaning with the Arab Spring. Although the famous dispute between Edward Said and Bernard Lewis belongs to another age, it is interesting to now explore whether and how reciprocal prejudices and misperceptions have endured, especially when we look at the European (and other) views of post-revolutionary developments. Indeed, the new season of hope opened by a political change seems able to overcome both the ethnocentric view of Europeans on the one side and postcolonial resentment on the other side. A new, fairer relationship based on dialogue among equals may be within reach. Re-reading and re-examining Orientalism and postcolonial studies can help us to define this new relationship.

Date:
November 8-9 2012 – 3 sessions

Venue:
November 8 – University Rome 3, Aula Magna, Via Ostiense 159, Rome

November 9 – Austrian Forum of Culture, Viale Bruno Buozzi 113, Rome

Speakers
Giuliano Amato (Rome), Giancarlo Bosetti (Rome), Massimo Campanini (Trento), Iain Chambers (Naples), Francesca Corrao, Emanuela Fornari, Nina zu Fürstenberg, Mohamed Haddad, Hassan Hanafi, Karin Kneissl, Giacomo Marramao, Christoph Meran, Adnane Mokrani, Ahmad Moussalli, Renata Pepicelli

The conference will be held in italian and english.
Simultaneous translation in both languages available.

PROGRAM

Thursday, November 8th
Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Rome

Opening and introduction – 10.00 a.m. – 10.30 a.m.

Giancarlo Bosetti, Director Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations

First Session – 10.30 – 13.00
Re-reading Edward Said’s Orientalism today. Orientalism, the postcolonial challenge and the Arab Spring

Introduction and chair: Giacomo Marramao, Università degli Studi Roma Tre

Iain Chambers, Università di Napoli l’Orientale

[break]

Mohamed Haddad, Université de Tunis

Second Session – 14.30 – 16.00
Overcoming postcolonial resentment, from dispute among cultures towards a new season of dialogue?

Hassan Hanafi, University of Cairo

Massimo Campanini, Università di Trento

Adnane Mokrani, Pontificia Università Gregoriana

Chair: Nina zu Fürstenberg, President Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations

Roundtable – 16.00 – 17.00

Giuliano Amato, Karin Kneissl, Giacomo Marramao
Chair: Francesca Corrao

Friday, November 9th
Forum Austriaco di Cultura, Rome

Third session – 10.00 – 12.00
Postcolonial studies and their influence on contemporary vision of international relations

Introduction: Christoph Meran, Director Austrian Forum of Culture, Roma

Francesca Corrao, Università LUISS Roma

Renata Pepicelli, University of Bologna

Karin Kneissl, Journalist and analyst, Middle East and Energy

Roundtable – 12.00 – 13.00

Massimo Campanini, Hassan Hanafi, Christoph Meran, Renata Pepicelli
Chair: Giancarlo Bosetti

Scientific coordinator: Nicola Missaglia

Biographies of speakers:

Giuliano Amato is the President of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna di Pisa, of the Istituto dell’Enciclopedia Italiana and of the Centro Studi Americani in Rome. His also a professor at LUISS University’s School of Government in Rome and an Emeritus Professor at the European University Institute in Florence. He served as Italian Prime Minister in 1992-’93, and in 2000-’01, Minister of Domestic Affairs in Italy until April 2008. He was also appointed as Secretary of the Treasury in Italy. He was the Vice-President of the Convention for the European Constitution. His most recent publications include Antitrust and the Bounds of Power, When the Economy is affected with a Public Interest, The Europeanisation of Law, The Anticompetitive Impact of Regulations (co-editor with L. Laudati), and Tornare al futuro. He is the President of the Scientific Committee of Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations.

Giancarlo Bosetti is the editor-in-chief of Reset, a cultural magazine he founded in 1993, and of the online magazine Reset.it. He is the editor-in-chief of the web-magazine www.resetdoc.org. He was vice-editor-in-chief of the Italian daily L’Unità. He is currently a columnist for the Italian daily La Repubblica and he has been teaching at University of Rome, “La Sapienza”, and Roma Tre University. His publications include: La lezione di questo secolo, a book-interview with Karl Popper, Cattiva maestra televisione, (ed.) writings by Karl Popper, Il Fallimento dei laici furiosi (2009). He is one of the founders, and serves as the Director of Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations.

Massimo Campanini is a Professor of History of the Islamic Countries at the University of Trento. He has also taught at the University of Naples l’Orientale, the University of Urbino and the University of Milan. He holds two degrees in Philosophy and Arabic. His scientific research concerns Quran studies, Islamic political thought, and contemporary Islamic trends. His publications include: Islam e politica (1999); Introduction to Islamic Philosophy (2008); Il pensiero islamico contemporaneo (2005); Storia del Medio Oriente (2006); Ideologia e politica nell’Islam (2008); The Qur’an: Modern Muslim Interpretations (2011); L’alternativa islamica . Luci e ombre del radicalismo(2012).

Iain Chambers is a Professor of Cultural, Postcolonial and Mediterranean Studies at the Università di Napoli l’Orientale, Italy. He holds a degree in History and American Studies from Keele University and received his Master’s degree from the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham. His publications include: Border dialogues. Journeys in postmodernity (1990); Migrancy, culture, identity, (Routledge, 1994); The Post-colonial question. Common skies, divided horizons (ed.,1997); Culture After Humanism (2001); Esercizi di Potere. Gramsci, Said e il postcoloniale (ed., 2006); Mediterranean Crossings: The Politics of an Interrupted Modernity (2007); Mediterraneo blues. Musiche, malinconia postcoloniale, pensieri marittimi (2012).

Francesca Corrao is a Professor of Arabic Culture and Language at the Faculty of Political Science at LUISS University in Rome. Between 2003-2010, she was a Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at the Oriental University in Naples. She is the President of the Fondazione Orestiadi in Gibellina (Sicily) and Dar Bach Hamba in Tunis. She received her undergraduate degree in Arabic Studies from University of Rome, “La Sapienza”, and furthered her academics with a Master Degree in Arabic Studies from the American University in Cairo, and has also received her Ph.D. in Islamic Studies and Arabic philology from “La Sapienza” in Rome. Her works and publications include: Antologia della Poesia Araba; Le opinioni e l’informazione nei Paesi arabo-islamici dopo l’11 settembre (ed.); Voci poetiche del Mediterraneo; Le rivoluzioni arabe. La transizione mediterranea (2012).

Nina zu Fürstenberg is the founder and the President of Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations. She has been focusing for years on the study of Islam and on the promotion of intercultural dialogue, working as a journalist for the cultural magazine Reset. She edited Euro-Islam. L’integrazione mancata by Bassam Tibi, Lumi dell’Islam. Nove intellettuali musulmani parlano di libertà and Europa laica e puzzle religioso with Krzysztof Michalski. She is the author of Chi ha paura di Tariq Ramadan. L’Europa di fronte al riformismo islamico (German version 2008) and edited recently a book of Nasr Abu Zayd on Testo sacro e libertà. Per una lettura critica del Corano.

Mohamed Haddad is currently the UNESCO Chair in Comparative Studies of Religion at La Manouba University’s Faculty of Humanities in Tunis. He is vice-president of the Fondation Espace du savoir Europe-Méditerranée (WEMI- Stuttgart), and has served as vice-dean of the Faculty of Humanities in Manouba university (2002-2005). Haddad focused his concentration of study on seeking reconciliation between Islamic legacy and modernity. He received his Ph.D. in Arabic and Islamic Studies, Université de la Sorbonne nouvelle in Paris. He has published numerous works, including: Religions et réformes religieuses (Ed.), 2007 ; Les règles d’une pensée éclairée (ar), 2009 ; La notion de sécularité, 2009 ; L’enseignement du fait religieux à l’ère de la mondialisation (Ed.) 2009 ; Petit traité d’histoire de religions, 2010 – L’islamisme tunisien (Préface, ar, 2011) Una Riforma religiosa nell’Islam è ancora possibile ? (it), 2011.

Hassan Hanafi is a Professor of Philosophy and a leading academic on modern Islam. Since 1967, he has been a Professor of Philosophy in Cairo, and was also a visiting professor at numerous universities in several countries including: France, the United States of America, Belgium, Kuwait and Germany. He is a member of the Association for Intercultural Philosophy, which encourages a dialogue among philosophers from all over the world. He has a long list of publications, including translations of Western academic texts on philosophy, culture, and religion. Hassan Hanafi is the Secretary-General of the Egyptian Philosophical Society. Hanafi is the author of 30 books in French, English, and Arabic including: Contemporary Issues, Volume I on Arabic thought (1976) and Volume II on Western thought (1977); Tradition and Modernism (1980). He is a member of Reset-DoC’s Scientific Committee.

Karin Kneissl served the Austrian Foreign Service from 1990 to 1998 and has since then been working as a freelance advisor, researcher and lecturer. The focus of her teaching and publishing encompasses the Middle East, energy issues and international law. She regularly lectures at the Université Saint Joseph in Beirut, at the European Business School in Hessen/Germany, at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and the Military Academy in Wiener Neustadt/Austria as well as the National Defence College. Since 2000 she has been teaching at the Vienna Diplomatic Academy. She received her Ph.D. from the University in Vienna and has received a degree in Public Administration from Ecole Nationale d’Administration in Paris, France. Her publications range from books on the Middle East (The Cycle of Violence, 2007) to diplomacy (The invention of diplomacy, 2009). Her articles on the energy-market have been published in peer-reviewed journals, notably in India, Poland and France.

Giacomo Marramao is an Italian philosopher and Professor of Theoretical Philosophy and Political Philosophy at the University of Rome Tre. He graduated with a degree in Philosophy under the guidance of Eugenio Garin at the University of Florence. He taught philosophy of politics and History of Political Thought at the Oriental Studies University of Naples. He has served as a visiting professor in numerous universities including Columbia University in New York, Sorbonne in Paris, and the Warburg Institute in London. He is the co-editor of “Iride”, a magazine of public philosophy and also the director of Fondazione Basso in Rome. He is also a member of the College International de Philosophie of Paris. His works vary and include: After the Leviathan; Kairos: Towards an Ontology of ‘Due Time’; Westward passage. Philosophy and globalization; The Passion of the Present; L’ordine disincantato; Minima temporalia; Tempo, spazio, esperienza.

Christoph Meran is an Austrian career diplomat and currently Director of the Austrian Cultural Forum in Rome. Between 2007 and 2011 he served on the MENA Desk at headquarters in Vienna, following a sabbatical during which he taught at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, New Jersey. From 1999 until 2006 he served as First Secretary for Political Affairs and then as spokesperson for the Austrian Embassy in Washington, D.C. He was posted to Albania in 1997 and worked for the OSCE in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1996. Meran holds a postgraduate degree in International Studies from the College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium; a BA in Music from the Vienna Academy of Music, Austria; and a MA in Philology (Slavic studies) from the University of Vienna, Austria. In 1992 he received a Federal Award from the Republic of Austria for Outstanding University Studies.

Adnane Mokrani is a journalist for AdnKronos news agency and professor of Islamic studies at the Gregorian University in Rome. He holds two doctoral degrees in Islamic Theology and Comparative Religions from Al-Zajtuna University of Tunis and in Interreligious and Ecumenical studies from the Pontificio Istituto di Studi Arabi e di Islamistica in Rome. He was a member of the Scientific Committee at the Ministry of the Interior (Minister Giuliano Amato) that has drawn up a “Charter of Values” (Carta dei Valori) for Citizenship and Integration. His publications include Leggere il Corano a Roma (Reading the Qur’an in Rome).

Ahmad Moussalli is a professor of political science and Islamic studies at the American University of Beirut. His field of work focuses on democracy and human rights in Islam. Moussalli obtained his Ph.D. in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland in the U.S. He is the recipient of many academic honors and prizes, including in 2001 selection of Historical Dictionary of Islamic Fundamentalist Movements in the Arab World. He is affiliated with numerous organizations including Middle East Institute, American Political Science Association, Society for the History of Islamic Sciences and Philosophy. Publications include: Images of Islam in the Western World and Images of the West in the Islamic World, Roots of the Intellectual’s Crisis in the Arab Homeland, The Islamic Quest for Democracy, Pluralism, and Human Rights.

Renata Pepicelli is a research fellow (since 2008) at the Department of Politics, Institutions and History of the Faculty of Political Science, University of Bologna. She holds a PhD in “Geopolitics and cultures of the Mediterranean” at the Sum, Italian Institute of Human Sciences, University Federico II in Naples. Her research interests relate in particular to the contemporary Islamic world, gender issues and relations between the two shores of the Mediterranean, particularly with regard to migration and social and political change in the Arab-Islamic world. She collaborates with national and international researches with the University of Bologna, LUISS University, the IAI (Istituto Affari Internazionali) and the Institute of Political Studies San Pio V. Her publications include: Il velo nell’Islam. Storia, politica, estetica, (2012); Femminismo islamico, (2010) and 2010 un nuovo ordine mediterraneo? (2004).

A Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations Project, in cooperation with the Austrian Forum of Culture, Rome, and Università degli Studi Roma Tre. With a contribution of Prin 2008 “Soglie dell’umano. Ontologia ed etica” (Università degli Studi Roma Tre)