Books by Lorenzo Ferrari
Lo storico britannico Norman Cohn (1915-2007) ha dedicato gran parte della sua vita al lato più o... more Lo storico britannico Norman Cohn (1915-2007) ha dedicato gran parte della sua vita al lato più oscuro della storia umana e alle radici della barbarie. Fin dalla pubblicazione della sua celebre opera The Pursuit of the Millennium (1957), egli si è occupato delle ricorrenti speranze messianiche invocate dagli eretici e dai diseredati del Medioevo e del loro rapporto con gli incubi totalitari dell'età contemporanea. È stato inoltre direttore del Centre for Research in Collective Psychopathology, presso il quale ha coordinato un nutrito gruppo di storici, antropologi, psicoanalisti e sociologi allo scopo d'indagare le diverse forme-nonché gli esiti funesti-del fanatismo religioso e politico. Il volume ricostruisce il percorso umano e intellettuale di Cohn, il clima culturale in cui sono maturate le sue riflessioni sulla "psicopatologia politica" e l'influenza che esse hanno esercitato su molti intellettuali della nostra epoca.
Papers by Lorenzo Ferrari
The Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, based at Concordia University in Mo... more The Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, based at Concordia University in Montreal, is Canada's leading research institute and advocacy centre for the study of conflicts, mass atrocity, genocide, and human rights. Nowadays, its featured tasks range from mapping prejudices and hatred online, elaborating new strategies to prevent disinformation or fake news, to defending human lives and strengthening democracy in the whole world. The centre hosts several conferences and workshops every year in order to help politicians, diplomats, academics, experts, soldiers, stakeholders, and general public counter extremism in all its forms. The history of this institution is deeply rooted in the attempt to study conflicts and violence following a comparative, interdisciplinary-chiefly historical and, in some ways, socio-psycho-historical-approach which emerge from the work of the British historian Norman Rufus Colin Cohn (1915-2007) and his Centre for Research in Collective Psychopathology (1962-80). This article deals with the hitherto unexplored contribution of Cohn, his studies on antisemitism and witch hunt in the creation of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies.
M. Al Kalak, L. Ferrari, Digitalizzare l'eredità del passato: valorizzazione, industria creativa e archivi d'impresa, in: Analogie digitali. Digital Humanities tra ricerca e imprese culturali, a cura di V. Iervese, S. Marabello, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2024, pp. 135-147.
Biblioteca acional de s a a adrid B F Biblioth ue ational de France aris DBI Dizionario Biografic... more Biblioteca acional de s a a adrid B F Biblioth ue ational de France aris DBI Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani o a stituto dell nciclo edia taliana 9 0 2020 (consultabile su .treccani.it biografico inde .ht l) DHI Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom FC Furle Collection Bal e ibrar ni ersit o hana egon HHSA Haus- ,
Norman Cohn (1915–2007) spent the better part of his life as a historian and academic delving int... more Norman Cohn (1915–2007) spent the better part of his life as a historian and academic delving into the darker side of human history, looking at areas such as religious intolerance, racism, and barbarity. For the duration of his academic career, from the publication of his acclaimed and distinguished work The Pursuit of the Millennium in 1957, he studied the coming of the millennium invoked by the destitute and heretics of the Middle Ages, the messianic and revolutionary hopes present in ancient times, in the modern era, and in the present day. More generally, he examined the influence of the fantastic in history and in the minds of individuals and societies. Thanks to his role as director of the Centre for Research in Collective Psychopathology (1966–1980) at the University of Sussex, he was able to coordinate research activity in religious and political fanaticism, and personally contribute to the analysis of these phenomena in two works which were highly influential in the historiographical landscape of the second half of the 1900s: Warrant for Genocide (1967) and Europe’s Inner Demons (1975). In later life, he explored the more remote origins of the apocalyptic tradition (Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come, 1993) as well as the impact of ancient myths and ideas on the history of Western thought (Noah’s Flood, 1996). His books have been translated into numerous languages, enjoying considerable success among a wide-ranging audience.
Abstract from my conference paper.
New Vistas in Holocaust Research
Doctoral and Postdoctoral S... more Abstract from my conference paper.
New Vistas in Holocaust Research
Doctoral and Postdoctoral Seminar (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia - Scuola Normale Superiore Pisa - Yad Vashem, 22-24 October 2018)
Workshop, Seminari by Lorenzo Ferrari
History Faculty Building George Street, Oxford OX1 2RL
14-15 June 2019
by Niccolò Caramel, Louise Bonvalet, Lorenzo Ferrari, Vittoria Bufanio, Andrea Ostuni, Francesca Campani, Cecilia Molesini, Desi Marangon, Justine Audebrand, Victoria Marquez Feldman, Marine Mazzei, Alice Boeri, and Romain Feeser I dottorandi del corso di dottorato interateneo in Studi Storici, Geografici e Antropologici, in ... more I dottorandi del corso di dottorato interateneo in Studi Storici, Geografici e Antropologici, in collaborazione con l'École doctorale d'histoire dell'Università Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, e con il contributo dell'Università Italo Francese e del Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche, Geografiche e dell'Antichità dell'Università di Padova, presentano la Scuola Estiva "La mobilità del passato e nel presente: persone, oggetti, testi, idee e informazioni" che si terrà presso l'Università di Verona (polo didattico "G. Zanotto", aula 1.2) dal 1 al 6 luglio 2019.
Organizzatori: Bonvalet Louise, Bufanio Vittoria, Caramel Niccolò, Centre Julien, Di Matteo Giovanna, Feeser Roman, Ferrari Lorenzo, Mazzei Marine
Talks by Lorenzo Ferrari
A few years after the end of the Second World War, Hannah Arendt looked back through the rise of ... more A few years after the end of the Second World War, Hannah Arendt looked back through the rise of murderous totalitarian ideologies, and declared that “the subterranean stream of western history has finally come to the surface and usurped the dignity of our tradition”.
The historian Norman Cohn devoted much of his life to surveying that same ‘subterranean stream’. Spurred, like Arendt, by the apocalyptic fanaticism of both Nazism and Communism, Cohn embarked on researches that would take him far into areas of past human history that more conventional historians were content to ignore.
Extremism was the binding subject of Cohn’s work and publications which he described as studies of those who sought "to purify the world through the annihilation of some category of human beings imagined as agents of corruption and incarnations of evil”.
The establishment of a Charitable Trust in Cohn’s name reflects a keen sense that his work remains cogent and relevant in the current world. Its aim is to promote a greater understanding of the causes of extremism and what can be done to counter it; the Trust it was granted charitable status in late 2017.
Dialogo con gli studenti del Corso di Dottorato in Studi Storici, Geografici e Antropologici (Uni... more Dialogo con gli studenti del Corso di Dottorato in Studi Storici, Geografici e Antropologici (Università degli studi di Padova, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Università degli studi di Verona) e della Scuola di Dottorato in Scienze Umanistiche (Università degli studi di Verona)
Thesis Chapters by Lorenzo Ferrari
This dissertation discusses the concept of daily life as developed during the 20th century, with ... more This dissertation discusses the concept of daily life as developed during the 20th century, with particular focus on the historiographical literature. Starting from the 1970s, historical research on the idea of daily life has increased considerably. However, this thesis will not examine the entire academic production, but will outline the link between the concept of daily life and historical developments, in order to present the interdisciplinary and methodological findings produced by some of the most important intellectuals.
Sociologists, philosophers, anthropologists, and literature theorists have exerted great influence with their writings. Sigmund Freud, Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Michail Bachtin, Henri Lefebvre, György Lukács, Ágnes Heller, Erving Goffman, Norbert Elias and Michel de Certeau have enriched the debate around the concept of daily life, inspiring the interest of historians. This dissertation mainly focuses on Fernand Braudel who, in his writing Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Centuries (1967-1980), calls into question the ideas deriving from certainties around the progress and achievements of human society.
Since different generations of scholars have developed divergent analytical methods, I decided to organize my thesis in chronological order so as to show similarities and dissimilarities between the various authors. I have therefore followed the research method developed by the most recent history of historiography. By contextualizing authors and their works, the aim is to go beyond the oversimplifications and omissions adopted by historians (the generic references to “interdisciplinary influences”).
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Books by Lorenzo Ferrari
Papers by Lorenzo Ferrari
New Vistas in Holocaust Research
Doctoral and Postdoctoral Seminar (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia - Scuola Normale Superiore Pisa - Yad Vashem, 22-24 October 2018)
Workshop, Seminari by Lorenzo Ferrari
Organizzatori: Bonvalet Louise, Bufanio Vittoria, Caramel Niccolò, Centre Julien, Di Matteo Giovanna, Feeser Roman, Ferrari Lorenzo, Mazzei Marine
Talks by Lorenzo Ferrari
The historian Norman Cohn devoted much of his life to surveying that same ‘subterranean stream’. Spurred, like Arendt, by the apocalyptic fanaticism of both Nazism and Communism, Cohn embarked on researches that would take him far into areas of past human history that more conventional historians were content to ignore.
Extremism was the binding subject of Cohn’s work and publications which he described as studies of those who sought "to purify the world through the annihilation of some category of human beings imagined as agents of corruption and incarnations of evil”.
The establishment of a Charitable Trust in Cohn’s name reflects a keen sense that his work remains cogent and relevant in the current world. Its aim is to promote a greater understanding of the causes of extremism and what can be done to counter it; the Trust it was granted charitable status in late 2017.
Thesis Chapters by Lorenzo Ferrari
Sociologists, philosophers, anthropologists, and literature theorists have exerted great influence with their writings. Sigmund Freud, Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Michail Bachtin, Henri Lefebvre, György Lukács, Ágnes Heller, Erving Goffman, Norbert Elias and Michel de Certeau have enriched the debate around the concept of daily life, inspiring the interest of historians. This dissertation mainly focuses on Fernand Braudel who, in his writing Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Centuries (1967-1980), calls into question the ideas deriving from certainties around the progress and achievements of human society.
Since different generations of scholars have developed divergent analytical methods, I decided to organize my thesis in chronological order so as to show similarities and dissimilarities between the various authors. I have therefore followed the research method developed by the most recent history of historiography. By contextualizing authors and their works, the aim is to go beyond the oversimplifications and omissions adopted by historians (the generic references to “interdisciplinary influences”).
New Vistas in Holocaust Research
Doctoral and Postdoctoral Seminar (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia - Scuola Normale Superiore Pisa - Yad Vashem, 22-24 October 2018)
Organizzatori: Bonvalet Louise, Bufanio Vittoria, Caramel Niccolò, Centre Julien, Di Matteo Giovanna, Feeser Roman, Ferrari Lorenzo, Mazzei Marine
The historian Norman Cohn devoted much of his life to surveying that same ‘subterranean stream’. Spurred, like Arendt, by the apocalyptic fanaticism of both Nazism and Communism, Cohn embarked on researches that would take him far into areas of past human history that more conventional historians were content to ignore.
Extremism was the binding subject of Cohn’s work and publications which he described as studies of those who sought "to purify the world through the annihilation of some category of human beings imagined as agents of corruption and incarnations of evil”.
The establishment of a Charitable Trust in Cohn’s name reflects a keen sense that his work remains cogent and relevant in the current world. Its aim is to promote a greater understanding of the causes of extremism and what can be done to counter it; the Trust it was granted charitable status in late 2017.
Sociologists, philosophers, anthropologists, and literature theorists have exerted great influence with their writings. Sigmund Freud, Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Michail Bachtin, Henri Lefebvre, György Lukács, Ágnes Heller, Erving Goffman, Norbert Elias and Michel de Certeau have enriched the debate around the concept of daily life, inspiring the interest of historians. This dissertation mainly focuses on Fernand Braudel who, in his writing Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Centuries (1967-1980), calls into question the ideas deriving from certainties around the progress and achievements of human society.
Since different generations of scholars have developed divergent analytical methods, I decided to organize my thesis in chronological order so as to show similarities and dissimilarities between the various authors. I have therefore followed the research method developed by the most recent history of historiography. By contextualizing authors and their works, the aim is to go beyond the oversimplifications and omissions adopted by historians (the generic references to “interdisciplinary influences”).