The centenary of Gramsci's birth last year was celebrated at a conference held quite appropriately in Sardinia on 19-23 January. The conference was organized by the Casa Gramsci of Ghilarza, the Associazione Gramsci of Ales, and by the Istituto Gramsci of Sardinia at Cagliari. The conference, entitled "Omaggio a Gramsci", attracted numerous participants including, most notably, Antonio Gramsci's surviving son, Giuliano. The different sessions held at Ales, Ghilarza and Cagliari attracted large audiences. The primary motif of the conference was the concept of "autonomy" in relation to "hegemony" and "democracy". Valentino Gerratana and Francisco Fernández Buey addressed theoretical aspects of this issue in their presentations. Others, among them Umberto Cardia, approached the central theme from a specifically Sardinian perspective. Giuseppe Fiori, Antonio Santucci, Irina Grigorieva, Johanna Borek, David Forgacs, Giorgio Baratta, John Cammett and others also spoke at the conference. Faysal Darraj and Joseph Buttigieg sent papers to the conference in which they each drew attention to the importance of Gramsci's reflections on the struggle of subaltern social groups. John Cammett observed that the conference revealed the need for a new "Ordine Nuovo" to contrast the "new world order" currently being imposed upon the globe. The conference, it should be noted, took place during the first days of the Gulf War.
A large international conference devoted to Gramsci was held in Berlin on March 22-24,1991, organized by the group centered around the journal Argument. One of the central issues discussed at length during the conference was Gramsci's concept of "civil society." Wolfgang Fritz Haug, Klaus Bochum and Sabine Kebir were among those who addressed this theme in detail. The depth of their analyses was partly the result of the intense study of Gramsci's text [END PAGE 29] which they are conducting, together with other collaborators, in conjunction with their translation and editing of the complete German critical edition of the Quaderni del carcere-the first volume of which appeared in print for the first time at the conference itself. Derek Boothman and Joseph Buttigieg, who are engaged in English translations of Gramsci's writings also spoke at the conference. Another motif that received considerable attention during the conference was the "Southern Question" which was at the center of a number of presentations including that by Rolf Worsdorfer. The relevance of Gramscian categories to the analysis of the current political situation was a topic discussed by several other participants al the conference, including Anne Showstack Sassoon and Giorgio Baratta. Selected papers from this very carefully planned and well organized conference will be published shortly in an issue of Argument.
a conference on «Gramsci comunista: partito e società» which was held at the University of Bari. The discussions and interventions at the conference were centred around four major presentations: "L'intellettuale collettivo" (The Collective Intellectual) by Arcangelo Leone de Castris; "il capitalismo e lo Stato" (Capitalism and the State) by Valentino Parlato; "Etica e politica in Gramsci" (Ethics and Politics in Gramsci) by Jacques Texier, "Lotta ideale e organizzazione delle classi subalterne" (Ideal Struggle and the Organization of the Subaltern Classes) by Domenico Losurdo.
on 3-5 November 1992. The conference derived its title from a passage in one of the earliest notes under the rubric "Passato e Presente" in the Quaderni: «Crisi organica: il vecchio muore e il nuovo non può nascere» (The Old Dies and the New Cannot be Born). [END PAGE 31] Sponsored by the Centro Mario Rossi per gli Studi Filosofici and the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, the conference was one of the yearlong activities marking the 750th anniversary of the founding of the University of Siena. One major segment of the conference was held at the old Certosa di Pontigna, a few kilometers outside the city of Siena, and was devoted to a discussion of three basic themes: "Passato e presente" with presentations by V. Gerratana and J. Buttigieg; "Per un nuovo internazionalismo" (Towards a New Internationalism) addressed in the talks by G. Prestipino and G. Baratta; and "Pessimismo dell'intelligenza, ottimismo della volontà: la politica" (Pessimism of the Intelligence, Optimism of the Will: Politics) which was the topic of D. Losurdo's presentation. Another segment of the conference was a public discussion held at the University of Siena by a panel made up of Pietro Ingrao, V. Gerratana, Maria Luisa Bocca, J. Buttigieg and Mario Tronti. The third segment of the conference was centered around an audiovisual multimedia exhibit and a public discussion at the University of Siena on "L'immagine di Gramsci alle porte del Duemila: I linguaggi delle arti" (Gramsci's Image al the Threshold of the 21st Century: The Languages of the Arts). The discussion panel included Romano Luperini, Giulio Latini, David Forgacs and Marco Garzano. The exhibit was prepared by the "Ondajulik" organization. The conference was very well attended and numerous scholars made important interventions, among them Antonio Santucci, Birgit Wagner, Johanna Borek, Rita Medici, Derek Boothman, Domenico Jervolino, Enzo Santarelli, Michele Pistillo, Andrea Catone, Luigi Cortesi, Francesco Biscione.
international bilingual (Italian-English) conference organized by the Istituto Gramsci of Emilia-Romagna and sponsored by the City and Province Of Bologna and by the Region of Emilia-Romagna. The title of the conference was «Antonio Gramsci 1891-1991: I Problemi sociali complessi e la psicologia. Praxis, senso comune, egemonia. / Complex Social Problems and Psychology. Praxis, Common Sense, Hegemony.» The conference which was held on 4-5 December 1991 consisted of four main [END PAGE 32] sessions: I. Praxis/Activity e la ricerca sui problemi sociali complessi / Praxis/Activity: Action and Research into Complex Social Problems with the following speakers: Mario von Cranach (Univ. of Bern), "Connection Between Social Representations and Goal directed Action and the Multi-level Action of Social Systems"; Yrjö Engeström (Univ. of Calif. at Davis and Univ. of Helsinki), "Analyzing Transformations on Complex Activity Systems: The Experience of Developmental Work Research"; Georg Rückriem (Berlin), "Common Sense as Center of Civic Society and the Concepts of 'Sense' and 'Meaning'"; Dario Romanop (Univ. di Torino), "Attività e struttura del tempo quotidiano." II. II sensocommune/le rappresentazioni sociali nel contesto degli attuali mutamenti storici /Common Sense/Social Representations against the Background of Current Historical Changes with the following speakers: Serge Moscovici (Ecole des Haute Etudes, Paris), "In Search of the Lost Common Sense"; Guglielmo Bellelli (Univ. di Bari), "La natura sociale delle rappresentazioni e il consenso"; Uwe Flick (Technische Univ., Berlin), "Social Models of Common Sense and Everyday Knowledge"; Dmitry Leont'ev, "How is Common Sense Lost: The Phenomenon of the 'Old Thinking' from the Viewpoint of the Psychology of Weltanschauung". III. "La Formazione del Uomo"/lo sviluppo del individuo: dopo Piaget e dopo Vygotsky e Leont'ev / "La Formazione dell'uomo"/The Development of the Individual: after Piaget and After Vygotsky and Leont'ev with the following speakers: Willem Doise (Univ. Of Geneva), "Multilevel Analysis of Individual Development"; Felice Carugati (Univ. di Bologna), "Dalle routine della vita quotidiana alla costruzione sociale degli strumenti cognitivi"; Marisa D'Alessio (Univ. di Roma), "La costruzione dell'infanzia: rappresentanza e comportamento"; Bernd Fichtner, "'L'educazione e la formazione dell 'uomo': Lo sviluppo storico di un paradigma europeo e il concetto dell'attività"; Martin Hildebrand-Nilshon (Freie Univ. Berlin), "Was the Renaissance Man a Competent Baby? Reflections on the Historical Construction of Concepts and Findings in Developmental Psychology"; Maria Serena Veggetti (Univ. di Roma), "Trasformazione dell'esistente e attività dell'apprendimento." IV. "Egemonia come direzione culturale: le idee, i fatti della politica e la psicologia / [End page 33] Hegemony as Cultural Leadership: Ideas and Facts in Politics and Psychology" with the following speakers: Piero Amero (Univ. di Torino), "Idee e persone della politica: un contributo della psicologia sociale"; Rita Medici (Univ. di Bologna), "Considerazioni su volontà, volontà collettiva e prassi in Antonio Gramsci"; Boris Velichkovski (Moscow State Univ.), "Quo Vadis of Soviet Psychology"; Giuseppe Vacca (Univ. di Bari) "Egemonia e filosofia della prassi."
Urbino on 24-25 January 1992. The first session of the conference was dedicated to the topic "Gramsci e la cultura italiana contemporanea" and included the following presentations: D. Losurdo, "il marxismo di Gramsci"; G. Prestipino, "Gramsci e l'idealismo italiano"; A. Leone De Castris, "L'antiCroce"; D. Boothman, "Gramsci e la letteratura del la modernità & quot;; M. Finocchiaro, "Gramsci e Gaetano Mosca"; C. Rolfini, "Gramsci e la riforma intellettuale e morale"; U. Carpi, "il problema 'storia d'ltalia'." At the second session, which was entitled "Gramsci e la tradizione socialista", the main speakers were F. Bertinotti on Gramsci, the trade unions and democracy; R. Giacomini on Italian socialism and the first world war; D. Di Iasio on Gramsci, the Italian Socialist Party and the October Revolution; R. Cerrato on the Catholic question; and A. Catone on Gramsci, Labriola and the socialist tradition. On the second day of the conference a session was held on "Gramsci e le origini del comunismo italiano" at which the following papers were presented: L. Canfora, "Gramsci e Togliatti"; M. Martelli, "Gramsci e i consigli di fabbrica"; G. Baratta, "Aspetti della ricognizione nazionale in Gramsci"; A. Santucci, "Politica e cultura nelle 'Lettere"'; A. Burgio, "Gramsci dirigente politico e il partito"; R. Medici, "Alcune considerazioni sul giacobinismo in Gramsci" and G. C. Marino on "La questione meridionale." The concluding session of the conference consisted in a panel discussion chaired by G. Baratta with the participation of Gaetano Arfè, J. Buttigieg, Sergio Garavini, Enzo Santarelli and Paolo Volponi. [END PAGE 34]