Oggi come in passato l'Oriente è vittima di stereotipi derivati dalla tradizione orientalistica ottocentesca che ha contribuito a plasmare una miriade di cliché esotici dai quali fatichiamo a renderci indipendenti. In questo intervento si cerca di segnalare, e in parte demitizzare, alcuni di tali luoghi comuni, con particolare riferimento al contesto musicale russo di fine Ottocento. Nel quadro dell'immaginario dell'Oriente che si sviluppa nella cultura russa si colloca la suite sinfonica Sekherezada op. 35 di Nikolaj Andreevič Rimskij-Korsakov: temi popolari di (...) sapore orientaleggiante si sviluppano su impianti sonori di grande effetto che trasportano gli uditori in un mondo lontano, sconosciuto, immaginato, chiamato Oriente As a consequence of the multitude of exotic cliché shaped by the eighteenth-century orientalistic tradition, the East has always fallen victim to a series of misleading stereotypes from which we can hardly set free.The aim of this paper is to bring to light and demythologize some of those cliché, with particular attention paid to the eighteenth-century musical output in Russia. Among the Russian musical works that focus on the theme of the East is the symphonic suite Sekherezada op. 35 composed by Nikolaj Andreevič Rimskij-Korsakov: oriental-sounding folk themes develop on impressive sonorities taking the listener to a far-away, unknown, imaginary place, called “East”. (shrink)

This article reviews the outstanding and thought-provoking work by Roberta De Monticelli (2021), _Towards a Phenomenological Axiology. Discovering What Matters_. The article addresses the reasons why it should be read by everyone but especially by help professions practitioners. Although we all deal with morality and value judgments on on mundane, everyday bases, the professional life of education and care practitioners is namely a series of morally-loaded practices and decision-making informed by morally oriented (expert) knowledge. Beyond the thesis advanced in the (...) book, its major contribution consists in making the reader think the inescapability of morality in everyday thinking and acting and the need for a reflective positioning towards this issue. By aligning with “the hedgehog vs. the fox” struggle proposed by the author as the framework of her theoretical proposal, the article advances what would be the doubts and counterarguments of a fox-like scholar in education. It illustrates why her “professional vision” cannot but notice what appears to be under-thematized by the hedgehog, i.e., the unavoidable mediation of language and social interaction that _precedes_ and therefore impacts the constitution of what the hedgehog convincingly notices: the entanglement of fact and value. The conclusion is dedicated to the (underestimated?) place of social sciences in such a debate, their tension between implicit normativity and presumed descriptivity, as well the challenges of the increasingly explicit normativity of applied social sciences. (shrink)

After decades of epistemological inquiry on the social construction of science, we have observed a renewed consensus on empiricism in application-oriented social sciences and a growing trust in evidence-based practice and decision-making. Drawing on the long-standing debate on value-ladenness, evidence and normativity in sciences, this article theoretically discusses and empirically illustrates the Life-World origins of methods in a domain of inquiry strongly characterized by an empiricist epistemic culture and a normative stance: Children and Media Studies. Adopting a reflexive approach to (...) their own research in such an epistemologically underexplored field, the authors analyze a standard research instrument and two procedures. The analysis illustrates how background assumptions shape the research method and how the procedures routinely conceal this work of shaping. In the discussion the authors cast light on the role scientific procedures play in the naturalization of a given moral order, and put forward the question of whether and how this “morality-building” feature of methods should be taken into account in the assessment of their appropriateness. In the conclusion the authors advance that the situated nature of scientific knowledge, rather than discrediting its relevance, is what makes it relevant, here and now, for the larger community the research may impact on. The authors discuss the risks of such a pragmatic outcome and propose the adoption of an oscillating epistemic stance as a way to cope with them. (shrink)

Starting from the distinction between concept and conception, the author proposes a pluralistic view of toleration focussed on the equality of individuals and cultures and on legal‐rational control of social relationship. Analyzing the basic marks of toleration (toleration and power, the costs of toleration, toleration and value) the author shows how the option for toleration is a choice for subjecting social relations to reason and rules (law) instead of passions and violence (war).

Dalla figura di Macbeth emerge l'idea di un'epoca crudele e violenta, che tende a esaltare gli aspetti brutali e malvagi dell'uomo.

This is an exclusive interview with the film-maker Nurith Aviv. Her last film Misafa Lesafa, on the plural linguistic identity in Israel, is linked to her former work and analysed through its cultural background, its symbolic dimension and its technical realization.

The author summarizes here the main theme of the papers gathered in the second part of this issue. It describes the dual identities they deal with (linguistic identities,métissages, masked exiles and social intermingling) and places them in the context of an ongoing seminar work carried out at the Maison des sciences de l’homme in Paris.

The evidence-based turn in education reveals renewed consensus on empiricism and shared trust in science as if it were the allegedly value-free basis for decision-making: good, justifiable governance should be a non-discretional corollary of scientific knowledge. The article focuses on some risks implied in pursuing the de-moralization of educational decision-making, namely the realistic, the reductionist, and the perspective fallacies, as well as the minimization of individual responsibility in favor of the third-person perspective implied in following protocols and guidelines. In the (...) discussion I address some possible reasons for the appeal of the evidence-based turn despite these risks: the contemporary pressure for “accountability” and the need to justify social policies and practices with consensual criteria. In the conclusion, I claim that educational decision-making should deploy rather than conceal its moral bases despite their being potentially highly divisive. Consequently, I make a case for “moral accountability”: making publicly inspectable what evidence-based education tries to conceal, i.e. the unavoidable value-ladeness of educational policies and practices. (shrink)

The human and mouse genomes are complex from a genomic standpoint. Each cell has the same genomic sequence, yet a wide array of cell types exists due to the presence of a plethora of regulatory elements in the non‐coding genome. Recent advances in epigenomic profiling have uncovered non‐coding gene proximal promoters and distal enhancers of transcription genome‐wide. Extension of promoter‐associated H3K4me3 histone mark across the gene body, known as a broad H3K4me3 domain (H3K4me3‐BD), is a signature of constitutive expression of (...) cell‐type‐specific regulation and of tumour suppressor genes in healthy cells. Recently, it has been discovered that the presence of H3K4me3‐BDs over oncogenes is a cancer‐specific feature associated with their dysregulated gene expression and tumourigenesis. Moreover, it has been shown that the hijacking of clusters of enhancers, known as super‐enhancers (SE), by proto‐oncogenes results in the presence of H3K4me3‐BDs over the gene body. Therefore, H3K4me3‐BDs and SE crosstalk in healthy and cancer cells therefore represents an important mechanism to identify future treatments for patients with SE driven cancers. (shrink)

This paper asserts that the software engineering (SE) research literature describes open source software development (OSSD) as a homogenous phenomenon. Through a discourse analysis of the SE research literature on OSSD, it is argued that the view of OSSD as a homogenous phenomenon is not grounded in empirical evidence. Rather, it emerges from key assumptions held within the SE research discipline about its identity and how to do SE research. As such, it is argued that the view of OSSD as (...) a homogenous phenomenon may constitute a systematic bias in the SE research literature. Implications of this are. (shrink)

Accurate perception of the emotional signals conveyed by others is crucial for successful social interaction. Such perception is influenced not only by sensory input, but also by knowledge we have about the others’ emotions. This study addresses the issue of whether knowing that the other’s emotional state is congruent or incongruent with their displayed emotional expression (“genuine” and “fake”, respectively) affects the neural mechanisms underpinning the perception of their facial emotional expressions. We used a visual adaptation paradigm to investigate this (...) question in three experiments employing increasing adaptation durations. The adapting stimuli consisted of photographs of emotional facial expressions of joy and anger, purported to reflect (in-)congruency between felt and expressed emotion, displayed by professional actors. A Validity checking procedure ensured participants had the correct knowledge about the (in-)congruency. Significantly smaller adaptation aftereffects were obtained when participants knew that the displayed expression was incongruent with the felt emotion, following all tested adaptation periods. This study shows that knowledge relating to the congruency between felt and expressed emotion modulates face expression aftereffects. We argue that this reflects that the neural substrate responsible for the perception of facial expressions of emotion incorporates the presumed felt emotion underpinning the expression. (shrink)

Starting from the distinction between concept and conception, the author proposes a pluralistic view of toleration focussed on the equality of individuals and cultures and on legal‐rational control of social relationship. Analyzing the basic marks of toleration (toleration and power, the costs of toleration, toleration and value) the author shows how the option for toleration is a choice for subjecting social relations to reason and rules (law) instead of passions and violence (war).

Analyses of embodied interaction still appear to explicitly or implicitly defend a human-centered approach to language and body in the material world. In this article, we propose to decenter our analytical position by acknowledging what artifacts, tools and architectural elements contribute to human activities and practices. Starting from a ‘ventriloqual’ perspective on communication, we demonstrate that the accountable character of people’s activities presupposes a form of material agency that tends to be neglected in our analyses. Far from neglecting human beings’ (...) contributions to their own activities, we show that this approach allows us to acknowledge their capacity to skillfully react and respond to what things indicate, say, or tell them to do. It is, we contend, in this back-and-forth process of actions and reactions that a certain dialogicity of things can be recognized. Decentering the analytical position by focusing on how things traceably contribute to shaping human interactions has, we contend, dramatic theoretical and methodological consequences. In the discussion we argue that resistance in taking a ventriloqual perspective to analyze the social life of things partially depends on its impact on the sensitive notion of responsibility. (shrink)

Humans are by nature social beings tuned to communicate and interact from the very beginning of their lives. The sense of touch represents the most direct and intimate channel of communication and a powerful means of connection between the self and the others. In our digital age, the development and diffusion of internet-based technologies and virtual environments offer new opportunities of communication overcoming physical distance. It however, happens that social interactions are often mediated, and the tactile aspects of communication are (...) overlooked, thus diminishing the feeling of social presence, which may contribute to an increased sense of social disconnection and loneliness. The current manuscript aims to review the extant literature about the socio-affective dimension of touch and current advancements in interactive virtual environments in order to provide a new perspective on multisensory virtual communication. Specifically, we suggest that interpersonal affective touch might critically impact virtual social exchanges, promoting a sense of co-presence and social connection between individuals, possibly overcoming feelings of sensory loneliness. This topic of investigation will be of crucial relevance from a theoretical perspective aiming to understand how we integrate multisensory signals in processing and making sense of interpersonal exchanges, this is important in both typical and atypical populations. Moreover, it will pave the way to promising applications by exploring the possibility to use technical innovations to communicate more interactively in the case of people who suffer from social isolation and disconnection from others. (shrink)

I : PETRARCH'S BRITAIN 1: Piero Boitani: Petrarch and the barbari Britanni II: PETRARCH AND THE SELF 2: Jennifer Petrie: Petrarch solitarius 3: Zygmunt G. Baranski: The Ethics of Ignorance: Petrarch's Epicurus and Averroes and the Structures of the De Sui Ipsius et Aliorum Ignorantia 4: Jonathan Usher: Petrarch's Second Death III: PETRARCH IN DIALOGUE 5: Francesca Galligan: Poets and Heroes in Petrarch's Africa: Classical and Medieval Sources 6: Enrico Santangelo: Petrarch reading Dante: the Ascent of Mont Ventoux 7: John (...) Took: Petrarch and Cino da Pistoia: A Moment in the Pre-history of the Canzoniere IV: PETRARCHISM AND ANTIPETRARCHISM IN ITALY 8: Abigail Brundin: Petrarch and the Italian Reformation 9: Hilary Gatti: Petrarch, Sidney, Bruno 10: Diego Zancani: Renaissance Misogyny and the Rejection of Petrarch 11: Letizia Panizza: Impersonations of Laura in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Italy V: PETRARCHISM: ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH CONNECTIONS 12: Michael Wyatt: Other Petrarchs in Early Modern England 13: Stephen Clucas: Thomas Watson's Hekatompathia and European Petrarchism 14: John Roe: The Comedy of Astrophil: Petrarchan Motifs in Sidney's Astrophil and Stella 15: Syrithe Pugh: Sidney, Spenser and Political Petrarchism 16: R. D. S. Jack: Petrarch and the Scottish Renaissance Sonnet VI: PETRARCH AND THE MODERNS: ITALY AND BRITAIN 17: Pamela Williams: Leopardi and Petrarch 18: Ela Tandello: Between Tradition and Transgression: Amelia Rosselli's Petrarch 19: Martin McLaughlin: Nineteenth-century British Biographies of Petrarch 20: Peter Hainsworth: Translating Petrarch. (shrink)