Professor Fabrizio Conti Invited to Give Lecture at Iowa State University
JCU History Professor Fabrizio Conti has recently been invited to Iowa State University in the U.S. to give a lecture on the past, present and future of the Humanities. The lecture, called “Humanisms and Beyond: Past, Present, and Future of the Humanities,” will be held on February 27, 2024, and has been organized by Iowa State University’s Department of World Languages and Cultures and the Committee on Lectures, funded by Iowa State’s Student Government.
Professor Conti will discuss the role Humanities have played in the history of Western education and what role they may still play today in a world where technological and scientific advances are rapidly evolving. In particular, Professor Conti will illustrate how Humanities, far from being obsolete and at odds with recent developments, can on the contrary provide students with tools to better understand and master those evolutions. In tracing the traditions of the Humanities in the Western educational and cultural systems, Professor Conti will discuss the methodological advances and pedagogical potential of those disciplines, especially for the students of a “university of science and technology,” such as Iowa State University.
Fabrizio Conti (Ph.D., Central European University, 2011) is a lecturer in History at John Cabot University and an Arts and Humanities Advisor at the American Academy in Rome. His teaching and research interests span the antique/late antique, medieval, and Renaissance periods, with an interdisciplinary approach to cultural and religious developments and a special focus on the history of magic and witchcraft. His publications include the monograph Witchcraft, Superstition, and Observant Franciscan Preachers: Pastoral Approach and Intellectual Debate in Renaissance Milan (Brepols, 2015), and the edited volumes: Humanisms and Beyond: Past, Present, and Future of the Humanities within Liberal Arts Education edited with Stefan Lorenz Sorgner (Trivent, 2023), with a Foreword by Franco Pavoncello; “Nemo Non Metuit”: Magic in the Roman World edited with Elizabeth Ann Pollard (Trivent, 2022), and Civilizations of the Supernatural: Witchcraft, Ritual, and Religious Experience in Late Antique, Medieval, and Renaissance Traditions (Trivent, 2020), with a Foreword by Teofilo F. Ruiz.
