Sfida tra lessico, editoria tradizionale e nuovi mezzi di comunicazione
A conversation on the interface between the Sciences and the Humanities with Professor Edoardo Boncinelli and Professor Massimo Arcangeli
14th Italian Language Week in the World
Writing the New Europe: Italian Publishers, Authors and Readers in the Digital Era
Under the High Patronage of the President of the Republic of Italy
Conveying science is not easy. It requires clarity, concision, and accuracy. In communicating their ideas, scientists also need to be able to engage with their audience, without coming across as being pedantic. This may actually be the biggest challenge, as a certain degree of discernment is required in calibrating the pitch of one’s discourse. However, being a good scientist does not always mean that one is a good communicator. And yet science needs to be conveyed to an audience, nowadays perhaps even more than ever.
Culture in general, in particular some forms of culture (philosophy, history, law, literature etc.), is finding it harder than ever to find the most effective means to reach its audience. For example, how does one popularize Dante’s thought without trivializing it? How does one succeed in explaining the most elaborate passages of the Divine Comedy? How does one manage to spread complex theories as well as conceptual structures of human knowledge, without distorting them? How does one simplify without falling prey to oversimplification? In 1959 the English physicist and novelist Charles Percy Snow published a book which was destined to raise much controversy: The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. In this work the author forcefully sets forth the notion that a dialectical exchange between scientists and humanists is crucial. Such an exchange, in this day and age, has become indispensable.
By joining forces scientists and humanists can convey to the broadest possible audience concepts and notions that would be rather difficult to communicate without such a mutual exchange. The interface between the Arts and the Sciences will be the focus of the conversation between Professor Edoardo Boncinelli, a nominee for the Nobel Prize for his research in genetics, and the renowned linguist Professor Massimo Arcangeli.
Edoardo Boncinelli is Full Professor of Biology and Genetics at the University Vita-Salute in Milan. He was Director of SISSA (International School for Advanced Studies) in Trieste and Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology of Development at the Scientific Institute San Raffaele in Milan. A physicist by training, he worked in the field of genetics and molecular biology, first in Naples, and subsequently in Milan. He is currently a member of Academia Europaea and EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organisation), and was president of the Italian Society of Biophysics and Molecular Biology.
Boncinelli has significantly contributed to our knowledge of biological mechanisms of embryonic development in higher animals and man, by identifying a gene family, called 39 HOX homeogenes, which controls the correct development of the trunk, from the neck to the tail. These findings are recognised as landmarks in the field of Biology. From 1991, he undertook the study of the brain and the cerebral cortex, identifying two more homeogene families. He is the author of numerous books and writes as a regular columnist for Le Scienze (the Italian edition of Scientific American) as well as for Corriere della Sera.
Massimo Arcangeli is Full Professor of Italian Linguistics at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literature of the University of Cagliari. He has been invited to teach and deliver public lectures in Italy, in Europe and all over the world. A linguist, a sociologist of communication, a literary critic and writer, he directs various editorial projects, and collaborates with radio and TV programmes as well as with Treccani Institute of the Italian Encyclopaedia. As a leading writer and columnist, he contributes articles to numerous newspapers and periodicals. He has served as External Examiner at the University of Malta for the academic years 2011/2012 and 2013/2014. He is the author of over 500 publications (both printed and online), among which 10 monographs. His latest books are Cercasi Dante disperatamente: L’italiano alla deriva (Rome: Carocci, 2012) and Orizzonti inversi: Poesia di tutti, poesia per tutti (Rome: Aracne, 2014, together with Stefania Rabuffetti).
The event is being organized by the Italian Cultural Institute in Malta in collaboration with the Department of Italian of the Faculty of Arts. It will be delivered in Italian.