Elisa Casoli
Elisa Casoli obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in Anthropology, Religions, Oriental Civilizations at the Alma Mater Studiorum – University of Bologna with a thesis dedicated to the historical and political connotations of Makonde Mozambican sculpture. Subsequently, at the same university, she obtained her Master’s Degree in Historical and Oriental Sciences – Global Cultures curriculum with a thesis that explores the solidarity and cooperation relationships between Reggio Emilia and Southern Africa, through the design of a virtual environment dedicated to the Makonde sculptures preserved at ISTORECO – Institute for the History of Resistance and Contemporary Society, an institution in Reggio Emilia with which she later collaborated (Thesis title: Meeting the Makonde. The Design of a Virtual Environment for the Enhancement of Reggio-Africa Archive’s Glocal Cultural Heritage). She then carried out qualitative research at the Sant’Orsola Polyclinic in Bologna as part of the European project Horizon SMILE (Supporting Mental Health in Young People: Integrated Methodology for Clinical Decisions and Evidence-based Interventions) and, at the same time, dedicated herself to historical communication on the web and on television. Contemporary and global history, cultural anthropology, public history, and digital humanities are her main research interests.
PhD Research’s title: From Redskins to Digital Natives. Reconstructing the Memory of Native North American Soldiers in Italy during the Second World War through Digital Humanities
Tutor: Professor Maria Chiara Rioli (Università of Modena and Reggio Emilia)
Alessandra D’Anna
Alessandra D’Anna, a trained dancer, graduated in choreography from the National Academy of Dance with a thesis entitled Dynamic Traces of Corporeality. Transition between Art and Science. She obtained a master’s degree in Writing and Production for Performing Arts and Media with a thesis entitled Dancing Conjunctures. Residencies at La Biennale di Venezia: Festival and Archive and a bachelor’s degree in Literature, Music and Performing Arts with a thesis entitled Landscapes in Motion. Dance as an Expression of Culture. She works in choreography, dramaturgy, corporeography mediaturgy, performance studies and media studies. Her main research interests are in the fields of dance, theatre, audiovisual sector, literature and history.
PhD Research’s title: Choreography, mediaturgy and technologies. Choreographic practices of human bodies in media space
Tutor: Professor Carla Bagnoli (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)
Francesca Hartmann
Francesca Hartmann graduated in Italian Studies from the Alma Mater Studiorum in Bologna with a thesis entitled Didactics of Empathy and Literature. A multidisciplinary study in the classroom and at university. Since 2023, she has been a subject expert in Italian Literature at FICLIT – Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies in Bologna, with which she collaborates on the organisation of conferences and Third Mission projects, including Tutti a Scuola, a literary-themed event involving collaboration between the university and secondary schools. She is co-editor of DNA – Di Nulla Academia, a scientific journal linked to the Piero Camporesi Research Centre, which, founded in 2009, shows passion and curiosity for all forms and languages of literary civilisation and for the sciences in which the human component is the guiding force, respecting tradition and renewing it according to its essential interdisciplinary character. She deals with literary disciplines and rhetoric applied mainly to literary-linguistic contexts, with a particular focus on texts from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. However, the focus of her research is Boccaccio’s Decameron.
Research project title: “If you love rightly, you can only do good”. An ethical interpretation of the Decameron as a code of conduct through Digital Humanities.
Tutor: Professor Carmelo Elio Tavilla (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)
Co-tutor: prof. Bernhard Huß (Freie Universität Berlin)
Pietro Phelan
Pietro Phelan obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy at the University of Pisa, with a thesis entitled The Melancholy of Cinema: Language, Mimesis, and Magic in Benjamin’s Philosophy, and his Master’s degree in Philosophy and Forms of Knowledge, also at the University of Pisa, with a thesis entitled The Ordinariness of Cinema: Cinematic Perspectives on the Problem of Modernity. At the same time, he attended the ordinary course in Philosophy at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. His main interests concern twentieth-century aesthetics and theoretical philosophy, with particular attention to the relationship between philosophy and art. His research mainly focuses on cinema, immersive virtual environments, and the capacity of these technologies to shape experience in the contemporary era.
PhD Research’s title: Towards an Iconic Therapy of the Ordinary: Nearness and Distance in Contemporary Image Experience
Tutor: professor Serena Feloj (Università of Pavia)
Luciano Scarpaci
Luciano Scarpaci is Director of the Library and Historical Archive of the Conservatorio di Musica “Giovan Battista Martini” in Bologna and adjunct lecturer (cultore della materia) in Storia della musica at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Lettere (indirizzo storico) and a Master’s Degree in Scienze Storiche, both cum laude, from the Università degli Studi di Messina. He earned two Master’s Degrees in Pianoforte from the Conservatorio di Musica “Arcangelo Corelli” in Messina and the Conservatorio di Musica “Francesco Cilea” in Reggio Calabria, the latter with honours, distinction and publication merit. He obtained a Postgraduate Specialization Diploma in Biblioteconomia from the Scuola Vaticana di Biblioteconomia and is currently completing the final year of the Scuola Vaticana di Paleografia, Diplomatica e Archivistica (Corso di Archivistica moderna e contemporanea), specializing in archival disciplines. He has worked at the Conservatorio di Musica “Giuseppe Verdi” in Ravenna, the Conservatorio di Musica “Evaristo Felice Dall’Abaco” in Verona, the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma, the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, and the Istituto di Bibliografia Musicale (IBIMUS). His research interests range from musical bibliography and librarianship to the history of the book, publishing, and libraries, with a particular focus on the Sicilian context.
Research project title: Musica in rete. Testi e contesti del patrimonio bibliografico-musicale dell’Emilia-Romagna
Tutor: Professor Maria Chiera Rioli (University of Modena and Reggio Emilia)
Lorenzo Vigevani
Lorenzo Vigevani obtained his first-level academic diploma in Scenography — a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts, Music, Performing Arts and Fashion at the Academy of fine arts of Brera in Milan. He subsequently earned his Master’s degree in Writing and Design for the Visual and Performing Arts at the University of Pavia, with a thesis titled AI and Cinematic Authorship: Philosophical and Aesthetic Questions and New Creative Frontiers. Concurrently, he has pursued philosophical studies, which he is currently continuing through a Master’s degree in Philosophy at the University of Milan – Statale, with particular attention to aesthetic theories and visual culture. His research explores the transformations introduced by digital technologies, particularly artificial intelligence, in artistic and video-cinematic processes, examining how AI is defining the relationships between authorship, creative practices and artificial models.
PhD Research’s title: Co-authorship and Distributed Intentionality in Video-Cinematic Creation with AI. Overcoming Anthropocentric Paradigms, New Aesthetic and Social Implications
Tutor: Professor Luca Stefanelli (University of Pavia)
Co-tutor: Professor Serena Feloj (University of Pavia), Professor Lorenzo Donghi (University of Pavia)