Pedagogy of Hope continues with a series of encounters bringing together leading voices in contemporary thought and independent research realities, strengthening its role as a space for dialogue and experimentation.
Thursday, April 9, 6:30 PM
The Will to Learn. bell hooks and Education as a Political Act
Maria Nadotti
in conversation with
Anna Chiara Cimoli and Ale Blue Santambrogio
Within the landscape of contemporary critical thought, few voices have woven together the themes of education, identity, and social transformation as powerfully as bell hooks—writer, intellectual, and activist—who devoted her life to rethinking the very foundations of knowledge and its institutions. Her work is shaped at the intersection of race, gender, and class, recognizing how these dimensions overlap and reinforce one another in producing both oppression and resistance.
For the third event in the Pedagogy of Hope Public Program, writer, journalist, and translator Maria Nadotti—among the first scholars to introduce bell hooks’ writings to a wider Italian audience in the 1990s—will explore some key concepts from her work.
In conversation with Anna Chiara Cimoli, lecturer in contemporary art history and expert in participatory practices, and Ale Blue Santambrogio, educator and trainer, the discussion will revisit bell hooks’ ideas, focusing on education as a practice of freedom and on marginality as a decentered perspective from which to develop and imagine cultures of resistance.
Venue:
University of Bergamo
Room 3 / Via Pignolo, 123 Bergamo
Booking required: biglietteria@gamec.it
UPCOMING EVENTS
In May, attention will be focused on how the use of technological devices increasingly affects affective relationships. On this occasion, a workshop led by the independent and interdisciplinary research group Ippolita—active in the field of digital technologies and the philosophy of technology—will explore tools and practices of digital self-defense.
Moreover, in June the Swiss collective microsillons will bring to Bergamo Communes évidences: a workshop rooted in a long research process dedicated to the work of Paulo Freire. The program, presented for the opening of the activities at Palazzo della Ragione, will invite reflection on the most urgent forms of knowledge, tools, and practices to adopt in order to rethink the world in common, involving participants in experimenting with different pedagogies—ecopedagogies, pedagogies of the commons, degrowth pedagogies, creolized, queer, and postcolonial pedagogies—capable of making oppression visible, supporting the struggles of others, as well as strengthening alliances and other forms of solidarity.
The program of Pedagogy of Hope will be further enriched by a Film Program, a series of screenings dedicated to the themes of the project that will intertwine classics, art-house films, and artists’ videos, expanding the space for public discussion and in-depth exploration. The first events are scheduled for March 27 with Wider than the sky by Valerio Jalongo (2025), and April 24 with The Infinite Happiness by Ila Bêka & Louise Lemoine (2015).
The project will be developed in synergy with the Department of Foreign Languages, Literatures and Cultures of the University of Bergamo and with Lab 80 film, consolidating the dialogue already underway on the city’s cultural scene.