The global COVID-19 pandemic and the forced closures of schools and workplaces have accelerated an already ongoing reflection on the digital revolution and its impact on educational systems such as schools, universities, and training courses. Educational reforms have targeted course content and structure, but also the introduction of digital tools and, therefore, new forms of literacy.
Until now considered supplemental, digital tools offer an important educational contribution if used to the best of their potential. However, accepting this challenge requires both a profound knowledge of these tools and a radical rethinking of training systems and their purposes. Additionally, there is the risk of an increasingly radical and incurable polarization and rift between new technologies and "classical" knowledge. In an era in which knowledge and skills are increasingly specialized and problems are increasingly complex, a multi-perspective vision is needed to prevent competition between new technologies and humanities from rendering each other useless. The conversation with Antonio Cecere, Riccardo Luna, and Stella Morra brought out the opportunities and limits of these new educational prospects.
This event was part of the series Questioni di Civiltà, co-sponsored by La Civiltà Cattolica and Georgetown University.
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Antonio Cecere is one of the founders of the international research group Filosofia in Movimento. A scholar of the French enlightenment, he is an expert on the history of modern philosophy at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, where he leads courses on the philosophy of the Enlightenment. Since 2017, he has been part of a research group at Tor Vergata, led by Paolo Quintili, examinging the critical re-edition of Diderot's entries in the Encyclopédie. Cecere is also scientific director of Castelvecchi, a publisher for non-fiction series, and he is a member of the editorial staff of the historic magazine Il Giornale di philosophy, published by Mimesis. He is an author of essays and articles on the relationship between politics and religion in the public sphere. Among his latest books are La comunità globale è una società senza sacro. le religioni fuori dallo spazio pubblico (2017); Lumi sul Mediterraneo (2019, with Antonio Coratti), a collective text of reflection between North African and European philosophers on religion, politics, and law in the Mediterranean; L’illuminismo incompiuto (2014); and Lessico resistente (2020). The book Utopia e critica nel Mediterraneo will be published in the Jouvence-Mimesis editions.
Riccardo Luna is an Italian journalist. During his career, he has collaborated with major newspapers, including Il Messaggero, Avvenire, and Repubblica. In 2009 he was appointed director of the growing Wired Italia magazine, the counterpart of the U.S. magazine, which deals with technology. He has been director of Oxfam Italia since 2012, founded Campus and Il Romanista, promoted the internet as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, and served as coordinator of the innovation board of Expo2015. In 2014, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi appointed him Digital Champion to guide national initiatives and make every European digital. From 2016 to 2019 he was director-in-charge of AGI. In 2018 he curated the photographic and multimedia exhibition Dreamers. 1968: come eravamo, come saremo displayed at the Museum of Rome in Trastevere, for which he received the Quirinale Representation Award from President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella for the social and cultural value of the initiative. Since 2019 he has been curating the future station column for the newspaper Repubblica.
Stella Morra is a sociologist by training and a theologian, now extraordinary professor in the Faculty of Theology and Department of Fundamental Theology at Pontifical Gregorian University. She is also director of the Alberto Hurtado Faith and Culture Center at Pontifical Gregorian University. Her research topics concern fundamental ecclesiology, cultural studies, and the relevance of practices in historical forms of faith. She is a founding member of the Coordination of Italian Theologians and editor of the group’s series with Sui Generis-Ed. Effata. She is a coordinator in Piemonte of the cultural association L' Atrio dei Gentili. Among her recent works are Incantare le sirene. Chiesa, teologia e cultura in scena (2019, with Marco Ronconi), Dio non si stanca. La misericordia come forma ecclesiale (2015), and Parole intorno al pozzo. Conversazioni sulla fede (2013).
Debora Tonelli, Georgetown University representative in Rome, coordinated the event.