Ascanio Celestini is an author, actor, musician and director. His texts are linked to his research on the ground and explore the memory of events linked to recent history and the collective imagination. His best-known theatre pieces (also shown abroad) are: Radio clandestina (2000); Scemo di guerra (2003); La pecora nera (2005); La fila indiana (2009); Pro patria (2011); Discorsi alla nazione (2013); Laika (2015); and Pueblo (2017).
Shahram Khosravi, an Iranian, is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Stockholm. He was an illegal immigrant in 1988 and used this experience as the starting point for his studies on migrants, forced deportation and asylum seekers. He has written various essays, including: Young and Defiant in Tehran (2008); Precarious Lives: Waiting and Hope in Iran (2017) for the University of Pennsylvania Press; and After Deportation: Ethnographic Perspectives (Palgrave, 2017).
Adriano Prosperi, previously lecturer in Modern History at the universities of Bologna, Calabria and Pisa, is current Emeritus Professor of Modern History at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. He researches the history of Italian and European culture and religious life in the early modern age. His works include: Tribunali della coscienza. Inquisitori, confessori, missionari (1996, new edition 2009); Dare l’anima.
Maurizio Ambrosini is lecturer in the Sociology of Migration at the Università degli Studi in Milan, also teaching at Nice University and the Italian branch of Stanford University. He is responsible for science of the Study Centre Medì – Migrations in the Mediterranean in Genova, where he edits the journal Mondi Migranti and runs the Italian Summer School of Sociology of Migration. He is a consultant for ISPI and collaborates with the newspaper Avvenire and website lavoce.info.
Grammenos Mastrojeni, diplomat, professor and writer, is the Co-ordinator for the Environment for Development Cooperation, Chair of the world Mountain Partnership and Global Islands Partnership and he collaborates with the Climate Reality Project, launched by Nobel Prize winner, Al Gore. Ottawa University asked him to take the first course on Environment, Resources and Conflicts, a subject he continues to teach in various universities in Italy and abroad. His publications include: The Unbreakable Cycle.
Ritanna Armeni is a journalist and writer. She was news editor of Noi donne and has worked for publications such as Rinascita, il manifesto, l’Unità and Liberazione. She was spokesman for left wing politician Fausto Bertinotti and co-presented the TV current affairs show Otto e mezzo with Giuliano Ferrara for four years. Among her books, are: Di questo amore non si deve sapere (2015; Premio Comisso); and Una donna può tutto (2018) with Ponte alle Grazie.
Michela Murgia was born in Cabras. A novelist translated throughout the world, she debuted with Il mondo deve sapere (Isbn, 2006), which inspired Paolo Virzì’s film, Her Whole Life Ahead, and she is author of novels and essays including: Accabadora (2009; Campiello Prize 2010); Ave Mary. E la Chiesa inventò la donna (2011); Chirú (2015); Istruzioni per diventare fascisti (2018) for Einaudi; and Noi siamo tempesta (Salani, 2019).
Stefano Allievi is Professor of Sociology at the University of Padua and president of the master’s degree course in Culture, Education and Global Society. He is director of the Master on “Islam in Europe”. He served as a member of the Italian Council for Relations with Islam at the Ministry of the Interior, and the Committee for the prevention and study of jihadi radicalisation within the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.
Matteo Lancini, psychologist and psychotherapist, is president of the Minotauro Foundation in Milan and of AGIPPsA (the Association of Italian Groups of Psychoanalytical Psychotherapy of Adolescence). He is lecturer in developmental and clinical testing of teenagers and young adults at the Department of Psychology in the Università Milano-Bicocca.
The Piccola Orchestra Avion Travel, a group started in Caserta in 1980, boasts a refined musical repertoire that springs from the need for creative movement in search of new forms of expression. Spanning from rock to jazz, Avion Travel won critical and public acclaim in 1998 for Dormi e sogna, winner of the Critics’ Prize at the San Remo Music Festival before going on to win the 50th edition of the festival two years later, with the song Sentimento. They followed this victory with a triumphant tour in Italy and Europe.
