Stories from the present
Teaching module for senior secondary schools 12 – 19 – 26 March 2026
The first 25 years of the 21st century have been characterised by momentous changes: from the rapid evolution of communication and information technologies, to climate change, to the emergence of fundamentalist terrorism. We can identify a number of events that have changed our current world in order to orient ourselves in the increasingly complex present. We will reconstruct the macro-themes related to terrorism, the environment and wars starting from three watershed moments – one per decade – that correspond to the three separate lessons.
In collaboration with the Istituto Storico Parri.
11 September 2001: Nothing will ever be the same again
- Thursday 12 March 2026 at 10:00 - 12:00
We provide the tools for understanding the events of 11 September 2001, which more than 20 years later, clearly appear to have marked a turning point in history, indispensable for reading our present. The attacks on the Twin Towers in New York are presented according to three interpretations: a mass communicative event, a collective traumatic event and a historical fact marking the emergence of fundamentalist terrorism on a global scale.
An (un)sustainable history: the Anthropocene and environmental security
- Thursday 19 March 2026 at 10:00 - 12:00
On 11 March 2011, in north-eastern Japan, an 8.9 magnitude earthquake triggered a tsunami that caused massive damage to four of the six reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Taking this watershed event as a starting point, we will investigate the origins of the Anthropocene by also proposing a re-reading of the last 80 years from an environmental perspective.
History and representation of the conflict in Ukraine
- Thursday 26 March 2026 at 10:00 - 12:00
After a brief reconstruction of the most important events of the Soviet period, the main stages of the histories of Ukraine and Russia from 1991 to the outbreak of the conflict will be retraced in order to contextualise recent developments and evolutions.
