Silvia Bencini and Luca Bravi will present Auschwitz: Percorsi di memoria attiva (FrancoAngeli), together with Ugo Caffaz (Tuscany Region), Giovanni Gozzini (University of Siena), and Stefano Oliviero (University of Florence). The discussion will be moderated by Nura Abdel Mohsen (Fondazione Museo della Deportazione di Prato).

The Book
The volume explores educational pathways of memory, starting from the idea of “crossing through Auschwitz”—not merely visiting it, but transforming it from a crystallized monument into a tool for learning. It outlines a training model that—through places and objects serving as bridges between past and present—can be applied to any site of memory.

In this regenerative process of learning to know, recognize, and narrate multiple stories, the account of death always aims to reconnect with the possibility of life: to learn the “lesson” of Auschwitz, of Rwanda, of Srebrenica, up to the conflicts of today, and to the shores of Cutro and Lampedusa. The aim is not to declare everything identical to Auschwitz, but to search for a pedagogy of memories—a driving force for educational dialogue and democracy in the present.

The Authors

Silvia Bencini is a research fellow at the Department of Education, Languages, Intercultural Studies, Literature, and Psychology at the University of Florence. Her work focuses on the social history of education in relation to European memory policies and on historical-educational processes aimed at inclusion and minority participation.

Luca Bravi is a researcher at the same department of the University of Florence, where he teaches History of Communication and Educational Processes. His research focuses on the social history of education in relation to European inclusion policies, the history of media and their impact on educational contexts, and historical processes of inclusion through the enhancement of European memory. He has collaborated with the National Office Against Racial Discrimination of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and with the Tuscany Region on memory policies addressed to schools.

1945-1975: this was the golden age of Italian cinema, full of masterpieces that left their mark on the entire history of film. From the ruins of war arose Neorealism, the “movement” that, with Rossellini, Visconti and De Sica-Zavattini, changed the way cinema was made and conceived forever. From the early 1950s, the revolutionary charge of Neorealism faded, becoming contaminated with popular genres such as comedy and other forms of popular cinema, passing through the golden 1960s with the affirmation of great auteur cinema (Fellini, Antonioni, Pasolini, etc.), “Italian-style comedy” and other genres (such as spaghetti westerns), until the anxieties, experiments and new sensibilities of the early 1970s. A long history in which Italian cinema reflects and reworks the enormous political, social, economic and cultural changes experienced by the country during those crucial three decades.

The Internet is not just technology: it is a terrain of power and desire. Behind the apparent freedom of the web, the same hierarchies of the real world are reinforced. Algorithms learn from stereotypes, platforms monetize gender-based violence, sexism becomes entertainment. Between revenge porn and sexual deepfakes—and insinuating itself even into the most mainstream trends and aesthetics—patriarchy updates itself, disguises itself as a meme, and thrives within code. Silvia Semenzin will talk about all this while presenting her book Internet non è un posto per femmine (Einaudi), in conversation with Vera Gheno.

The book:

Who said technology is a man’s thing? In the beginning, it was women who wrote code and programmed computers. Then something went wrong. Or rather: someone decided that the internet should become technical and masculine. From that point on, exclusion, sexism, and discrimination only escalated.
Silvia Semenzin tells this story in a personal and engaging style that weaves together data, history, pop culture, and feminist theory. From her first experiences on social media to her work as a sociologist and activist, she guides us on a revealing journey into the darkest, most misogynistic side of the internet. She analyzes forms of digital gender-based violence, the role of algorithms in spreading stereotypes, and the emotional and political radicalization that increasingly takes place online, in an ecosystem where ultraconservative communities, anti-feminist influencers, and aesthetic models proliferate—models that, beneath a glossy veneer, reinforce and normalize gender inequality. The so-called “manosphere” is now a global phenomenon, fueled by political agendas and ever more sophisticated communication strategies. If we are not to leave new generations alone in the face of the internet’s abyss, we must develop a new awareness and a new capacity to imagine the future. Technology is never neutral: it must be understood, critiqued—and changed—before others decide for us.

The author:

Silvia Semenzin is a digital sociologist, researcher, and feminist activist. Her work focuses on technology, gender, and online violence from a critical and interdisciplinary perspective. In 2019, she contributed to the introduction of Italy’s first law against the non-consensual sharing of intimate images, and she now collaborates with international institutions such as the European Commission, the Council of Europe, and the European Institute for Gender Equality, working on platform governance and digital rights. For Einaudi she published Internet non è un posto per femmine (2026).

“Perhaps those who are born in a city like Istanbul are destined to feel at home in two different places. Perhaps it was my city that inspired this path. Or maybe it simply had to happen this way, as part of my destiny. I’ll ask next time my tarot cards are read. Or maybe the answer will emerge from the grounds of my next cup of coffee.”

Serra Yilmaz, together with Fausto Calderai, will transport us into her world with the book Cara Istanbul (Rizzoli).

The book:

How do you tell the story of the city of your childhood—especially when that city is Istanbul, a legendary place steeped in history? Serra Yılmaz chooses to do so by placing side by side, like in a memory album, the neighborhoods, streets, and homes where she lived, when Istanbul—already vast—had only one million inhabitants, not twenty as it does today. Reading these pages feels like listening to a voice that, beside a tiled stove during a harsh winter or looking out over the Bosphorus from a terrace on a warm evening, reconstructs and brings back to life the sounds and smells of a corner of the world that, like few others, has been overwhelmed and transformed by progress and tourism.

The unmistakable voice is Serra’s: one of Turkey’s most celebrated actresses, deeply loved by Italian audiences who came to know her on the big screen in the films of Ferzan Özpetek. In this kind of “autobiography through people, houses, and neighborhoods,” we discover long summers spent at her grandmother’s home on the Asian side of the city, among beaches and gardens; her relationship with her parents; friendships and youthful loves; her first work experiences; the emergence of her passion for France, for Italy, for theater; and once again departures and returns to a place “whose memory is inseparable from the possibility of any story.”

All of this is richly seasoned with caustic irony, picaresque anecdotes, rings lost and found, women without navels, a certain Levantine superstition against the evil eye, a magmatic and driving rhythm—and, why not, a few traditional recipes (cooking has long been one of Serra’s passions…).

The author:

After studying psychology in France, she joined a small Turkish theater company and began her stage career. She made her film debut in 1983 with Turkish director Atıf Yılmaz, but the film that truly launched her career in Turkey was Motherland Hoteldi by Ömer Kavur, which competed at the Venice Film Festival in 1987. From 1988 to 2004, she was a member of the Istanbul City Theatre company.

An icon of Turkish director Ferzan Özpetek, she has appeared in the cast of all his most important films. In 2006, she served as the official interpreter during Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Turkey. She has never, however, abandoned her theatrical work: she is part of the company that staged L’ultimo harem, directed by Angelo Savelli at Teatro di Rifredi in Florence, which has been running since 2005.

1945-1975: this was the golden age of Italian cinema, full of masterpieces that left their mark on the entire history of film. From the ruins of war arose Neorealism, the “movement” that, with Rossellini, Visconti and De Sica-Zavattini, changed the way cinema was made and conceived forever. From the early 1950s, the revolutionary charge of Neorealism faded, becoming contaminated with popular genres such as comedy and other forms of popular cinema, passing through the golden 1960s with the affirmation of great auteur cinema (Fellini, Antonioni, Pasolini, etc.), “Italian-style comedy” and other genres (such as spaghetti westerns), until the anxieties, experiments and new sensibilities of the early 1970s. A long history in which Italian cinema reflects and reworks the enormous political, social, economic and cultural changes experienced by the country during those crucial three decades.

1945-1975: this was the golden age of Italian cinema, full of masterpieces that left their mark on the entire history of film. From the ruins of war arose Neorealism, the “movement” that, with Rossellini, Visconti and De Sica-Zavattini, changed the way cinema was made and conceived forever. From the early 1950s, the revolutionary charge of Neorealism faded, becoming contaminated with popular genres such as comedy and other forms of popular cinema, passing through the golden 1960s with the affirmation of great auteur cinema (Fellini, Antonioni, Pasolini, etc.), “Italian-style comedy” and other genres (such as spaghetti westerns), until the anxieties, experiments and new sensibilities of the early 1970s. A long history in which Italian cinema reflects and reworks the enormous political, social, economic and cultural changes experienced by the country during those crucial three decades.

1945-1975: this was the golden age of Italian cinema, full of masterpieces that left their mark on the entire history of film. From the ruins of war arose Neorealism, the “movement” that, with Rossellini, Visconti and De Sica-Zavattini, changed the way cinema was made and conceived forever. From the early 1950s, the revolutionary charge of Neorealism faded, becoming contaminated with popular genres such as comedy and other forms of popular cinema, passing through the golden 1960s with the affirmation of great auteur cinema (Fellini, Antonioni, Pasolini, etc.), “Italian-style comedy” and other genres (such as spaghetti westerns), until the anxieties, experiments and new sensibilities of the early 1970s. A long history in which Italian cinema reflects and reworks the enormous political, social, economic and cultural changes experienced by the country during those crucial three decades.

1945-1975: this was the golden age of Italian cinema, full of masterpieces that left their mark on the entire history of film. From the ruins of war arose Neorealism, the “movement” that, with Rossellini, Visconti and De Sica-Zavattini, changed the way cinema was made and conceived forever. From the early 1950s, the revolutionary charge of Neorealism faded, becoming contaminated with popular genres such as comedy and other forms of popular cinema, passing through the golden 1960s with the affirmation of great auteur cinema (Fellini, Antonioni, Pasolini, etc.), “Italian-style comedy” and other genres (such as spaghetti westerns), until the anxieties, experiments and new sensibilities of the early 1970s. A long history in which Italian cinema reflects and reworks the enormous political, social, economic and cultural changes experienced by the country during those crucial three decades.