Valentina Surace – författare

Aims to rethink Europe under the sign of openness and hospitality, starting from the Mediterranean—the sea that is so important for the history of the entire West—a sea of differences with a deep unitary root conceived as a paradigm for rethinking new and original forms of social and political coexistence.The essays collected here outline a geophilosophy of the Mediterranean-a sea of great importance in the history of Europe and the wider West. Conceived from a geophilosophical perspective, the Mediterranean is a sea surrounded by lands-that is, a "pluriverse" of different cultures and religions, which have often become entangled in conflicts. Nevertheless, they have also demonstrated a remarkable capacity for coexistence, as exemplified by multilingual, multiethnic, and multireligious Sicily during the reign of Roger II of Hauteville. Throughout its millennia-long history, the Mediterranean has consistently displayed a profoundly unified configuration despite its inherent diversity. Its distinctive blend of singularity and plurality can serve as a paradigm for rethinking new forms of social and political coexistence, not only for Europe, which draws its origin from this sea, but also for a new global order.

Aims to rethink Europe under the sign of openness and hospitality, starting from the Mediterranean—the sea that is so important for the history of the entire West—a sea of differences with a deep unitary root conceived as a paradigm for rethinking new and original forms of social and political coexistence.The essays collected here outline a geophilosophy of the Mediterranean-a sea of great importance in the history of Europe and the wider West. Conceived from a geophilosophical perspective, the Mediterranean is a sea surrounded by lands-that is, a "pluriverse" of different cultures and religions, which have often become entangled in conflicts. Nevertheless, they have also demonstrated a remarkable capacity for coexistence, as exemplified by multilingual, multiethnic, and multireligious Sicily during the reign of Roger II of Hauteville. Throughout its millennia-long history, the Mediterranean has consistently displayed a profoundly unified configuration despite its inherent diversity. Its distinctive blend of singularity and plurality can serve as a paradigm for rethinking new forms of social and political coexistence, not only for Europe, which draws its origin from this sea, but also for a new global order.

Detention camps exceed the juridical concept of punishment and crime. This book comprises two parts: 1. a collected volume that discusses camps not as something of the past, but as a paradigmatic political space in which ordinary law is completely suspended, and 2. an Italian-English parallel text of the war diary of an Italian prisoner during his confinement at the Stalag X-B internment camp near Sandbostel from 1943–1945. 1. The Human Condition of Exception: Collected EssaysEdited by Aisling Reid and Valentina Surace　 Written in Italian and English, the essays collected in this volume explore the issue of camps and suffering from various perspectives, including philosophical inquiry, literary analysis, historical description and legal assessment.As Agamben suggests, the camp embodies the state of exception. A dehumanising camp life will therefore emerge every time such a structure is created. What happens in camps exceeds the juridical concept of punishment, as well as that of crime. Prisoners are faced with a ‘useless’ pain (Levinas) as it is not the expiation of a fault. Prisoners attempt to describe their extreme suffering through their diaries. Their experience, however, cannot be entirely communicated. Even their screams, which express humanity at the extreme limit of its un-power, are silenced. Given the recent popularity of right-wing politics, as well as the centenary of Mussolini’s march on Rome, such research is more urgent than ever. The book will appeal to readers with an interest in philosophy as well as Irish history scholars studying internment during Partition and The Troubles in Northern Ireland.　 2. Aldo Quarisa’s Diary: An Italian-English EditionEdited by Aisling Reid and Valentina Surace. Transcribed and with a preface by Galileo Sartor. Translation of the diary by Aisling Reid (Italian-English).　 In 1943, Aldo Quarisa worked at a military school in Florence, where he taught literature. In October of that year, one month after Italy had surrendered to the Allied forces, the Italians declared war on the Germans.　In Florence, the German occupiers responded quickly, by arresting and deporting people with military connections to numerous concentration camps in Austria. Quite suddenly, Aldo was detained and deported through a network of camps, including Benjaminovo and the Stalag X-B internment camp, near the German village of Sandbostel.　For two years, he found himself imprisoned alongside other Italians, including the celebrated journalist Giovannino Guareschi, who secretly kept a diary that was later published as his Diario Clandestino 1943–1945 in 1946. Much like Guareschi, Aldo also kept a diary and excerpts are published here in both Italian and English for the first time. The diary describes in unprecedented detail the monotony of camp life, the cruelty of the guards and the prisoners’ struggle to survive.　The text is an important document that preserves the memory and voices of all those who suffered during the war and will inevitably be of interest to readers with an interest in World War II.

How do borders define political, cultural and social realms, influencing identity and community? Mind the Gap: Borders, Limits and Frontiers explores such questions and comprises two parts; the first section compiles interdisciplinary essays from leading scholars to critique borders in our global yet divided world. Topics include national borders, such as the Northern Irish border, as well as conceptual and ontological borders more generally. Border issues are similarly key to the second part of the book, which publishes for the first time the imprisonment memoir of Irish politician Cahir Healy (1877–1970), who was a leading figure in the protest against the Partition of Ireland. His memoir offers a first-hand account of the conditions faced by Healy and other border objectors who were illegally imprisoned for two years on board the Argenta ship in Belfast Lough (c.1922–1924). This book therefore goes beyond mapping border theory; it addresses the real-life impact of borders on those who confront them daily and is a vital read for those interested in border studies.

The volume contains the proceedings of an international conference exploring the concept of 'contemporaneity' from different perspectives and in reference to different disciplinary fields (philosophy, literature and art theory). In the chronological motion of historiography, contemporaneity is conceptualised as simply being the present era, one that follows modernity. Such thinking overlooks a more complex understanding of the contemporary, which is, in its original meaning, the co-presence of different times, a disconnection of temporal continuity, a rupture in the present, which becomes a meeting point where the past and the future intersect. The contemporary is untimely and, in this sense, is just in time, as it relates to time through anachronism. It is more present than the present of actuality.

Focuses on key aspects of Robert Esposito's thought and explores the ways in which some major contemporary thinkers have been crucial interlocutors in their elaboration.Political Ontology, Community, and Institutions offers a broad view of the current philosophical dialogue in Italy, both in relation to Robert Esposito's own thought and with respect to major issues and authors of crucial philosophical relevance. From his earliest works, Esposito questions the crisis of politics and why thought is unable to convincingly respond to it. He does so by distancing himself not only from political theology but also from those paradigms-destituent and constituent-that have lost nowadays much of their analytical and propositional capacity. However, his proposal is not only critical. Esposito's thought relates to our present through the creation of new categories-among the most recent, those of "instituting thought" and "common immunity"-capable of opening a breach in an apparently increasingly closed horizon. Therefore, dealing with his thought means, first of all, dealing with our present. This is the main goal of this volume, which focuses on Esposito's dialogue with major contemporary thinkers. Also included is an unpublished interview with Esposito conducted by the editors.