The term "populism" has become in common use speaking of political and social changes in many democratic states, in Italy, in Europe, elsewhere in the world. It is also a term passe-partout, which can take contrasting and sometimes nebulous meanings.

 

Palazzo Blu proposes a small series of conferences by authoritative scholars who will try to clarify the historical roots and the different developments in a limited number of cases, choosing among the extra-European cases. After a meeting that will concern the definitions of populism in the international debate (by Nadia Urbinati), we will focus on the historical experiences of the two Americas, Latin America (with Loris Zanatta) and the United States (with Arnaldo Testi), and of the Sub-Saharan Africa (with Anna Maria Gentili) - the latter a relative and little known novelty.

The meetings are curated by Arnaldo Testi.

 

Thursday, February 14th

Nadia Urbinati (Columbia University): The strange case of populism

 

Thursday, February 21st

Loris Zanatta (University of Bologna): Populism in Latin America, a Christian utopia

 

Thursday 7 March

Anna Maria Gentili (University of Bologna): Who is the people? The populisms and the difficult democracies of sub-Saharan Africa

 

Thursday, March 14th

Arnaldo Testi (University of Pisa): The two populisms of the United States