2021 Edition Participants

Maria Teresa Annarumma

Independent Curator and Producer

Maria Teresa Annarumma, after a Master’s Degree and a Post Graduate School in Law at
University Federico II in Naples (I), and then working as a lawyer for ten years, left to set up an
art production group focused on the development of engaged social projects, working for a decade
with the artist Craigie Horsfield in the “Napoli Conversation project”.
She was curatorial fellow at the Whitney Independent Study Program (NY/2013-2014) and wrote
the essay “Public Space and the Common,” published in “Common Spaces,” edited by the Whitney
Museum before becoming guest researcher at the MacBa (2015, Barcelona, E).
She’s now curator for the contemporary program at “Complesso Monumentale Purgatorio ad Arco”
in Naples (I) and continues to work with artists, curators and engaged theorists in Italy, Spain and
in the US, as an independent curator and producer. She writes for artist catalogues and arts
journals. Her first book is about the origins and evolution of social projects in Contemporary Art.

Parker Bach

Graduate student, M.A. in Media, Culture and Technology, University of Virginia

Parker Bach is from Cincinnati, Ohio, and recently graduated as part of the first M.A. cohort in media, culture and technology at the University of Virginia, where he also received his bachelor’s degree in media studies. Parker has researched a variety of topics, including college campus emergency communication technologies, communication infrastructure rollout policy and news coverage of the recent Paycheck Protection Program. His master’s research focused on the Christian-conservative, online news satire of The Babylon Bee, with attention to its adaption of the carnivalesque to the conservative countersphere and its dependence on and conflict with social media platforms. As a rising doctoral student at UNC, Parker hopes to continue using political humor and contestations over humor as a window into such topics as the digitally mediated public sphere, platform governance, and online speech and censorship

Edoardo Biscossi

PhD candidate at the University of Naples "L’Orientale"

I am currently a PhD candidate at the University of Naples L’Orientale, and was previously a MA student in Digital Media & Critical Computing at Goldsmiths University of London. The research project I am working on looks at the relations between bodies, machines and information, within the planetary computational infrastructures of what has been called ‘platform’ or ‘gig’ economy, focusing specifically on the case of delivery platforms. It analyses how the bodies of the labour-power are integrated within the productive assemblages of this diffused industrial machine, enmeshed trough the material and abstract spaces of technological interfaces. It aims to understand labour and socio- economic relations, in relation to the more fundamental relations of bodies with technical ensembles, and to the co-existence and co-operation of human workers and machine intelligence. Within this framework, I also try to look at the urban space through software infrastructures, as a space of logistics, labour, consumption, objectification, and data circulation.

Maria Giulia Boccalatte

Graduate student, Historical and Oriental Studies - Curriculum "Global Cultures", University of Bologna

In 2016 Maria Giulia Boccalatte received her Bachelor degree in Philosophy at the University of Bologna. Her thesis in Aesthetics “L’esperienza estetica come atto di libertà. La riflessione sull’arte in Herbert Marcuse”, focused on Marcuse’s criticism on the capitalist society from a Eurocentric perspective. She graduated in 2020 in Historical and Oriental Studies Curriculum Global Cultures at the University of Bologna. She wrote her dissertation, under the supervision of professor Raffaele Laudani, in Atlantic and Global History of Modern Political Concepts, titled “Black Subjectivity and Historical Imagination: Black Identities in the Era of Globalization” focusing on the black identity and black struggles for freedom to advance a critique of globalization as the last stage of capitalism. She spent the second year at the University of Warwick under the Erasmus + study program where she carried out part of her research. She is currently working on her PhD research project stemming out of her dissertation.

Jacopo Bonasera

Phd student in History, Cultures and Global Politics, University of Bologna

I graduated in Historical Sciences at the University of Bologna in November 2017 discussing a thesis entitled «Melancholy, Prophetism, Imagination. Thomas Hobbes and the Order of Modern Political Discourse». This work led me to writing an article on the same topic published by «Filosofia Politica» in 2019. My academic experience continues now as a Phd student in History, Cultures and Global Politics at the University of Bologna. My current doctoral research, supervised by Professor Paola Rudan, is concerned with the political and social thought of Thomas Robert Malthus. More specifically, I’m focusing on the way in which the author reshapes some key concepts of modern political thought (population, society, government, discipline, constitution) in order to develop a political answer to the crisis subsequent to the Atlantic Revolutions of late 18th century.

Nicolaas Buitendag

Post-doctoral Fellow, North-West University, South Africa

Believing that current global questions ask for broad structural responses, Dr. Nico Buitendag conducts transdisciplinary theoretical research that bridges law, politics, sociology, historiography and philosophy. Deeply influenced by autopoietic systems theory, his work attempts to project the theory further along its radical and anti-hierarchical horizon.
This has led to publications connecting theory to practical cases such as political hate-speech trials, sanctioned police violence at Marikana, the death of Steve Biko at the hands of the state, and border conflicts between Ethiopia and Eritrea. It has also resulted in the translation into English of several works of Niklas Luhmann, late pioneer of autopoietic systems theory, from German.
Currently Dr. Buitendag is distilling his doctoral work into a monograph (forthcoming from Aosis Publishing, 2022) which engages with the structural and systemic complicity of law, politics and science in colonial projects.

Rahime Cokay Nebioglu

Postdoctoral Visiting Scholar, Literature Program, Duke University

Rahime Cokay Nebioglu holds her PhD from Middle East Technical University. She has spent a year of her doctoral studies as a Fulbright scholar in the Literature Program at Duke, and she is currently conducting her postdoctoral research on "The Microfascistic Turn in the Post-Postmodern Era" in the same program at Duke. She is the author of Deleuze and the Schizoanalysis of Dystopia. Her research interests include utopian studies, continental philosophy, modernism(s), affect studies, comparative literature, and adaptation studies. 

Lucas da Silva Lopes

Ph.D. student in Romance Studies, Duke University

I am a second-year Ph.D. student in Romance Studies at Duke University. I received my B.A. in Portuguese from the State University of Campinas (Unicamp, Brazil) and my M.A. in Literary Theory and Criticism also from Unicamp. In 2019, I was a Visiting Research fellow in the Department of English at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada through a scholarship from the Emerging Leaders of the Americas program. I have previously specialized in William Faulkner’s portrayal of the American South, with increasing exploration of linkages to the Global South. From 2016 to 2018, I served as a secretary to ANPOLL (Brazil’s National Association for Graduate Studies and Research in Languages, Literature, and Linguistics). My current research interests include Modernism, Marxism, the Frankfurt School, and Latin American intellectual history.

Giulia dos Prazeres Costa

Coordinator of International Justice and Memory and Truth, Secretariat of State for Social Development and Human Rights, Rio de Janeiro/ Erasmus Mundus Master’s Student in Human Rights Policy and Practice (EMHRPP)

Giulia dos Prazeres Costa works in the State Government of Rio de Janeiro as Coordinator of International Justice and Memory and Truth at the Secretariat of State for Social Development and Human Rights. Master’s student (cohort 2021-2023) with full scholarship of the Erasmus Mundus Master’s Programme in Human Rights Policy and Practice (EMHRPP) at the University of Gothenburg (Sweden), the University of Deusto (Spain), the University of Roehampton (UK), and the Arctic University of Norway (Norway). Also, she is the Programme Representative of the EMHRPP at the Erasmus Mundus Association.
Giulia graduated in Law with an emphasis in State and Society and complementary training in Trade and International Business at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro. She took part in an academic exchange with a full scholarship at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and in the EU-South America Global Governance at the FGV Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence.

Ludovica Fales

Documentary director, artist and academic/ PhD in Audiovisual Studies

Ludovica Fales is a documentary director, artist and academic. Graduated in Philosophy between Italy and Germany and 
subsequently graduated in documentary cinema at the National Film and Television School in the United Kingdom, Ludovica holds an 
international PhD in Audiovisual Studies with a thesis on participative and interactive collective narrative. Lecturing in documentary theory and practice, experimental 
and interactive film at University College London since 2015, Ludovica developed a dual identity as director and academic. This led her to be 
interested in the political exploration of personal and collective memory, also through use of archival material and new media. Her documentary 
films won awards and have been shown in festivals and cinemas internationally. Ludovica is currently working on her hybrid feature film""Lala"". 
Ludovica, who also has experience as a producer and production assistant for documentaries for BBC and Al Jazeera, she has been 
collaborating for years with the international circuit of documentary festivals, as a programmer and teacher. She collaborated with DeriveApprodi journal and now collaborates with OperaViva magazine.

Masha Hassan

Graduate student in "Global Cultures", University of Bologna

I am an Indian student who has graduated in a Masters in Global Cultures at the University of Bologna, Italy. Focusing on colonial and post-colonial studies, my interest lies in understanding identity constructions at the margins, the ‘liminal identities’ and also tracing transnational languages of solidarity in resistance movements. I am currently working at the Home Office in Bologna as an interpreter for Political asylum seekers, translating from Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi to Italian and I have also volunteered as a translator at the French Italian borders like Ventimiglia and Oulx. I occasionally write for the Times of India, Speaking Tree column.

Janet Lawler

Ph.D. Candidate in Political Theory in the Department of Politics, University of Virginia

I am Ph.D. Candidate in Political Theory in the Department of Politics at the University of Virginia. My focus is on democratic theories of digital media and new technologies with a secondary interest in its feminist intersectionality. I am especially motivated by questions concerning how to structure digital spaces to better suit the norms of democratic discourse and public resources. My dissertation captures the implications of the many ways digital spaces organize, change, and curate our public activity, articulating a new conceptualization of physicality which understands social media sites as infrastructurally governed discursive spaces. By theorizing on algorithmic justice, employing critical theory, and feminist thought, I argue for more public governance of digital spaces to avoid algorithmically reifying social inequities online. In addition, I am also greatly interested and have taught in Ancient Greek and Roman political thought.

Ferlanda Luna

Graduate student in "Regional Economy and Public Policies", State University of Santa Cruz (UESC)

Master in Regional Economics and Public Policies at State University of Santa Cruz (UESC), Postgraduate in Public Policies, Social and Collective Rights and Graduated in Law at State University of Santa Cruz (UESC). 

Florencia Mazzadi

Historian, art curator, and advisor in matters of public defense related to justice and race for migrant people in Argentina

Historian, art curator, and advisor in matters of public defense related to justice and race for migrant people in Argentina. Head of Center for Research on Film, Human Rights and Migration, Director of CineMigrante IFF, an annual interdisciplinary work programme, a space of convergence for artists, thinkers, curators, activists, and different organizations of the civil society focused on effecting and setting up dialogues with the society in general, aimed at the reconstruction of collective imageries. The work program locates human mobility in contemporary times, from the motion of the "becoming black of the world", developing from the intersection between the reconstitution of situated knowledges and the conformation of collective experiences, towards the reverberations of critical knowledge. Her recent curatorships center its gaze on the persistence of coloniality and the possible ways of representation outside it. She currently works on speculative fabulation, ways to re-inhabit myths and orality as a way to enter time.

Srikanth Nayaka

PhD candidate at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Tirupati

Mr. Srikanth Nayaka is a PhD candidate at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Tirupati. For his doctoral research, he is examining the emerging digital media practices and rural video cultures in South India. 
Mr. Srikanth Nayaka completed his MPhil in media studies from the Centre for Media Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has a master’s degree in media and communication from the University of Hyderabad, and a bachelor’s degree in mass communication and journalism from the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. He has participated in several national and international conferences and presented his research papers at the University of Oregon, Eugene, USA and Moscow State University, Russia. In 2019, he was awarded a travel grant from the IAMCR to present his paper “Mapping the Circuit of Culture: A Study of Regional Digital Mediascape in India” at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. 

Bernardo Paci

PhD student in Philosophy and Human Sciences, University of Milan

I am currently a PhD student in Philosophy and Human Sciences at the University of Milan and a
teaching assistant for the courses of History of Moral Philosophy and Human-Animal Studies in the
same university, where I also collaborate with the journal “Balthazar” as a member of the editorial
board. My research project concerns the extension of Marx’s critique of political economy to the
theories of human capital and the related material and violent processes of capital accumulation,
with particular attention to the intersections of class, race and gender and to colonial and
postcolonial history (especially in Latin America and southern Africa). I have also worked on
critiques of neoliberal thought, with particular reference to Friedrich von Hayek, philosophy of
history and historical revisionism.

Uttara Purandare

PhD Candidate, Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), IIT Bombay-Monash Research Academy

Uttara Purandare is pursuing her PhD in Public Policy under a joint programme offered by IIT Bombay and Monash University. Her area of research is smart cities. Looking specifically at the intersection of technology, gender, and governance, Uttara’s research focuses on how safety and surveillance are constructed by the smart city rhetoric and the role of private sector firms in governing the smart city. The COVID-19 pandemic and the technologies that have been introduced by national governments and smart cities purportedly to curb the spread of the virus have raised interesting questions about privacy and citizens’ rights during a crisis. Uttara is presently exploring some of these questions within the Indian context. 
Uttara has a BA in Economics and Sociology from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai and an MA in Public Policy (Governance and Development) from the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), The Hague and the University of York, UK.

Tania Rispoli

PhD candidate in Romance Studies, Duke University

Tania Rispoli holds a doctorate in Philosophy from Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata” and she is currently PhD candidate in Romance Studies with an emphasis on Gender, Sexualities & Feminist Studies at Duke University. She is author of Tumulti (DeriveApprodi 2011, with Augusto Illuminati) and Machiavelli’s Navigation: Historical Imitation and Political Cartography (Brill, forthcoming) and of articles in critical political theory, feminist theory, and digital feminism. She is member of the editorial board of the Italian media outlet DinamoPress, co-author with Yanping Ni et al. of the podcast “Re-thinking Care in the Times of COVID-19”, and part of Duke Humanities Unbounded Lab “Revaluing Care”. She also translated from English into Italian Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s, Assembly (2018), and Sandro Mezzadra and Brett Nielsen, The Politics of Operations (2021).   

Facundo C. Rocca

Postdoctoral fellow at the Laboratorio de Investigación en Ciencias Humanas (CONICET/UNSAM)

Facundo C. Rocca graduated in Political Science from the Universidad de Buenos Aires in Argentina and holds a PhD in Philosophy from the Universidad Nacional de San Martín (UNSAM) and the Université Paris 8. He currently works as a postdoctoral fellow at the Laboratorio de Investigación en Ciencias Humanas (CONICET/UNSAM). His research lies at the intersection of the conceptual history of modern political thought, focusing especially on the concepts of law and rights, the history of marxian thought, and the critical theories of rights and citizenship posited by postcolonial, feminist and queer studies. He is also a member of BIOS, a transdisciplinary research collective on subaltern biopolitics, biological techno-feminisms and post-dualist critical theory. As part of this collective project he has recently published two essays that discusses the notion of a biopolitics from below: “Apuntes para una biopolítica desde abajo” and “Una genealogía tecno-feminista de las biopolíticas subalternas”. 

Eduardo Sato

PhD candidate in Musicology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Eduardo Sato is a PhD candidate in Musicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He holds a MA degree in Musicology from UNC and has completed a MPhil in Brazilian Studies at the University of São Paulo, after receiving his BA in Social Sciences from the same institution. His dissertation examines the idea of Brazilian music as framed through travels and border crossings of musicians and intellectuals in the first half of the twentieth century. Broader interests include social theory, sound studies, musical mediations, mobility and border studies, global modernisms, and archival research.

Parul Srivastava

Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History, University of Hyderabad/ Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellow 2020-2021, Department of History, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Parul Srivastava is a Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Research Fellow 2020-2021 from India visiting the Department of History, University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History, University of Hyderabad. For her research, she is looking at the Oral narratives of Partition (1947) migrants and eyewitnesses to understand the suffering of the common people of the Subcontinent through questions of pain, affect, religiosity, and broken relationships. She is an alumnus of JNU, New Delhi, and Ramjas College, the University of Delhi where she obtained her Master's and Bachelor's degree respectively. In 2018, she was selected for the Story Scholar Program by the Berkeley-based ‘1947 Partition Archive’ jointly with Stanford University Libraries under which she recorded the experiences of Partition migrants and eyewitnesses. She has assisted the 1947 Partition Archive as a Convener on their project titled, ‘Responsible Accessibility and ethical use of conflict zone oral histories’ in 2019-2020.

Shaun Terry

PhD student in History of Consciousness, University of California, Santa Cruz

I’m a PhD student in UC-Santa Cruz’s History of Consciousness program. My background lies primarily in communication and Birmingham School-style cultural studies. Generally, my research pertains to the political theological, economic, and aesthetic determinants of far-right phenomena. My hope is to show that, in spite of oft-noted ideological and rhetorical inconsistencies, genealogical interpretations of fascism and other far-right movements can be shown to cohere with regard to emotional, practical (in the Bourdieuian sense), and cultural processes. In the sense by which many contemporary scholars of decoloniality use the concept, fascism can be thought of as entailing a very different political ontology from those of whatever liberalisms or leftisms. I’m struck by how the rise of the far right has coincided with the ever-increasing proliferation of internet engagement and what that might imply for the future of critical thought and leftist politics.