More on our Keynote Speakers

 

 

 

 

    

 

 

  • Monika Fludernik, Professor of English Literature at:

                                                                                                                                                     

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monika Fludernik completed her Dr.phil. at the University of Graz (Austria) in 1982. She was an assistant professor at the University of Vienna from 1984-1992, where she completed her Habilitation in 1992. Since 1994 she has been Professor of English Literature at the University of Freiburg (Germany). Her Towards a ‘Natural’ Narratology (1996) was the co-winner of the Perkins Prize of the Society for the Study of Narrative. She won the Landesforschungspreis Baden-Württemberg (State Research Prize) in 2001 and has been a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences since 2000 and of the Academia Europaea (London) since 2008. Besides narratology and the linguistic approach to literature, her interests include postcolonial issues, eighteenth-century aesthetics, law and literature, and medieval and Renaissance studies. She is currently working on a study of prison settings and prison narratives. A larger project deals with narrative structure in English literature between 1250 and 1750.

 

  • Vittorio Gallese, Neurologist and Professor of Human Physiology at:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vittorio Gallese completed his studies in Neurology, Neurological Dept., University of Parma, Parma, Italy, 1989. In 1988: Research Associate, Institut d’Anatomie, Universite de Lausanne, Suisse. 1989-1992: Research Associate, Istituto di Fisiologia Umana, University of Parma, Italy. 1992-1994: Postdoctoral fellow, Dept. of Physiology, Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan. Italy.1994-1999: Assistant Professor of Physiology, Istituto di Fisiologia Umana, University of Parma,Italy. 2000-2005: Associate Professor of Physiology, Department of Neuroscience, Section of Physiology, University of Parma, 2006-present: Full Professor of Physiology, Department of Neuroscience, Unit ofPhysiology, University of Parma, Italy. Professor of Experimental Aesthetics at the Institute of Philosophy, School of Advanced Study, University of London, U.K.Adjunct Senior Research Scholar, Dept. of Art History and Archeology, Columbia University, New York, USA. Coordinator of the PhD Program in Neuroscience of the University of Parma.Director of the Doctoral School of Medicine of the University of Parma.

 

  • Pier Luigi Sacco,  Professor of Cultural Economics at:

 

 

 

 

 

Pier Luigi Sacco completed his studies in Economic and Social DIsciplines in Milan, Università Luigi Bocconi. Ma and PhD in Economics at the European University Institute. He was/is Professor in Florence, Bologna, Venice, Cheti-Pescara, at the Johns Hopkins Center, Bocconi and Life Health San Raffaele. Co-Director of the Computational Human Behavior (CHuB) project at FBK, Trento, Senior Researcher at metaLAB (at) Harvard, and Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. He is also Special Adviser to the European Commissioner for Culture and Education, member of the MIBACT Technical-Scientific Committee for Museums and Economy, the Scientific Advisory Group of Europeana Foundation and the International Advisory Board of the Secretariat for Research, Development and Innovation of the Czech Republic.

 

  • Semir Zeki, British Neurobiologist at:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Semir Zeki specialised in studying the primate visual brain and more recently the neural correlates of affective states, such as the experience of love, desire and beauty that are generated by sensory inputs within the field of neuroesthetics. He was educated at University College London (UCL) where he was Henry Head Research Fellow of the Royal Society before being appointed Professor of Neurobiology. Since 2008 he has been Professor of Neuroesthetics at UCL. He lectured widely across the world, giving over 60 named lectures, including the Ferrier Lecture (Royal Society 1995); The Philip Bard Lecture (Johns Hopkins University, 1992); The Woodhull Lecture (Royal Institution, London, 1995); The Humphrey Davy Lecture (Académie des Sciences, Paris, 1996); The Grass Foundation Forbes Lectures (Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, USA 1997; Carl Gustave Bernhard Lecture (Royal Swedish Academy of Science, Stockholm, 1996; and the Tizard Lecture (Westminster School, London, 2004) among others. He has published three books, A Vision of the Brain (Blackwell, Oxford 1993 – translated into Japanese and Spanish), Inner Vision: an exploration of art and the brain (OUP, 1999); Splendors and Miseries of the Brain (Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford 2009) and co-authored La Quête de l’essentiel, Les Belles Lettres, Archimbaud, Paris, 1995 (with Balthus, Count Klossowski de Rola) and La bella e la bestia, 2011, Laterza, Italy (with Ludovica Lumer). He held an exhibition of his own art work at the Pecci Museum of Contemporary Art in Milan in 2011 (Bianco su bianco: oltre Malevich).