Facing Suffering: Compassion and Politics
FBK Aula Piccola
Fondazione Bruno Kessler - Polo delle Scienze Umane e sociali
Aula Piccola
FBK Aula Piccola
Fondazione Bruno Kessler - Polo delle Scienze Umane e sociali
Aula Piccola
Considering the violent affirmation of power politics that characterizes today’s political scene, any discussion of compassion may appear naively abstract. But if we feel pity and indignation in the face of the suffering that this situation generates, starting with what recently happened in Gaza, then it makes sense to question compassion, understood as the experience of sharing the suffering of others. We must always start with the realistic observation that the political sphere is a battlefield. But the forces at play are also emotions and passions.
Today, cultures of fear, hatred, and unbridled competitiveness seek to inhibit any public role for compassion, branding it as mere “do-goodism,” a significant and terrible term.
The effects are before our eyes. Reflecting on the political, and not just ethical, value of compassion does not mean giving in to sentimentality or abstract, irenic normativism, but rather reflecting on a possible motive for the political struggle against unjust suffering.
The event is part of the Massimo Rosati Seminars, which honor the memory of sociologist Massimo Rosati, who passed away prematurely on January 30, 2014, by reflecting on the themes that guided his passionate research work. In this context, the seminar aims to explore, in the form of interdisciplinary dialogue, one of the motives that led Rosati to claim, with a typically Durkheimian sensibility, the centrality for the social sciences of thinking about evil, suffering, and the comfort that social and political life are called upon to offer.
VINCENZO SORRENTINO | University of Perugia
Cycle of Seminars: “Solitude and Communion in Religion and Ethics“
Scientific coordination: Massimo Leone, FBK-ISR
The speaker will connect remotely.
The event, organized by FBK’s Center for Religious Studies, will be held in Italian.
The event will be in-person in the FBK Aula Piccola, while seats last, and online. The speaker will give his talk remotely.
Registration by January 30, 2026 at 12:00 a.m. is required so as to arrange the connection.
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Image: AdobeStock_518968971
Speakers
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Vincenzo Sorrentino is professor of Political philosophy at the University of Perugia. He edited H. Arendt’s Verità e politica e La conquista dello spazio e la statura dell’uomo (1995) and an anthology of writings by M. Foucault (2005). His books include: Il pensiero politico di Foucault (2008; short listed for the Premio Filosofico Castiglioncello 2009); Il potere invisibile. Il segreto e la menzogna nella politica contemporanea, prefazione di P. Barcellona (2011; Premio Nazionale di Filosofia Certaldo 2012); Aiutarli a casa nostra. Per un’Europa della compassione (2018; fr. tr. Face aux migrants: le silence et le regard, 2019); Senso della vita e abbandono. Viaggio tra filosofia, letteratura e religione, with a text by E. Salmann (2020, new ed.; fr. tr. Eloge de l’abandon ou le sens de la vie, 2016). He also published two novels: Con una piccola torcia nel buio (2020) and La vita senza di te (2021).He is deputy editor of Rivista italiana di filosofia politica.
Registration
Registration to this event is mandatory.
Registration closed on 30/01/2026.
Contacts
Organizers
The initiative was also realized thanks to the contribution of "Direzione generale Educazione, ricerca e istituti culturali" of the Ministry of Culture.