13-14 November 2025, @Palazzo Strozzi, Firenze

In recent years, the political landscape across the globe has witnessed a dramatic resurgence of authoritarian practices-even within long-standing democratic regimes. One of the most striking aspects of this transformation is the strategic deployment of collective memory: selective readings of the past, the glorification of particular historical narratives, and the silencing of others have become central tools in the reconfiguration of political legitimacy, national identity, knowledge regimes in policy-making, and other critical indigenous and cultural knowledge. These developments point to an urgent need to reconsider the political uses of memory-not as peripheral, but as central to the dynamics of contemporary governance and political contestations, which are overwhelmingly haunted by repressed memories and silenced voices of the past.

This interdisciplinary conference seeks to explore the multifaceted relationship between memory and activism in the context of democratic backsliding, authoritarian resurgence, and shifting political imaginaries. By bringing together scholars from memory studies, political science, sociology, history, cultural studies, legal studies, human rights studies, and adjacent fields, we aim to foster dialogue across disciplines and methodologies.

DAY 1, NOVEMBER 13, 2025  

10.00 – 11.00

Registration and Welcoming moment

Aula Altana

Opening remarks  

Donatella della Porta (Director, Centre on Social Movement Studies, Scuola Normale Superiore)

11.00 – 13.00

Plenary session 1  

Aula Altana  

Mnemonic acceleration in times of crisis: activism and democracy at different tempos  Jenny Wüstenberg (Professor of History & Memory Studies, Nottingham Trent University)  

Chair: Lorenzo Zamponi (Scuola Normale Superiore)

13.00 – 14.00

Lunch Break

14.00 – 15.30

Panel 1: Digital memory, AI, and archive activism

Aula Simone del Pollaiolo

Chair: Alessia Pensabene (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Discussant: Pietro Casari (Scuola Normale Superiore)

İpek Kaya (Kocaeli University) and Dilek Özhan Koçak (Kocaeli University): Resisting Oblivion – Digital  Counter-Memory Platforms as Arenas of Democratic Struggle in Turkey

Maria Tanyag (Australian National University): “Speaking in Tongues”: Recasting the Writings of Third  World Women’s Networks as Memory Work

Olga Kalashnikova ( University of Naples “L’Orientale”): Historical digital games and memory politics in  post-2022 Russia: The case of Smuta

Silas Udenze (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya): Counter and Communal Memory: WhatsApp as a  Mnemonic Community of Mobilisation in Nigeria’s Obidient Movement

Panel 2: Generation and memory dynamics  

Aula Benedetto da Maiano

Chair: Desirè Gaudioso (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Discussant: Stefano Filippini (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Maciej Kowalewski (University of Szczecin): Intergenerational knowledge and memory transfer: the  perspective of social movement archivists

Irene Martín (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), Alejandro Ciordia (Scuola Normale Superiore), and  Julián Panadero (Universidad Complutense de Madrid): A comparison between activists’ and citizens’  attitudes towards the conflicts of the past and memorial policies in Spain

Laya Hooshyari (University of Manchester): What is the significance of generational memory  transmission in shaping political identities and movements in Manchester?

Wang Yuen, Ho (University of Münster): Speaking through Unfree Speech: the making of a post handover generation in Hong Kong

15.30 – 16.00

Break

16.00 – 17.30

Panel 3: Mobilizing nostalgia 

Aula Simone del Pollaiolo

Chair: Jamievee Bautista (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Discussant: Nikolaos Saridakis (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Lucy Jeffery (Cardiff University) and Anna Varadi (Cardiff University): Remembering Democratic Crises  in the German TV Series Deutschland 89

Dafina Nedelcheva (Stony Brook University): Europe’s Divisive Post-Communist Memory: A Threat to  European Democracy

Harry Weaver (University of Warwick): Nuclear Nostalgia: Memory and the Past in the Peace Movement

Panagiotis Zestanakis (Linnaeus University ): False memory and nostalgia as a political critique:  drachmostalgia on Facebook

Panel 4: Post-socialist transitions and legacies  

Aula Benedetto da Maiano

Chair: Chiara Milan (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Discussant: Gianmarco Bucci (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Ana Luleva (Bulgarian Academy of Sciences): Memory, Post-socialist Transition, and the Crisis of  Democracy in Bulgaria

Boris Popivanov (Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”): Remembering in Protest: Sofia’s Soviet Army  Monument as a Battleground for Memory and Democratic Legitimacy

Juliana Ajdini (University of Tirana): “My Grandfather Was an Enemy of the People”: Political  Persecution and Inherited Memory in Albania’s Second Generation

Zemon Rubin (Institute for Advanced Studies Koszeg): Social Movements, Diversity Management and  Culture of Memories in the Western Balkans”

17:30- 19:00

Panel 5: Violent memories: wars, genocides, conflicts 

Aula Altana

Chair: Arees Bishara (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Discussant: Ghadir Abu Middain (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Aly El Raggal (Scuola Normale Superiore): The Specters of the Past War on Terrorism in Egypt:  Collective Memory, Learning Process, and Collective Action

Eray Erkoca (Binghamton University): Genocide Memory in the Algorithmic Age: Struggles Over  Remembering and Denialism in Digital Spaces

Patrick Zaki (Scuola Normale Superiore): Erasing to Remember: AI, Archival Destruction, and the War on  Palestinian Memory

Yazan Abu Jbara (University of Brighton): Endurance in the Present Tense: Narrative Resistance and  Durative Memory in the Palestinian Memoirs of Baroud and Karmi

Panel 6: Resisting oblivion and reclaiming memory  

Aula Simone del Pollaiolo

Chair and discussant: Giuseppe Lipari (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Federica Frazzetta (Scuola Normale Superiore): What we (do not) remember? Collective memories in  40 years of opposition of military bases in Sicily.

Magdalena Rek-Woźniak (University of Łódź): Structural amnesia, political suppression or the natural  course of history: the erased memory of the Polish labour movement

Ahmed Samy Lotf (Scuola Normale Superiore): The Revolutionary Learning Process Theory: A  Framework explaining the role of memory in shaping movements’ Perceptions, Goal definitions,  Strategies, Repertoires, and Expression of ideas

DAY 2: NOVEMBER 14, 2025  

9.00 – 11.00

Plenary session 2

Aula Altana

The Radicalisation of Memory  

Andrew Hoskins (Personal Chair of AI, Memory and War, University of Edinburgh)  Chair: Donatella della Porta (Scuola Normale Superiore)

11.00 – 11.30

Break

11.30 – 13.00

Panel 7: Memory work as resistance  

Aula Altana

Chair and discussant: Lorenzo Zamponi (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Giada Ferrucci (Western University): Remembering to Resist: The Role of Memory Work in Political  Mobilization and Solidarity Movements

Giuseppe Lipari (Scuola Normale Superiore): Constructing memory through symbolic objects. The  “lenzuoli” committee in Sicily in the 1990s.

Gözde Yılmaz Çıldır (Ege University): Paradoxical Resistance: When the Far Right Protests the Far Right  – Memory, Amnesia, and Student Mobilization in Contemporary Turkey

Marlies Casier (Ghent University): Remembering to Resist? The Politics of Memory in European Border  Zones

Panel 8: Memory in movements and movement legacies  

Aula Simone del Pollaiolo

Chair: Stefano Filippini (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Discussant: Nerea Montejo López (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Anastasia Barone (Scuola Normale Superiore), Angela Adami (Scuola Normale Superiore), and Carla  Mannino (Scuola Normale Superiore): Health movements and collective memory in times of multiple  crises

Christina Sterniša (University of Graz): Trajectories of Female Experiences of Greek Resistance: “aloof  from a penetrating gaze, the patriarchal cross”

Egesu Sayar Aydeniz (Bilkent University): Repertoire of Memory in Contemporary Youth Movements in  Turkey

Iñaki Barcena Hinojal (UPV-EHU), Pedro Ibarra Güell (UPV-EHU), David Beorlegui (UPV-EHU): Memory,  Democracy and the Basque Ecologista Movement

Panel 9: Memory politics and the far-right 

Aula Benedetto da Maiano

Chair: Federica Frazetta (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Discussant: Davide Rocchetti (University of Bologna)

Alper Çakır (Charles University): Contested Memory and Debate among Turkish ‘Gray Wolves’: A  Discourse Analysis of Social Media Pages

Camilla Zucchi (University of Pisa): Memory Politics and Democratic Crisis: The Rehabilitation of  Giorgio Almirante and the Rise of Post-Fascist Legitimacy in Italy

Carlos Artur Gallo( Federal University of Pelotas), Filipe Botelho Soares Dutra Fernandes (Federal  University of São Carlos): Politics of memory and right-wing governments in South America: a  comparison between the governments of Mauricio Macri (Argentina, 2015–2019) and Jair Bolsonaro  (Brazil, 2019–2022)

Wojciech Wozniak (University of Lodz): Interplay of the grassroots memory work and the state-run  memory policy. Football fandom and right-wing government as allied mnemonic actors in Poland

13.00 – 14.00

Lunch break

14:00- 15:30

Panel 10: Colonial space legacies 

Aula Benedetto da Maiano  

Chair: Alena Gileva (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Discussant: Federica Stagni (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Alana Castro de Azevedo (State Archives of Belgium), and Yasmina Zian (Free University of Brussels):  Symbolic Claims, Structural Resistance: The Non-Performativity of Decolonising Public Space  Commissions — Case Studies from Brussels and Ostend

Mazlum Capan (Aix-Marseille University): Naming as Resistance: Toponymy, Memory, and Political  Contestation in Diyarbekir

Anavil Ahluwalia (University of Stavanger): Uncomfortable Heritage in the Postcolonial City: Rethinking  Colonial Legacy

Vittoria Di Grazia (IMT Scuola Alti Studi Lucca): Between State aphasia and Civic Engagement? Re signifying Italy’s Fascist and Colonial Legacies

Panel 11: Temporalities of memory  

Aula Altana 

Chair: Angela Adami (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Discussant: Anastasia Barone (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Angélica Vedana (NOVA University of Lisbon): Where the past becomes sacred: social movements and  the contemporary legacy of the Carnation Revolution in Portugal

Lela Chakhaia (Ilia State University): Protest in Real Time: Democratic Imagination, Strategic  Nonviolence, and Protest Trajectories in Georgia’s 2024–25 Mobilization

Lidia Yáñez (University of Manchester): Temporalities of Resistance: Memory, Repression, and Political  Agency in the Chilean Uprising

Meghan Peters (University of Nottingham): Archiving the Future: Time, Technology, and Memory in  Contemporary Global Challenges

Panel 12: Visual memory and visual politics 

Aula Simone del Pollaiolo

Chair: Costanza Azzupardi (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Discussant: Jamievee Bautista (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Cem Koç (Ulster University): Memory Activism Through Stateless Cinema: An Exploration of Kurdish  Documentary Film

Leah Burns (Emily Carr University of Art & Design), Marnie Temple (independent artist), Donoh Lee  (independent artist): Visual Interventions: Processing Silenced and Traumatic Memory through Arts Based Practice

15:30- 16:00

Break

16:00-17:30  

Panel 13: Italian post-colonial memory and anti-fascist resistance  Aula Altana  

Chair and discussant: Jacopo Custodi (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Gaia Ballatori (University of Milano-Bicocca): Walking Memories: Practices of the Anti-Racist Movement  Against Italian Colonial Amnesia

Lorenzo Zamponi (Scuola Normale Superiore): Shades of anti-fascism in 21st century Italy:  globalisation, polarisation, racialisation

Sahra Rausch (University of Naples “L’Orientale”): Decolonizing la Resistenza? Post- and Decolonial  Memory Activism between Italy’s North and South

Victoria Witkowski (University of Southern Denmark): Postcolonial Memory Activism in Modern Italy

Panel 14: Memory and emotions: unifying or polarizing?

Aula Simone del Pollaiolo

Chair: Lidia Yáñez (University of Manchester)

Discussant: Franca Midori Marquardt (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Aileen Thomson (Ulster University): Memory and Emotion in Storytelling about Myanmar’s Spring  Revolution

Ana Makhashvili (Freie Universität Berlin): Amnesiac Nationalism: The Far Right and the Affective Work  of Forgetting on X

Keita Ando (Rikkyo University): Historical revisionism and affective polarization in Japan: The case of  the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform

17:30-18:30  

Roundtable discussion  

Aula Altana 

Taking stock: memory and social movements nexus 

Chairs: Jamievee Bautista (Scuola Normale Superiore) and Stefano Filippini (Scuola Normale  Superiore)

Participants:

Donatella della Porta (Scuola Normale Superiore)

Jenny Wüstenberg (Nottingham Trent University)

Lorenzo Zamponi (Scuola Normale Superiore)

18:30-19:00

Closing moment

Aula Altana