Nuclear Settlers in a European Land? The Making of Centre Commune de Recherche in Ispra

The post-war European integration process faced a new geographical chal-lenge in connection with the establishment of Euratom's Centre Commune de Recherche (Joint Research Centre; CCR/JRC) in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This article outlines the early history of this first effort of "European land-making" by discussing the political, institutional, and anthropic significance of such a particular settlement in relation to the discourse on European identity. After lengthy negotiations within Euratom, it was decided to establish the CCR's headquarters and main research facilities in the Ital-ian region of Lombardy, in the Ispra municipality. More precisely, an already existing Italian nuclear research centre that was still under construction at Ispra in the late 1950s was transferred to Euratom. The article elaborates on the tensions and controversies that resulted in the context of this siting decision, and on the problems and challenges that the Euratom scientists and engineers experienced as "nuclear settlers in a European land." The article combines documents from the Historical Archives of the European Union and the recollections of former officers and scientists who were active at the research centre

Kyoto as a Palimpsest for Textual Heritage Or How to Rewrite a Historic Urban Space

Recently, Kyoto has become one of the most popular touristic destination in Asia, attracting each year a growing number of visitors. This development has a double-faced consequence: greater efforts for the preservation of major historical sites, and at the same time a faster demolition of typical cityscapes and traditional neighborhoods not strictly tied to touristic routes. The aim seems to revert large portions of the urban space into more profitable and market-oriented facilities: hotels, parking lots, luxury apartments. Drawing both on previous theories from the critical heritage studies field, especially those that re-evaluate the necessity of forgetting and destroying as an unavoidable part of the heritagization process itself, and both on the original idea of “textual heritage” proposed by the author, this paper aims to reflect on practices of valorization, demolition and “rewriting” of both the urban spaces of Kyoto, from an interdisciplinary point of view that sees the city as a textual palimpsest embodying past memories and cultural practices. Is it possible to compare processes of collation and reconstruction of premodern texts and manuscripts – for example a modern critical edition of The Tale of Genji – with the recover of historic vernacular architectures in a city like Kyoto? How the expertise of philologists in seeking and reconstructing the textual archetype may inform the way citizenship of historical cities is felt, negotiated, and reconstructed in the present? Can the concept of Classics contribute to imagining new ways to preserve historical cities in the 21th century

La letteratura classica giapponese come patrimonio culturale immateriale? Analisi dello heritage discourse nelle prefazioni di Kaifūsō e Kokinshū

In this essay, I will provide a concise overview of recent definitions of cultural heritage, particularly those developed within the realm of critical heritage studies, while highlighting potential points of convergence with literary discourse. Subsequently, by means of a textual analysis of two significant works from premodern Japan, namely the prefaces to the poetic collections "Kaifūsō" and "Kokinshū," I will endeavor to identify a heretofore unrecognized "heritage discourse." This refers to formulations and strategies for the appropriation of textual heritage from the past by the Japanese cultural elite of the examined periods. Reinterpreted in this manner, the history of Japanese literature can contribute to the endeavor of composing a "history of heritage," which essentially encapsulates the "history of power relations that have been formed and operate via the deployment of the heritage process" (Harvey 2008, p. 19). This, in turn, has the potential to provide us with insights into the generation and preservation of culture across diverse societies worldwide

The Legitimation and Heritagization of Vernacular through Kanbun and Latin ̶ A Comparison of Kokinshū ’s Sinitic Preface and Dante’s De Vulgari Eloquentia

Sinitic (kanbun) and Latin have functioned as lingua francas̶or more precisely “ scripta franca ” ̶of the intelligentsia in East Asia and Western Europe, respectively, until the modern times. Long before Sinitic and Latin had lost their importance, vernacular languages started to be used for literary production, with the result of an enduring situation of diglossia in almost every country. When vernacular literature reached maturity, its legitimacy as “ language of culture ” started to be questioned, and various attempt were made with the aim to demonstrate its value. This paper focuses on two of the most symbolic moments of the history of literature in Japan and Italy, namely the compilation of the Kokin wakash◓ (905) and Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) ’ s literary activity. Through the direct comparison between the Kokinshu ’ s Sinitic preface (Manajo) and Dante ’ s treatise in Latin De vulgari eloquentia, the paper demonstrates the existence of a similar discourse on literature aimed at the self-legitimation of their authors ’ artistic view, with the emplicit evaluation of Kokinshu and Dante ’ s poetic style. The paper discusses three rhetorical strategies of legitimation adopted by the two works: the demonstration of the naturalness of vernacular compared to Sinitic and Latin; the reconstruction of an history of vernacular language and literature; and the “ heritagization ” of the past, namely the creative appropriation of style and poems from the great authors of the past canonized as models and direct inspirators of the new vernacular poetry by Kokinshu ’ s compilators and Dante

Introduction to the 10th Anniversary INSEN Special Issue

This IJNS special issue celebrates the first ten years of the International Nuclear Security Education Network (INSEN). A partnership between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the international academic community, INSEN was established in 2010 to promote nuclear security education. The articles in this issue focus on the shared education and training experiences of INSEN members in this new academic field of nuclear security. This special issue also features sketches of INSEN life provided by a number of its chairs, who share their thoughts and feelings about INSEN’s significance for the organization’s educators and leaders, and who chronicle the transformation of the network

Il sistema di salvaguardie di EURATOM dalla fondazione della Comunità al Trattato di Non Proliferazione Nucleare. From self satisfaction to self inspection

ItL'articolo valuta il significato storico del sistema di salvaguardie europeo nel quadro della politica internazionale, nel periodo che va dal primo esempio di integrazione europea negli anni Cinquanta all'instaurazione del regime di non proliferazione internazionale negli anni Settanta. Esso considera le ragioni tecnopolitiche che presiedettero alla creazione del sistema: da un lato la necessità di rilanciare il processo europeo sulla spinta propulsiva di un tema forte e proiettato verso la prosperità futura ma senza implicazioni militari, come appunto le applicazioni civili dell'energia nucleare; dall'altro la necessità di ristabilire un saldo rapporto fra Europa occidentale e Stati Uniti dopo il fallimento della Comunità europea di difesa e la guerra di Suez. L'esperienza riuscita di integrazione del settore carbosiderurgico si combinò con l'apertura della cooperazione nucleare civile da parte degli Stati Uniti, quale nuovo terreno di competizione fra le superpotenze, nel quadro della prima distensione. Sono analizzati gli articoli del Trattato EURATOM contenenti le disposizioni per l'instaurazione del sistema di salvaguardie nucleari, e la consequenzialità dell'accordo di cooperazione fra EURATOM e Stati Uniti. Gli elementi che portarono all'unicità del sistema di salvaguardie EURATOM sono successivamente confrontati con l'entrata in vigore del Trattato di Non Proliferazione Nucleare, riproponendo la stessa dinamica conflittuale fra i due sistemi già sperimentata nel 1957. Il valore del mantenimento del sistema EURATOM viene infine apprezzato sia sul piano della coesione transatlantica, sia sul piano dell'efficacia del sistema come parte del Trattato EURATOM, che ha limitato la ricerca nucleare militare non proibendola in assoluto, ma espungendola dall'integrazione nucleare comunitaria, che è stata il cardine del trattato e concreta base del sistema di salvaguardie.EnThe article assesses the historical meaning of the European safeguard system in the international politics, during the period from the first example of European integration in the 1950s to the establishment of the international non-proliferation regime in the 1970s. It considers the technopolitical reasons for the creation of the system. By one side the need to relaunch the European process on the driving force of a powerful driver towards future prosperity thanks to civilian applications of nuclear energy, without military ones. By the other, the need to restore a solid relationship between Western Europe and the United States, after the failure of the European defense community and the Suez war. They combined the successful experience of coal and steel sector integration with the launch of civilian nuclear cooperation by the United States, as a new field of competition between superpowers during the first detente. It analyzes the articles of the EURATOM Treaty containing the provisions for the establishment of the nuclear safeguards system, and the consequentiality of the cooperation agreement between EURATOM and the United States. It compares the elements that led to the uniqueness of the EURATOM safeguard system with the entry into force of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, proposing the same conflictual dynamics between the two systems as in 1957. Eventually it appreciates the value of maintaining the EURATOM system both in terms of transatlantic cohesion and in terms of the effectiveness of the system as part of the EURATOM Treaty. Indeed the Treaty limited nuclear military research by not prohibiting it, but putting it off from Community nuclear integration, which is the cornerstone of the Treaty and concrete basis of the safeguard system

Textual heritage e il futuro delle digital humanities

This article aims to give an overview of the relationship between digital humanities and cultural heritage, and of the role these relatively new concepts may play in the rethinking of textual products – first of all literary works – and their circulation in the digital dimension, as well as in the reflection about the function and utility of literary studies in the 21st century. Starting from a survey of UNESCO programs aimed to demonstrate that textual products have been hitherto ignored by the academic and institutional debate on cultural heritage, the article proposes the concept of ‘textual heritage’, arguing that this new theoretical category may help to reframe the history of textual production and transmission, and implicitly to open literary studies to a wider and interdisciplinary horizon of inquiries that connects them to a public, social, democratic dimension, that may be summarized by the question: what to do with and how to reuse texts of the past

研究発表 平安朝文人における過去と現在の意識 漢詩集序をテクスト遺産言説の一例として

  The word “Classics （koten）”, invented in the modern period, is often used to indicate the “culture of the past” in contrast with the concept of “modernity”. This use of the word koten reinforces the wrong idea that “things of the past”, being substantially unrelated with the present, are in practice useless to the understanding of issues affecting modern societies. This misunderstanding is probably the main reason leading to the so-called “crisis of the classics” in the last decades.   On the other hand, social processes like the use, re-creation and valorization of the culture of the past in the present have led to the birth and thriving growth of the new academic field of “heritage studies” （Laurajane Smith 2006）. Drawing on this new approach, which considers the “things of the past” as a tool to tie past cultures to present identities, I argue that rethinking “classical literature” as a form of “textual heritage” can offer new insights into the debate about the “crisis of classics” today.   To negotiate present identities through dialogue with the past is not necessarily a modern conception, but it is something that always happened in every age （David Harvey 2001, 2008）. In the case of Japanese Classical Literature of the Heian period, authors always produced texts―of which literary works were but a subset―through the reading and quoting of past masterpieces, in both direct and indirect manners. But how was the idea of the past shaped in the writing of Heian poets who inherited and reused style and contents from Man’yōshū or the Wenxuan, and how did this intertextuality lead to the creation of a present identity in contrast or continuity with the past?  In today’s presentation I will draw on the idea of “textual reenactment” （Wiebke Denecke 2004） to identify into the text of kanshi and waka collections’ prefaces of Nara and early Heian a specific discursive construction about the past, similar to processes of “heritagization” theorized by scholars of heritage. This paper is also intended as a mid-term result of the three years’ fellowship I briefly anticipated during the 42nd International Conference on Japanese Literature in 2018