Speakers

Associate Professor of Art History
mjafaa@rit.edu

Michaël J. Amy is an Associate Professor of Art History in the RIT College of Imaging Arts & Sciences. He holds a Ph.D. from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts, and his areas of expertise include Italian renaissance art and architecture as well as 20th and 21st century art. He has published numerous articles, catalogue essays, interviews with artists, and exhibition reviews. He is the author of One to One: Conversation avec Tony Oursler (2006), Michaël Borremans: Whistling a Happy Tune (2008), and, with Rachel Baum, Hiroshi Senju (2009).

Professor of Philosophy
sxbgsl@rit.edu

Silvia Benso is Professor of Philosophy at RIT. She has widely published and lectured, in the U.S. and Europe, in the areas of Italian Philosophy, contemporary European philosophy, ancient philosophy, and the history of philosophy in general. She had edited and translated various books on and by contemporary Italian philosophers (Sini, Vattimo, Perone), and she is also the general co-editor for the series Contemporary Italian Philosophy published by SUNY Press.

Movie Director

Mimmo Calopresti is an Italian film director, screenwriter, producer and actor whose production addresses themes related to work, family and love relations, north-south relations, and political issues within contemporary Italy. He has been part of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival, and his films and documentaries have been presented more than once at the International Film Festival in Venice. Among his films are La seconda volta, Preferisco il rumore del mare, L’abbuffata, La parola amore esiste.

Lecturer of Italian
exdgla@rit.edu

Elisabetta D’Amanda is Lecturer of Italian and Italian program coordinator in the RIT Department of Modern Languages & Cultures. She also directs a Study and Work Abroad program based in Genova, Italy. In Italy, she has worked in film and television as an actor in lead roles with directors such as Dino Risi, Pupi Avati, Mimmo Calopresti, Felice Farina, and Guido Chiesa. She is writing a book on teaching Italian through the use of film, and her book with interviews with director Mimmo Calopresti and Guido Chiesa is forthcoming in Italy. She has completed two short documentary films, As Good As Bread (2008) and Silent Flame (2009), focusing respectively on the Italian American community of Rochester, NY and the cochlear implant discussion. She is currently in pre-production for a documentary focusing on Italian deaf youth.

Professor of Fine Arts/Theater
pwfgsh@rit.edu

Peter W. Ferran is Professor of Fine Arts/Theatre in the RIT College of Liberal Arts. He has directed campus theatre productions of Shakespeare, Goethe, Moliére, Brecht, Arthur Miller, Edward Albee and others, and has published essays on Brecht’s drama in performance. He holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Michigan.

Professor of Political Science
jrfgsm@rit.edu

Joseph R. Fornieri is Professor of Political Science at RIT. He is the author of several books on Abraham Lincoln and political thought. His current research is on Mazzini’s political thought and its resonances with American political theory.

Professor of Philosophy
ugo.perone@lett.unipmn.it

Ugo Perone is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Department of Humanistic Studies at the University of Eastern Piedmont in Vercelli, Italy. A well established philosopher and public intellectual, he has published widely on issues of time, memory, subjectivity, finitude, feelings, and modernity. Perone has also been Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Berlin, Germany, and has been involved in the cultural administration of his hometown, Turin, and its province. He is the Director of the prestigious School of Higher Philosophical Education in Turin.

Associate Professor of Fine Arts/Music
mergsl@rit.edu

Michael Ruhling is Associate Professor of Fine Arts/Music in the RIT College of Liberal Arts, and music director of the RIT Orchestra and RIT Chamber Orchestra. He has published and given lectures in the U.S., Canada, and Europe on the topics of 18th century performance practices, Michael and Joseph Haydn, Russian opera, and the development of the symphony in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Dr. Ruhling is president of the Haydn Society of North America, and a member of the prestigious Committee of Honour of the Haydn Society of Great Britain.