București: Muzeul Municipiului București vă invită la Idei în Agora, marți, 1 noiembrie 2022, de la ora 18.00, la Casa Filipescu-Cesianu (Calea Victoriei 151). Giovanni Casadio în dialog cu Sorin Antohi. Tema: „Ioan Petru Culianu and the History of Religions”. Intrarea este liberă.

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Almost a historical generation after his brutal death, Ioan Petru Culianu is an enduring, seminal, and haunting presence. On 21-23 October 2022, a colloquium was held in Iași, his native city: Ioan Petru Culianu. Lives, Works, Legacies.

For more information, go to www.sorinantohi.org
The recordings are to be found at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1WL0JvTYq1sG0hj0Qn06fg

Soon, a full, edited film is going to be posted on my homepage. A collective volume in English will appear next year with a major international publisher.
The colloquium, placed under the aegis of the Academia Europaea, has examined Culianu in a liminal situation, that of someone standing on the threshold of History, in a fluid space, engaged in a rite of passage from a memory that is mainly living, fragmentary, passionate (ranging from hagiography to slander) to a predominantly historicized, comprehensive, critical, and calm memory (the one that Paul Ricoeur called mémoire apaisée).

With one of the participants, Giovanni Casadio, I shall revisit some of the colloquium’s main points, and continue to place Culianu in the context of the history of religions, as well as against the background of the evolution of several other fields in the social sciences, humanities, and science studies.
Sorin Antohi

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Giovanni Casadio (b. 1950) is a Professor of history of religions and cultural anthropology and the University of Salerno. Former Vice-president of the European Association for the Study of Religions (EASR), Secretary of the Società Italiana di Storia delle religioni (SISR), member of the American Academy of Religion, and Life Honorary Member of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR). Has taught and delivered papers and lectures all over the world, including at Eranos meetings in Ascona. His main fields have been Dionysianism and Orphism (also in connection with Plato and Plutarch), Near-Eastern mythology, ancient Gnosticism and Christianism, Manicheism, ancient anthropology (woman, sexuality, family), and lately mostly the history and methodology of the history of religions, focusing on Pettazzoni and Eliade. He moves from comparison and historical typology to an interpretation/understanding that respects the demands of historical-philological criticism. Among his numerous publications: Storia del culto di Dioniso in Argolide (1994); Vie gnostiche all’immortalità (1997); Il vino dell’anima (1999); Ugo Bianchi: Una vita per la storia delle religioni (ed., 2002); Mystic Cults in Magna Graecia (co-ed., 2009); Lo sciamanesimo prima e dopo Mircea Eliade (2014), and more than 170 papers, including four entries for the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Religion (2005) initiated by Mircea Eliade (he was also an Associate Editor of this major collective work).

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Sorin Antohi (n. 1957) is a historian of ideas, essayist, translator. Member of the Academia Europaea. More at www.sorinantohi.org.

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Idei în Agora [Ideas in the Agora] is a program devoted to the analysis of the public spirit. It was initiated by Sorin Antohi in 2017, with the support of Adrian Majuru.

The recordings are posted at several locations : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv5R2xEgA_M5nzwIUGl8kcQ, www.sorinantohi.org, http://muzeulbucurestiului.ro/idei-in-agora.html, and https://www.facebook.com/IdeiinAgora/

Most recently : LXI: Democrația liberală în criză. Aurelian Crăiuțu în dialog cu Sorin Antohi (20.06.2022). LXII: Opera și viața. Priviri retrospective și prospective. Sorin Alexandrescu în dialog cu Sorin Antohi (4.10.2022). LXIII: Natura sau societatea? Perspectiva neurocriminologiei. Jean Jacques Askenasy în dialog cu Sorin Antohi (18.10.2022). LXIV: Imaginarul social. Corin Braga în dialog cu Sorin Antohi (28.10.2022).

In preparation: LXVI: 11.11.2022, 16:00. O meta-știință a Omului Nou? Întoarcere în România anilor 1940-1970. Marius Turda în dialog cu Sorin Antohi. LXVII: 22.11.2022, 18:00. Populismul. Idei, ideologii, acțiuni. Michael Shafir în dialog cu Sorin Antohi. LXVIII: 6.12.2022, 18:00. Noica. După 35 de ani. Andrei Pleșu în dialog cu Sorin Antohi.