BYTES
Essays written by authoritative names of the liberal arts and scientific fields to reflect on our current global society, on its identity, trajectory and facets.
(Title’s translation: A Compass of Possibles. Global governance and juridical humanism)
In an insightful reflection on law and justice, Mireille Delmas-Marty reminds us that humanism and the focus on the human being are more necessary than ever in facing the challenges of our time: healthcare and financial crises, social and ecological crises, humanitarian disasters, and global terrorism all have such strong interdependencies that no State can any longer cope on its own…
(Title’s translation: The Mankind and the Cosmos. A short journey through the branch of science that has made us infinitely small)
Since immemorial times men have observed the sky and the stars, capturing the manifestation of a higher order in the regularity of the apparent celestial motions, from which to draw signs that could make sense of their present and indicate the course of future actions. The investigation of the sky has always determined man’s perception of his place in the universe…
(Title’s translation: Worship Aten. Texts from the court of the pharaoh Akhenaten)
In the mid-fourteenth century BC, Egypt was upset by the ascent to the throne of Amenhotep IV, who, in the fifth year of his reign, changed his name to Akhenaten. A religious policy was inaugurated, devoted exclusively to the worship of the Sun God Aten, which appeared to contemporaries in contrast to the ancient tradition of the Egyptian civilization…
As the only official representative of the U.S. government in Rome at the time of the Roman revolution of 1848, Nicholas Brown played a significant, if little known, role. Invoking American republican and Enlightenment values, he took an active part in supporting the newly proclaimed Roman Republic, in direct conflict with the instructions he received from the U.S. secretary of state…
(Title’s translation: The tragic heroism of Adam. The humanism of Pico della Mirandola)
The pace of history, the anthropological dimension and the protection of plurality are some of the themes that separate the work of Pico della Mirandola from that of most of his coeval, eminent humanistic interlocutors a reflection always aiming to show how the mosaic of human knowledge is built on difference, yet structured according to an inner consistency…