Revitalising antifascism

For some time, antifascism was studied primarily as a historical experience belonging to a distant past. Even within the far right, fascism was often portrayed as a phenomenon that had been superseded. Yet, amid the current authoritarian turn in liberal democracies, some of fascism’s central tenets have re-emerged on the right. Appeals to God, Family and Fatherland have been reformulated through contemporary forms of ultraconservatism, racism and authoritarianism. In response, progressive social movements have renewed their engagement with antifascist values and practices, incorporating them into campaigns against capitalist exploitation, racialisation, gender discrimination, militarism and illiberalism.
Revitalising antifascism: Social movements against authoritarian turns brings together scholars and activists to examine how antifascism is remembered, reinterpreted and practised amid contemporary processes of authocratisation. 
Across three thematic panels and an activist roundtable, the conference moves from the political legacies and contemporary mobilisation of antifascist memory to present-day struggles against racism, patriarchy and the far right, before developing comparative and transnational perspectives on resistance in different European contexts. Particular attention will be paid to the ways in which historical memories are activated within contemporary solidarity movements, including mobilisations around Palestine, and to the alliances, repertoires and organisational forms through which feminist, antiracist, labour and internationalist actors confront new forms of fascism and democratic erosion.
By combining academic debate with the experiences of social movements, organisations and activist networks, the event seeks to assess both the continuing relevance and the possible renewal of antifascism as a framework for collective action and emancipatory politics.
The conference will be followed by Judith Butler’s Ciampi Lecture, “Repression of Academic Freedom”, which extends the discussion to the pressures exerted on critical knowledge, public dissent and academic institutions.

Programme

Tuesday, 13 October:

10:00 – 10:30 – Opening remarks

Donatella Della Porta | Scuola Normale Superiore

10:30 – 12:30 – Panel 1: Memory of Antifascism Today

Chair: Nerea Montejo-López | Scuola Normale Superiore

Discussant: Federica Stagni | Scuola Normale Superiore

Donatella Della Porta | Scuola Normale Superiore

Antifascism and the Movement in Solidarity with Palestine: Mobilised Memory

Tiago Fernandes | Instituto Universitário de Lisboa ISCTE

Origins and Impact of Antifascism: Lessons from the Popular Fronts in Interwar France and Spain

Juan Masullo | Università Statale di Milano

The Political Legacies of Wartime Resistance: Local Memory and the Activation of Antifascist Sentiment

Lorenzo Zamponi | Scuola Normale Superiore

Shades of anti-fascism in 21 st century Italy: globalisation, polarisation, racialisation

12:30 – 14:30 – lunch break

14:30 – 16:00 – Panel 2: Palestine Solidarity and Antifascism

Chair: Adele Moltedo | Scuola Normale Superiore

Discussant: Laila Sit Aboha | Scuola Normale Superiore

Nicola Pratt | University of Warwick

Palestine Solidarity Activism as Antifascist Praxis

Sindre Bangstad | KIFO Institute for Church, Religion and Worldview Research

Defining Antisemitism for the Far- and Populist Right

Arees Bishara | Scuola Normale Superiore

From Biopolitics to Thanatopolitics: Digital Settler Colonialism and the Architecture of Digital Sumud in Times of War

16:00 – 17:00 – break

17:00 – 19:00 – Roundtable (and aperitivo) at Circolo ARCI di San Niccolò

Affrontare i nuovi fascismi: resistenze e orizzonti di emancipazione

Modera: Daniela Chironi | Scuola Normale Superiore

Andrea Rapini | Università di Bologna

Luca Toscano | sindacato SuddCobas

Federica Borlizzi | collettivo No Kings Italy

Filippo Girardi | Cambiare Rotta / Assemblea internazionale We Do Not Enlist
 

Wednesday, 14 October:

09:15 – 11:15 – Panel 3: Contemporary Struggles against New Forms of Fascism

Chair: Donatella Della Porta | Scuola Normale Superiore

Discussant: Rosario Freire Saray | Scuola Normale Superiore

Daniela Chironi | Scuola Normale Superiore

Contemporary Feminism as an Antifascist Project

Aaron Winter | Lancaster University

Fighting the Far-Right: Anti-Racism, Anti-Fascism and the Politics of Counterextremism and Counterterrorism

Elias Steinhilper | German Centre for Integration and Migration Research DeZIM

Mobilising against the Far Right in Germany: Empirical Patterns and Societal Ambivalences

Ali Jones | CPD, Coventry University

Stitching the Resistance: Molecular Subjectivities in Antifascist Fibre Arts

11:15 – 11:30 – break

11:30 – 13:00 – Panel 3: Comparative Perspectives

Chair: Daniela Chironi | Scuola Normale Superiore

Discussant: Chiara Pupillo | Scuola Normale Superiore

Ana Santamarina Guerrero | Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia UNED

Neighbourhood Struggles and the Spatial Politics of Antifascism in Madrid

Grzegorz Piotrowski | University of Gdańsk

Antifascism as a Radical Democratic Tool

Nerea Montejo-López | Scuola Normale Superiore

Antifascist Internationalism Today: A Comparative Analysis

13:00 – 13:30 – Concluding remarks

Daniela Chironi | Scuola Normale Superiore

Nerea Montejo-López | Scuola Normale Superiore

13:30 – 15:00 – lunch break

16:00 – Ciampi Lecture with Judith Butler | University of California, Berkley & Istituto Ciampi Visiting Scholar

Academic Freedom as Antifascist Issue

Chair: Mario Pianta | Scuola Normale Superiore

Discussant: Donatella Della Porta | Scuola Normale Superiore