SYNAPSIS 2026: Details
Organizers
Organized by Scuola Normale Superiore, in collaboration with the Italian Association for the Theory and Comparative History of Literature, the School is funded by the PNRR through the MERITA, the network for talent project*.
Date: June 8–12, 2026
Location: San Miniato, PI (Italy)
Total hours: 40
Max participants: 40
Language: English and Italian
Application deadline: 30 March 2026
Admission requirements: Bachelor's Degree in Comparative Literature or related disciplines
Target audience: Master's students, PhD candidates, young researchers
Synapsis 2026 Theme: Details
Synapsis is an European School of Comparative Literature that brings together students and lecturers from diverse backgrounds to collaborate and exchange ideas on a specific interdisciplinary topic. The program is open to students from EU countries who hold a Bachelor's degree or equivalent and who wish to deepen their study of literature from a comparative perspective.
The School aims to provide participants with advanced training and with theoretical, methodological, and critical tools for the analysis of products of the artistic imagination, particularly literary ones, and to stimulate the development of individual research projects. The theme chosen for the 2026 edition is “Details.”
Throughout the week, lectures and seminars will frame the concept from a theoretical and historical perspective, relating it to cognate notions such as fragment, clue, trace, and fetish, and illustrating its role in the reversal of aesthetic and symbolic hierarchies. Particular attention will be devoted to the interdisciplinary analysis of texts and works from antiquity to the contemporary period, as well as to an understanding of detail as a narrative, visual, and hermeneutic device capable of generating meaning, memory, and imaginaries. At the end of the programme, participants will have acquired skills useful for the critical interpretation of literary, artistic, and cultural phenomena, with specific reference to practices of detail across different languages and media.
The daily schedule features six hours of classes, split between morning lectures by experts and afternoon seminars in English, Italian and German, complemented by two hours of individual work. Applicants must indicate two preferences for the seminar and will receive their final assignment alongside their admission notice. Following the sessions, students may optionally develop research projects under the guidance of seminar professors and tutors.
The seminar activities may conclude with the (optional) development of individual research projects by the participants. The authors of the best projects may be invited to continue their work (if they so wish) in the following months, leading to the writing of an article. This subsequent research activity will be supervised by the professors who led the seminars and by the tutors, with the collaboration (where available) of the participants’ respective home supervisors. A meeting is planned for the spring following the course, during which some of the results of the work carried out by lecturers and participants will be presented.
For further scientific information, please refer to the prospectus provided on this page.
Applicants must submit an application using the form no later than March 30, 2026 and attaching a curriculum vitae that includes: the degree(s) already obtained and any degree currently in progress; the title/topic of the Master’s thesis; the university at which the degree was awarded; the topic (if applicable) of the PhD thesis, whether ongoing or completed; the university at which the PhD degree was obtained or where the relevant programme is currently being pursued; any publications; the applicant’s reference lecturer(s); the supervisor for the current research project or thesis; the comparative research project currently being developed or planned.
In case of login or access issues, please visit the official SNS portal. Once on the homepage, navigate to the dedicated section titled 'CORSI ALTA FORMAZIONE', where you will find the specific form required for submission.
Participation in the course does not entail enrolment fees.
Travel to San Miniato and any necessary teaching materials are provided at the participants' own expense.
Admission to the course includes attendance at the lectures and lunch on the days on which the course takes place. Participants also have the right to accommodation (at the facilities of the Conservatorio S. Chiara in San Miniato and in available hotel accommodations).
Programme
June 7, 2026
Conservatorio Santa Chiara
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM: Registration
June 8 – Aula Magna
9:00 AM - 9:30 AM: Registration
9:30 AM - 10:00 AM: Institutional greetings, presentation of Synapsis 2026
Panel 1
10:00 AM - 12:30 PM
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Fiona Candlin | Birkbeck, University of London
Small Museums and Big Issues
Chair: Massimo Fusillo
11:00 AM - 11:30 AM: Coffee break
11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Alessandro Metlica | Università di Padova
Anachronic Details: Proust, Carpaccio, and the Intermedial Eye
Chair: Massimo Fusillo
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM: Lunch at Conservatorio Santa Chiara
3:00 PM - 6:00 PM – Sala Museo, Sala Consiglio, Sala Rosa
Seminars by Massimo Fusillo, Donata Meneghelli, Pierluigi Pellini
June 9 – Aula Magna
Panel 2
10:00 AM - 12:30 PM
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Fabio Camilletti | University of Warwick
Philology of Ghosts
Chair: Anna Chiara Corradino
11:00 AM - 11:30 AM: Coffee break
11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Simona Micali | Università di Siena
Clues, Narratives, Counternarratives
Chair: Anna Chiara Corradino
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM: Lunch at Conservatorio Santa Chiara
3:00 PM - 6:00 PM – Sala Museo, Sala Consiglio, Sala Rosa
Seminars by Massimo Fusillo, Donata Meneghelli, Pierluigi Pellini
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM: Workshop with Pasquale Mari
June 10 – Aula Magna
Panel 3
10:00 AM - 12:30 PM
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Mirko Lino | Università degli Studi dell’Aquila
Details in Antonioni’s Cinema: Gestures, Geometries, and Reflected Images
Chair: Simona Micali
11:00 AM - 11:30 AM: Coffee break
11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Perig Pitrou | CNRS – Collège de France – PSL University
‘De-tailing’: an ethnographic tool for anthropological theorization
Chair: Simona Micali
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM: Lunch at Conservatorio Santa Chiara
3:00 PM - 6:00 PM – Sala Museo, Sala Consiglio, Sala Rosa
Seminars by Massimo Fusillo, Donata Meneghelli, Pierluigi Pellini
4:00 PM - 4:30 PM: Break
June 11 – Aula Magna
Panel 4
10:00 AM - 12:30 PM
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Matthew Reynolds | University of Oxford
Linguistic Detail and the Spell of Translation
Chair: Mattia Petricola
11:00 AM - 11:30 AM: Coffee break
11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Birgit Neumann | Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf
Taking a Second Look: The Poetics and Politics of Ekphrastic Details in Contemporary Literature
Chair: Mattia Petricola
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM: Lunch at Conservatorio Santa Chiara
3:00 PM - 6:00 PM – Sala Museo, Sala Consiglio, Sala Rosa
Seminars by Massimo Fusillo, Donata Meneghelli, Pierluigi Pellini
4:00 PM - 4:30 PM: Break
June 12 – Aula Magna
9:30 AM - 12:30 PM: Presentation of seminar projects
11:00 AM - 11:30 AM: Coffee break
12:30 PM: Final Remarks
1:00 PM: Lunch at Conservatorio Santa Chiara
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* MERITA, the network for talent project is the result of a collaboration between five Italian academic institutions: the Scuola Normale Superiore, the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, the Collegio Superiore dell’Università di Bologna, the Scuola Galileiana di Studi Superiori dell’Università di Padova and the Scuola Superiore di Studi Avanzati della Sapienza Università di Roma.
The MERITA project is funded within the Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR), Missione 4 – Istruzione e Ricerca, Componente 1, Investimento 3.4 "Didattica e competenze universitarie avanzate"- "Rafforzamento delle Scuole universitarie superiori". (National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), Mission 4 – Education and Research, Component 1, Investment 3.4 "Advanced university teaching and competences" - "Enhancement of the institutions for higher education").