Italian Humanism and Human Rights - Course of Excellence at ISTITUTO EUROPEO Florence Italy

In any contemporary discourse on human rights, one must inevitably confront the question: what does it mean to be human, and what kind of life does each human deserve?  In this course, we will look at the answers to these questions given by some of the most prominent Italian humanists.  We will seek to uncover the connections between what these humanists thought and wrote (on life, on education, on love, on women), and draw links to how human rights activists today explain and justify their work. Through texts by such thinkers as Petrarch and Boccacio, we will explore the central tenets of Italian humanism to see if it can help to articulate and illuminate some of the stones in the foundation of human rights theory.  We are fortunate in Florence to have the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, and we will use this resource as we pursue the contemporary aspect of this course.

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