Towards a Greener World from the Renaissance to Today

Guest Speakers:

Nicholas Dakin-Elliot, Horticultural Associate, NYU Florence
Olivier De Maret, Adjunct Professor of Food Studies, NYU Florence
Claudio Pedretti, CEO Green Climate Ventures, President of the Board of Directors at Alliance for Rural Electrification
Nicoletta Peluffo, Assistant Director for Academic Affairs and Lecturer, NYU Florence

Moderated by Eric Nicholson, Lecturer, NYU Florence

For more than 500 years, the complex relationship, including the quest for balance and compatibility between human-made Urban spaces and the world of Nature, has been an urgent theme of globalizing theories and practices.

This special Roundtable, held on Earth Day, will consider questions related especially to the “border zones” between the city and the country, as well as potentially sustainable, “greening” exchanges between these environments in various contexts. A panel of distinguished experts from both NYU Florence and beyond will speak on various crucial matters, including the themes of ‘Villa Living’ and the relationship between urban and rural life; changing relations to Nature in the nineteenth century, urban agriculture and farm-to-table initiatives, and the role of cooks and gardeners; current projects using adaptation to climate change for the sake of sustainable technological projects; and the representation of city-country relations in “Eco-Fables” in literature, from the late Renaissance (plays by Tasso and Shakespeare) to modern fiction by such authors as Italo Calvino, and his “Funghi in città – Mushrooms in the city,” where the ideas of liminality and border zones between city and country are central.  There will be ample time for discussion with members of the audience.