Spring 2007 - European University Institute

1
From Bologna to Columbia
via San Domenico
SPS 1984-89 | Nadia Urbinati
When I was admitted at the EUI,
Department of Political and Social
Sciences in 198 , the Italian
university system did not yet offer
a doctoral degree and for an Italian
student the EUI was the only
opportunity to complete a PhD in
Italy.
“ Studying at the Badia
was an existential and
civil experience, not only
academic—an immersion
in a post-national
atmosphere ”
In the few years I spent at the EUI,
the Department of Political and
Social Sciences was in a state of
upheaval. When I defended in June
1989, Professor Steven Lukes had
just arrived (but not yet started
teaching), while Professor Brian
Barry, who had arrived a year earlier
to replace Professor Athanasios
Moulakis, was leaving after a
short and difficult year. I recall that
time as the most difficult in my
entire academic career. However,
Spring 2007
I was fortunate enough to have
two formidable external supervisors,
Norberto Bobbio and Eugenio
Garin (I was writing a dissertation
on Italian liberalism in the age of
state-building and their tutoring
was extraordinary), and an excellent
scholar and sensitive listener
in the person of Professor Brigitta
Nedelmann who rescued me by
accepting to become my internal
supervisor. Hence, although my last
years at the Badia were not easy I
met wonderfully supportive colleagues
and scholars.
When I started writing my dissertation,
very few people in Italy
used computers; the Italian university
system was pre-modern in
this respect (even the prestigious
Universitá di Bologna, my alma
mater). The Badia was ahead of
all Italian academic institutions
and extremely well organized: the
Computing Service was like heaven
for me, not only because of its
invaluable experts, but because we
students knew we could count on
them when (almost weekly, in my
case) we panicked for a lost file or a
stacking machine.
The most memorable place was,
however, the caffetteria, the place
in which, one might say, the European
Union was palpable. For
many of us coming from national
universities where foreigners were
rare or the universities too big to
allow a direct interaction among all
their students, the Badia caffetteria
was like a cosmopolis. For me at
least, studying at the Badia was an
existential and civil experience, not
only academic—an immersion in
a post-national atmosphere. The
only thing I regretted was the commuting
from Bologna and then
from Santa Maria Novella railway
station to San Domenico with the
n. 7 bus, always packed and too
slow. But commuting had its unexpected
good side. When I needed
to stay over (at least once a week)
I managed to rent a room in the
convento, on the other side of the
Badia. To spend a night a week in
the place in which European Humanism
moved its early steps was a
unique psychological and spiritual
experience.
After I graduated I moved to Princeton,
first with a two-year CNR-
NATO fellowship and then as a
Member of the Institute for Advanced
Study in Princeton. Later
on I started teaching as a visiting
professor at the University of Pennsylvania,
The New School for Social
Research and New York University.
In 199 I came to Columbia University
where I am still teaching
as a tenured professor of political
theory.
The first time I went back to the
Badia after my graduation was to
participate in a workshop on Agonism
organized by Peter Wagner in
November 00 . It was a moving
and exciting experience to be back
after almost twenty years. The place
looks different, more spacious and
functional, yet two things at least
remained unchanged to my eye:
the classroom where I defended
and the view of Florence from the
terrace. n
Nadia Urbinati is Nell and Herbert
M. Singer Associate Professor
of Contemporary Civilization at
Columbia University