Call for papers for the symposium
Transcendence in the Small Gestures of Life
Attention and Care for Nature and Humans in Religious Traditions
Fondazione Giorgio Cini, 2-3 October 2025
Deadline: 15 May 2025
The symposium aims to explore spiritual states within religious traditions that promote attentiveness and care for the world, humanity, and creation, with a particular focus on the ecological crisis. The seminar concentrates on “passive” modes of relationship such as contemplation, silence, and the pursuit of peace, which are considered pathways to transcendental experiences within religions.
Transcendence in the Small Gestures of Life examines how believers cultivate an awareness of transcendence through the small daily gestures, exploring how the extraordinary can emerge from everyday life, beyond religious rituals. In contrast to social theories that emphasise autonomy and individual action, the symposium seeks to explore acts of surrender to God or nature as responses to contemporary crises, reflecting on the significance of sensory aspects in connecting with the world and analysing how these experiences might influence research and lead to new methodological implications.
The conference is organised by the Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilisations and Spiritualities (Fondazione Giorgio Cini) in collaboration with the Muslim Worlds Network of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA).
Diego Carpitella Scholarship
Deadline for applications:15 April 2025
New call for applications for an annual research scholarship of 5,000 euros in memory of Diego Carpitella, to be awarded to a young researcher to produce an audiovisual product of ethnomusicological interest. Projects received in response to the call for applications will be assessed by a panel of three experts. The winner will undertake to produce the work, which will be premiered in Venice. A copy of the material produced during the project will be kept in the Institute for Comparative Music Studies Archive.
Call for papers for the conference Spiritualities and Healing in Global and Transhistorical Perspectives
Fondazione Giorgio Cini, 10-12 June 2025
Deadline: 28 February 2025
This conference aims to explore the intersection of folk, vernacular, complementary, alternative, indigenous, and bio-medicines in critical dialogue with analytical categories in the study of religion, including folk religions, magic, and spiritualities. A transhistorical perspective will be adopted, encompassing both contemporary and pre-modern practices, beliefs, and historicities. A central theme also concerns the relationship between alternative spiritualities and the pandemic, examining how movements rooted in religious and spiritual practices have supported or challenged scientific approaches to pandemic management, with significant political impacts, fueling nationalisms, populisms, and fundamentalisms, and reshaping the debate on health, spirituality, and governance.
The conference is organized jointly by the Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilisations and Spiritualities (Cini Foundation), the Center for the Study of World Religions (Harvard Divinity School) the Center for the Study of Lived Religion (Ca’ Foscari University), and the HEAL Network for the Ethnography of Healing.
New Call for Scholarships Application Egida Sartori and Laura Alvini Early Music Seminars – Johannes Ciconia
Deadline for application: 11 April 2025
Venetiae, mundi splendor
Johannes Ciconia in Roma and Veneto, 1390-1412
Event organized with the contribution of:
Alamire Foundation; Fondation Concordance; Irma Merk and L.+Th. La Roche Stiftung
Call for applications – Digital Artist in Residence
Application deadline: 2 March 2025
The Fondazione Giorgio Cini, through its Digital Centre ARCHiVe, announces a call for applications for two one-month residential scholarships covering the accommodation costs on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. The scholarships are intended for experienced digital artists and creatives of any artistic language or expressive medium, of all ages, nationalities, and backgrounds.
Residency period: April – November 2025
Scholarship – Utopia, Art, and Spirituality
Deadline: 28 February 2025
We are pleased to announce that the postgraduate research fellowship Utopia, Art, and Spirituality, promoted by the Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilisations and Spiritualities of Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice (Italy) and the Archivio Luigi Pericle in Ascona (Switzerland), has been renewed for the second year.
The applicant awarded the Utopia, Art, and Spirituality grant will have the opportunity to spend two months at Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice and two months at the Hotel Ascona, home of the Archivio Luigi Pericle.
Benno Geiger – scholarship for literary studies
Application deadline: 30 June 2025
The Fondazione Giorgio Cini offers one 3-month residential scholarship to enable studies focused on the Benno Geiger Archive, which is preserved on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, as well as on other literary archives held at the Fondazione.
The scholarship is in accordance with Elsa Geiger Ariè’s will and is associated with the “Premio letterario Benno Geiger per la traduzione poetica”, an annual poetry translation prize, set up to commemorate her father.
The 3-month residential scholarship (not extendable) is offered to Italian and foreign graduates, postgraduates and postdoctoral researchers who must not be over 40 on 30 June 2025.
The scholarship must be associated with a research residency at the “Vittore Branca” International Center for Studies of Italian Culture in the period from October 2025 to October 2026.
Information: premiogeiger@cini.it
The Vittore Branca International Center for the Study of Italian Culture – Residential Scholarship announcement
Application deadline: 30 June 2025
The Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice offers 9 residential scholarships to PhD students and postdoc students who must not be over 40 years old on June 30, 2025, interested in spending two consecutive months in Venice at the Vittore Branca International Center for the Study of Italian Culture between January and December 2026.
The residential scholarships are offered, within the interdisciplinary context that characterizes the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice to Italian and International scholars wishing to further their studies of Italian culture, especially that of the Veneto – in one of the following fields: art history, history of Venice, literature, musicology, ethnomusicology, drama, early printed books, comparative cultures and spiritualities, digital humanities.
Candidates shall propose a research topic preferably focused on the archives and documents at Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice.
Call for Application “Research-led Performance”: Music for Ensemble Around Pierre Boulez
Deadline 14 February 2025
Workshop with Marco Angius and soloists of the Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto
From 5 to 7 March 2025 the Institute for Music of the Giorgio Cini Foundation in Venice, in partnership with the Orchestra Foundation of Padua and Veneto, is organising a workshop in the Research-led Performance cycle aimed at young conductors (age limit: 35 years) interested in an in-depth study of 20th century instrumental music.
The call for applications is aimed at the study, concerting and conducting of the following works:
– Simphony op. 21 by Anton Webern (transcription for chamber orchestra),
– Octandre by Edgard Varèse,
– Mémoriale by Pierre Boulez,
– Tropi by Niccolò Castiglioni.
Scholarships Accademia Vivaldi
Deadlines for presentation of requests: 20 January, 3 March 28 April 13 June, 8 August and 24 October 2024.
The Istituto Italiano Antonio Vivaldi organizes six masterclasses on the performance practice of the compositions by Antonio Vivaldi, dedicated to young singers (max 39 years) and players.
Each meeting of three/five day each will take place at Fondazione Giorgio Cini, on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, in Venice.
Teachers are Gemma Bertagnolli, Verónica Cangemi, e Antonio Frigé.
In cooperation with Fondazione Ugo and Olga Levi Foundation, lectures by musicologists from the research group La drammaturgia musicale a Venezia (1678-1792) are scheduled at each meeting.
