Italy is known as the cradle of western civilization for its high culture, history and art. Despite its glorious past, nowadays Italy is facing problems within the educational system. Recently it ranked second to last in Europe and fourth from last in the World in the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC),…
Righetto: a life for Rome, by Giuseppe Gesualdi and Alessia Anniballi
One of the beautiful areas in Rome is the Gianicolo area which overlooks the central part of Rome. In this area, there are monuments and statues of heroes who sacrificed their lives for Italy. One of these statues is of a young boy called Righetto. What is special about his story is the courage he…
Eating disorders: the myth of perfection, by Alessia Anniballi
How often do you hear about eating disorder these days? Probably quite frequently. There are several blogs, articles and newspapers which talk about it, and they reflect the new distorted conception of perfection of young bodies. In the Middle Ages, people found it normal to believe in witches, wizard and magic. I think that today…
Should Contemporary Art be considered art? By Carmen María Barrientos Romero
Art is subjective. For this reason, the public reception of art may have a totally diverse reception. Some people may love a specific work of art, whereas others might hate it. In the history of art, there have been many masterpieces that were controversial in the moment of their creation but are today considered as…
Abruzzo, a jewel in the middle of Italy, by Francesca Di Pasquale
Do you know a place, in the centre of Italy, where mountains and sea are less than a thirty-minute drive away? If you don’t, then you must visit Abruzzo! This smallish region in the centre of Italy is divided into a mountainous area to the west and a coastal area to the east, and encompasses…
Paint the town with umbrellas, by Francesca Buonpane
Some brilliant stunts catch our attention and remain fixed in our memory. An advertisement wins when it becomes iconic, when it is re-proposed in other different places or contexts. This is what happened in the case of the artistic hanging umbrellas in Portugal, now found all over the world, from London to Jerusalem. If you don’t know…
Is the cinema industry dead? by Claudia De Cola
I work in an avant-garde cinema and I have noticed that people are not going very often to cinema anymore. I am asking why. Is there something happening to the film industry? Or is streaming the end of cinemas? Let’s find out. Forewarned is forearmed. Hollywood wants to change in terms of new financial and…
The Deep Web, just another criminal lobby? by Giuseppe Caruano
“Google is the most accurate browser available on the Net. You can find anything by surfing on it”. Well, that’s absolutely false! Actually Google can only search up to 0.3% of the digital Web, and that’s also because the Web we commonly use – called the surface Web – constitutes only about 4% of the…
La Gatta Cenerentola, or Cinderella untold, by Elisabetta Croce
The story of Cinderella is universally known. It may have been your favourite bedtime story or you may have seen the 1950 world-famous animated film by Walt Disney. In either case you will remember the glass slipper, the fairy godmother and the spell that will be broken at midnight. However, few know that this story…
Big world is watching you, by Lucina De Paolis
News travels fast across the world through various means of communication. The simple possession of a phone or a TV makes us aware of what’s going on in the world, whether a tragic or pleasant event. In the European context, one of the main news topics in recent years has been immigration and the refugee…
Angelita: a legendary girl in an ordinary war, by Giulia Ardito
Over the last few years, the Western world has witnessed the escalating wars in Syria with an almost detached stance. But as in every war, there are scenes and stories that will always have the power to make the entire world pause and reflect, and regrettably, they all seem to feature children. After all, we…
TV series and language: a new lingo is coming, By Lucia Antonia Dino-Guida
Yesterday, I overheard my parents talking about ships and they were not chatting about naval warfare. Immediately I started to think that in the last few years people’s way of speaking has been powerfully affected by the new golden age of television. This is why, also thanks to social networks’ contribution, words like ship have…
