GIOVANNI BATTISTA DEMARTA

From winter 2015/16

 

From May to December 2022│Project: contributions to the still unknow contemporary Italian philosophy in German — step 2: final summary of pre-Covid-19 dialogues and consultations, with a general selection of meritorious works to be translated in the future and a special selection of works to be translated and edited personally

 

From 1 July to 30 September 2021│visiting fellow at the WWU Münster, fund for international guest lecturers — program: ›Provincialisation of German philosophy?‹

 

1 July 2021│PhD title in philosophy (Promotion zu Dr. phil) at the LMU of Munich, with Julian Nida-Rümelin

 

From September 2017 to February 2021│contributions to the contemporary German philosophy in Italian — publication of a series of translated and edited works of the German philosopher Julian Nida-Rümelin

 

From February 2018 to November 2019│Project: contributions to the still unknow contemporary Italian philosophy in German — step 1: organisation of consultation meetings at several Italian universities and programmatic dialogues with some of the most important living Italian philosophers

 

From winter semester 2017/18 to winter semester 2018/19│The Munich time at the LMU — studies in philosophy for the PhD project    

From April 2016│establishment of a autonomous editorial board (Selbstverlag) for the external promotion of editorial projects

 

Winter 2015/16│steps towards the permanently move into the German-speaking world

 

From winter 2007/08 to autumn 2015

 

From sommer 2009 to autumn 2015│autonomous consulting activity for promoting editorial and cultural projects

 

From 2008 to 2013│the second and largest ›missed contact‹ with politics — member of the newly founded Democratic Party, local office in the sector school and universities (from 2010), promotion of varied initiatives in town, co-organizer of the General States of Cultur (2012), among the other projects rethinking of historic center based of a new concept of social housing, final disengagement in front of the experienced neutralisation of the public sphere

 

October 2011│participation in the competition for a research position in Aesthetics, Faculty of Letters and Philosophy, ›Federico II‹ University in Naples

 

4 May 2009│honorary fellowship in Aesthetics, Faculty of Letters and Philosophy, University of Turin

 

From winter semester 2007/08 to summer semester 2009│research associate at the chair of Aesthetics, Faculty of Communication Sciences, University of Turin

 

Winter 2007/08│move into the hometown Genoa, that has been left in the very first years of life

 

From spring 2001 to autumn 2007

 

autumn 2007│after a decade of family imprisonment in indebtedness — the banks requisite all the unsold goods in Sordevolo, the family is kicked out of the house together with the ill father

 

From autumn 2003 to spring 2007│scientific collaboration with Giovanni Reale (1931-2014) and publishing apprenticeship by the publisher Bompiani (R.C.S. Group S.p.A.) in Milan, internationally known as publisher of Umberto Eco (1932-2016) from the Turin School — specialisation in Contemporary German Philosophy, redactional experience and acquisition of skills in the whole publishing circle: the scientific collaboration continues until spring 2009.

 

From summer semester 2002 to summer semester 2008│Studies in philosophy and several research stays at the University of Freiburg (Germany) — the Freiburger Programm, under the guidance of Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann (1934-2023): Nevertheless the application for admission to the final doctoral procedure is not submitted, because after this years in the role of transalpine commuter the deterioration of the inherited situation of bank debts requires the permanently return to Italy.        

 

From spring 1996 to winter 2000/01

 

20 February 2021│degree in philosophy with honors at the University of Turin, old order, theoretical philosophy, with Gianni Vattimo (1936-).

 

From sommer semester 1996 to winter semester 2000/01│commercial work, history of the family, and completion of the studies in philosophy at the University of Turin — Although after the discharge from military service and the meanwhile change made of university seats from Vercelli to Turin there is only a few exams and the MA thesis left, the purpose to complete the studies is achieved only after a further five-year period: what seems to be the result of a lazy slowness, hides the fulfilment of something that has meanwhile become an indulgence, and in between ist a family story, that reflects the destiny and the destruction of the middle class in Italy. While the compact area of textile industry in Biella are attacked among the first by global competition, the changes in the orthopedic sector minimize gradually the profit of the family business, that is forced to closure (during the years 1998 and 1999) under the burden of rising bank debts, which take possession of the disperded family over the next decade. The father became unwell, almost paralyzed, until his dying thirteen years later. All household goods in Sordevolo remains long and uselessly for sale.

 

From winter 1994/95 to winter 1995/96

 

From June to December 1995│ the first “missed contact” with politics — During the service, after the victory in three levels of election, appointment as delegate to Co.Ce.R., that is to say the national representative for the conscripted forces, work in close contact with parliamentary activity in Rome. Despite the closer contacts and some cross-party offers, that leads one to consider a political career already at a young age, prevails the choice in order to complete the forcibly interrupted studies.

 

From March 1995 to March 1996│military service, completed at the First Mountain Artillery Regiment, in Fossano (Cuneo).

 

From autumn 1987 to autumn 1994

 

From winter semester 1990/91 to summer semester 1994│studies in philosophy at the University of Turin, outdoor site of Vercelli — Due to the proximity to the Biella area, most of the course of studies in philosophy, starting officially in september 1990, is accomplished at the Faculty of Philosophy of Vercelli, at that time a branch seat of the University of Turin, with professors who came from this central university of the Piedmontese capital. The University of Eastern Piedmont (UPO) was founded and made indipendent only later (1998). The interruption of the studies in Vercelli is due to the improcrastinabile call to the military service. On this occasion mature already the decision to finish the studies in philosophy at the central seat of the Turin University.

 

From winter 1988/89 to summer 1990│early stays in Germany — Together with his younger brother Paolo (1972-), who later the studies in economics really completes and moves soon after to the German-speaking world, the youth and unexplainable enough deepening of various aspects of German culture had a playful way, in the form of a precocious and self-taught German language learning, or or through epistolaries with German corrispondents. During this period take place the decisive crisis, which is inducing the decision – after a short interlude and a heated argument with his father – to interrupt the already rather advanced studies in economics for philosophy. This decision matures in full autonomy, given that in the familiar and educational circle there is no cultural active figure, who can serve as patron*ess for a similar change of studies and life, even more so in the closed and industrial atmosphere of Biella textile area, within which the only trace of something like philosophy is the regular vacation stay of Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) decades earlier in the neighboring village of Pollone.

 

From winter semester 1987/88 to summer semester 1990│studies in economy at the University of Turin — the selection of this studies is mostly based on the expectation that the firstborn of two sons get further into the development of the small family business. During the university studies both brothers collaborate anyway with the family business and their parents, untile the closure of this activity, that means a wealth of skills in the commercial field.  

 

Childhood and youth

 

From September 1982 to July 1987│high school in Biella

 

From September 1979 to July 1982│middle school in Sordevolo

 

September 1975│movement of the family to the new house — the house has been built in the lower hamlet of Regione Pignocchi, in front of the equally new building for the activity ›Demarta & Tassi‹, whose first headquarters after the relocation from Genoa was located in Biella.    

 

Spring 1971│early farewell to the hometown — In the midst of a increasing political turbulence and urban violence, which at that time winds through the main Italian cities, the parents decide to move to the neighbouring Piedmont region, with a total change of environment. The choice falls on the small village of Sordevolo, near the factory town of Biella, in the foothills of the Alps, because it was the place of origin of the paternal grandfather as well as the place of refuge for the displaced Demarta family, due to the bombing of Genoa during the Second World War. After the birth literally just a few hundred meters from the sea, this displacement with decisive influence determines a growth path completely in the countryside, in a quite remote zone of Piedmont. The first house in Sordevolo of family Demarta is situated in the upper hamlet of Verdobbio and belonged precisely to the paternal grandfather. 

 

4 December 1968│nativity and origins — born in Genoa (Italy), in a private clinic of the district of Albaro, with the full names of Giovanni Battista Pietro Federico. Both parents, Mauro Demarta (1936-2011) and Carla Parissi (1938-), are, however, originally from the district of Sampierdarena. During the first two and a half years of life the family still lives in the heart of Genoa, in a side street of Via XX Settembre, in the same building that houses on the ground floor the small family business, a commercial activity in the orthopedic field called› Demarta & Tassi‹. The activity has been founded with this denomination in the capital of Liguria by the paternal grandfather, Abele Battista Demarta, together with his wife, Agostina Tassi, but existed originally in the capital of Piedmont region, Turin, as a creation of Adele Battista with his two brothers, who then are at odds, before this grandfather moved to Genoa from the foothill area of origin.