Hello everybody,
I am Staffan, one of the organizers of the summer school. My interest in this year's theme mainly derives from my fascination with the history of the concept of a "struggle for life" -- i.e., that life is not balanced as such but operates at the limit of viability, so that death, by implication, plays a productive role in its evolution. This was of course a key concept of Darwin's theory, but has an interesting pre-history, pace Foucault, in the human sciences, including the humanities, history in particular.
Apart from that, I am currently obsessed with anything to do with Lapland, parasitic insects in particular; see
linnaeus-in-lapland.net/
. Elena Isayev, my partner who will join the school as a guest to treat us to some Lucretius, shares this interest, but perhaps not quite the obsession.
In case you wonder why Ischia should be a good place to discuss the North: a collegaue in Rovaniemi (Finland) claims that Lapland and Sicily mirror each other; in Sicily it can get +40°C, in Lapland -40°C.
Looking forward to learn a lot!
Staffan
