Naples, Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore alla Pietrasanta, 12–15 November 2026
From 12 to 15 November 2026, Naples will once again become a city of thought with “Incarnazioni” (Incarnations), the theme of the eleventh edition of the Notte dei Filosofi, the annual itinerant event through which the Associazione Filosofia fuori le Mura brings philosophy out of the lecture halls and into the streets. The locations may change from year to year, but the formula remains the same: a weaving together of culture, schools, art, debates and first-hand testimonies from around the world, staged in some of the most meaningful spaces of the city.
The Notte dei Filosofi was created with the aim of opening philosophy to a wide and diverse audience, making it accessible far beyond academic circles. It is not a series of conferences, but rather a choral dialogue involving citizens, the world of education and the world of art, in the belief that a city can become a school of social bonds. Each edition chooses a theme through which to question the present, and this year the focus is on the body and the flesh — on how we inhabit them, and on how we stand beside those we encounter.
At the heart of the project is Filosofia fuori le Mura, the educational practice founded by philosopher Giuseppe Ferraro, which carries philosophical thinking into places of exception, along the internal borders of the city: prisons, schools, streets, and among excluded, confined and forgotten voices.
The Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore alla Pietrasanta will host three days open to the public, from 13 to 15 November, featuring encounters, dialogues, testimonies, a walk and a performance. These will be preceded on Thursday 12 November by a morning dedicated to schools at the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici.
Thursday 12 November — The Body at School. From 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici hosts “Il corpo a scuola”, a morning reserved for students of the Umberto I and Vittorio Emanuele II-Garibaldi high schools. Francesco Vincenzo Ferraro, President of the degree programme in Exercise and Sport Sciences at the UIL telematic University of Rome, will speak on “Oltre il corpo, sano, atletico, patologico” (Beyond the Body: Healthy, Athletic, Pathological), while feminist philosopher Simona Marino will present “La scuola dei sentimenti” (The School of Feelings).
Friday 13 November — The Body, the Flesh and the City. From 5.30 p.m. at the Pietrasanta, Giuseppe Ferraro opens the evening with “Il corpo, la carne e l’anima del mondo” (The Body, the Flesh and the Soul of the World). He will be followed by art historian Pamela Palomba with “Il corpo di Napoli” (The Body of Naples), and by Nino Daniele, former Mayor of Ercolano and former Councillor for Culture and Tourism of the City of Naples, with “Incarnare la pace” (Incarnating Peace). Stefania Abbate and Mohamed Amine Taghouti of the SABIR community of the Cooperativa LESS will bring “Incarnare la memoria del presente” (Incarnating the Memory of the Present), and the evening will close with yoga teacher Filomena Nardelli on “Il corpo custode dell’anima nello Yoga” (The Body as Keeper of the Soul in Yoga).
Saturday 14 November — Dialogues. From 5.30 p.m., the “Dialoghi” series curated by Simona Marino will feature Porpora Marcasciano, activist, sociologist and writer, President of MIT – Movimento Identità Trans and author of books including “Favolose narranti” and “Tra le rose e le viole”, speaking on “Soggetto desiderante e favolose incarnazioni” (The Desiring Subject and Fabulous Incarnations). Tiziana Terranova, Full Professor at the University of Naples L’Orientale, where she teaches cultural studies, critical theory of digital media, and digital communication and technopolitics, and author of “Network Culture” and “After the Internet”, will discuss “La carne della macchina” (The Flesh of the Machine). The evening will conclude with a Palestinian representative of the Centro Culturale Handala Ali on “Incarnare la terra” (Incarnating the Earth).
Sunday 15 November — A Walk and a Dance. From 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., the walk “I fili di pensiero” (Threads of Thought) with Pamela Palomba will set off from Largo Sant’Aniello in Caponapoli and, in dialogue through streets and alleys, arrive at the Basilica della Pietrasanta, where dancer and singer Nicoletta Serio will perform a dance and voice piece inspired by Paul Valéry’s “L’anima e la danza” (The Soul and the Dance).
Throughout the four days, from 12 to 15 November, the Basilica will also host a photographic exhibition by Elèna Lucariello.
“The body is what I see; the flesh is what I feel. The body is a thing; the flesh is a relation,” says Giuseppe Ferraro — the philosopher of love, prisons, childhood and the street, formerly Lecturer in Moral Philosophy at the University Federico II and President of Filosofia fuori le Mura. “The body is exposed, watched, imprisoned, threatened, always in the passive of the other who claims it: the body is prey. To incarnate is to have a soul, to feel the body as one’s own. The body is an object, the flesh is politics: it is the whole of relations, how we stand beside one another. Every bond is the maintenance of separation, one’s own and that of the other, of the other woman; a bond that does not sustain it turns it into property. You are mine, you are mine, not of me. A consciousness that looks without regarding itself in the other loses its soul, and it is unforgivable, like those who kill, who order extermination, who destroy everyday existence. This is what the young say — very young girls and boys who turn their own bodies into a battering ram to knock at the door, to feel what the indifference of institutions does not allow them to feel. We must ask about the body at school, the body of the city, the fragile body of each and every one. Happiness is not reached nor conquered: it is preserved. Happiness is politics.”
The event is organised by Filosofia fuori le Mura with the patronage of the Comune di Napoli, in collaboration with Pietrasanta Polo Culturale ETS, Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filosofici, Gabbianella Events, Note d’Autunno and Pellegrini di Pace.
Admission to all events is free. For further information: info@filosofiafuorilemura.it – www.filosofiafuorilemura.it.
Photo credits: Press office: Carmen Vicinanza
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