What does it mean for a world to end? How have different groups responded to such collapse? At a moment, where the future of our world seems to be in crisis or no more at all, what can the Mediterranean —crossroads of empires, myths, and migrations—teach us about the ability to set sail for other worlds that prevail?

In Otherworlds, philosopher Federico Campagna constructs extraordinary stories and alternative

histories of the Mediterranean, nexus of migrations and odysseys, ruins and romances, to depict a

world in which the imagination is the only engine of survival.

Chapter by chapter, Campagna chronicles the existential challenges posed by history and the inventive and radical responses of people facing the ruin of their world. From the earliest myths with which the inhabitants of the kingdoms around the Mediterranean constructed a shared social reality, the stories of the Mediterranean are dominated by cataclysm and collapse in which fugitive fragments become the building blocks of resilience and renewal. Alexander the Great’s cataclysmic conquests seed a cycle of existential romances; pagan philosophers fleeing the fall of Rome give rise to new visions of reality; translators across the Islamic world, Iberia and Italy use stories to bridge the gap between cultures at war and pirates, slaves, renegades and publishers expand the imaginative horizons of human possibility through modernity and beyond.

In this lyrical, novel and expansive work – part history, part philosophy, part love letter to a heritage of seasonal migration and searches for belonging – the challenges of disintegration and destruction are time and time again met with the creation of new and radical realities – Otherworlds traces the tales of these attempts to reinvent the world.

Bibliografie: Otherworlds: Mediterranean Lessons on Escaping History, Federico Campagna.

Bloomsbury, 2025

Ort: Online via Zoom

Format: Leseumfang ingesamt ca. 300 Seiten, jeweils ca. 50-60 Seiten (1 Kapitel) pro Sitzung

Zeitplan: 6 Sitzungen à 1.5 Stunden alle 2 Wochen, Anfang März bis Ende Mai 2026,

Arbeitssprache(n): Englisch

Leitung: Leander Vettiger

Organisation: Matteo Titus

Administration: Michelle Hug

Anzahl TN: Maximum 10

Zielpublikum: Studierenden aller Studienrichtungen

Vorbereitungsarbeiten / Unterlagen: Sieh dir die Leseliste an und prüfe die Hinweise des

Veranstalters, nachdem du eine Anmeldebestätigung erhalten hast.

Anmeldefrist: 15. Dezember 2025

Bild: Giandomenico tiepolo, affreschi da villa di zianigo, 1759-1797, camera dei pulcinelli, altalena dei pulcinelli 01, wikimedia and Mediterranean chart fourteenth century2, wikimedia