News
LeviNeT Seminars: Sixth Session
The sixth session of the LeviNeT seminar series will take place on Thursday, May 7h, 2026, at 5:00 PM. Alfonso Berardinelli and Matteo Marchesini will discuss their recent publication Saggisti italiani del Novecento (Quodlibet, 2025). The event represents an opportunity to reflect on the role of the essayistic tradition in contemporary Italian literature. The seminar is open to the university and local community and will be held in the Aula Magna Drigo at the Department of Humanities, University of Ferrara. The event will be live-streamed on the LeviNeT YouTube channel at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUla2NXZN5Y.
Quarantâanni dei Sommersi e i salvati. La zona grigia, la rete tedesca, lâEuropa
International Conference: 28-29 April 2026, Aula Drigo, UniversitĂ di Ferrara – Department of Humanities, Via Paradiso 12
To mark the fortieth anniversary of The Drowned and the Saved and the publication of the bilingual, open-access edition of the correspondence with German readers, the LeviNeT research team has organised the international conference Quarantâanni de I sommersi e i salvati di Primo Levi. La zona grigia, la rete tedesca, l’Europa. The event will offer a reflection on Leviâs final work through the new perspectives provided by previously unpublished letters that Levi received from Germany between the early 1960s and the 1980s.
The published correspondents are: Wolfram AndrĂ©, Inge Lederer-Barth, Stefan Bauer, Kordula Taube-Bernreuther, Engelbert M. Betz, Wolfgang Beutin, Gisela Buschmann, Gottfried BĂŒttner, Brigitte Distler, Waltraud Falter, Suraiya Faroqhi, Theodor Fischer, Max Grantz, Hans JĂŒrgen Fröhlich, Ilse Jancovius, Edeltrud Kunzmann-Hellbusch, Mr. and Mrs. L., Renate Windisch-Martin, Gertrud Körber-Mertens, Noomi Blumenfeld-Peritz, Herbert PlĂŒgge , Helga Kabat Job-Redmann, S., Ella Liebermann-Schieber, Edith Ullmann, Karl Wagner, Christel WaiĂ, Heike Wells, Elisabeth Zilz.
The first day of the conference, 28 April, will conclude with the fifth session of the LeviNeT Seminar series: Gray Zones at Borderlands. Primo Levi Today. The guest speaker will be Professor Debarati Sanyal (University of California, Berkeley).
Posters and programme available for download:
The conference will be live-streamed on the LeviNeT YouTube Channel:
Day 1 – 28 April, from 2:00 pm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-95m7ok5krI
Day 2 – 29 April, from 9:00: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jY3L4A_dpvA
Presentation of the LeviNeT project at the UniversitĂ per Stranieri di Siena
On Wednesday, April 21st, 2026 at 4:15 pm, Martina Mengoni will present the LeviNeT project at the UniversitĂ per Stranieri di Siena as part of the ongoing seminar series organized by the Centre for Translation Studies (CeST). The seminar, titled Il progetto LeviNeT: rete, plurilinguismo, traduzioni, will be introduced by Prof. Anna Baldini.
https://cest.unistrasi.it/1/837/1111910/Il_progetto_LeviNeT_rete,_plurilinguismo,_traduzioni.htm
LeviNeT Seminars: Fourth Session
On Thursday, April 9th, 2026 at 5:00 pm, the fourth meeting of the LeviNeT Seminar series will take place. The guest for this session will be Dr. Tommaso Speccher, researcher and science communicator at the Jewish Museum in Berlin, the Topography of Terror, and the Conference House of the Wannsee. Drawing on his latest book, Storie della Resistenza tedesca (Laterza 2025) for which he earned the FiuggiStoriaSpecial 2025 Award, Tommaso Speccher will give a lecture titled: Resistenza tra Italia e Germania. Storiografia e Public History. The meeting, as always open to the entire university and local community, will take place in the Aula Magra Drigo of the Department of Humanities at the University of Ferrara, located at Via Paradiso 12.
Presentation of the LeviNeT project at UniStem Day 2026
On Friday, March 20th, 2026 at 12:00 pm, Martina Mengoni will present the LeviNeT project as part of UniStem Day 2026, the event dedicated to high school students, taking place in 93 universities and research institutes worldwide. The event will be held at the Biomedical Chemical Hub (Mammuth) of the University of Ferrara.
The LeviNeT project presented in the lecture series on Primo Levi at the University of Geneva
On Thursday, March 5th, 2026 at 6:15 pm, Martina Mengoni will speak in the lecture series organized by the Faculty of Arts at the University of Geneva titled: Arcipelago Levi. Cinque esplorazioni nel mondo di Primo Levi. On this occasion, the discussion will focus on The Drowned and the Saved, the âLetters from Germansâ chapter, and the LeviNeT project.
Giornata della Memoria 2026
On Monday, January 26th, 2026 at 6:30 pm, Martina Mengoni will be in conversation with Stefano Bartezzaghi and Elena Loewenthal during a conference titled: Primo Levi: lettere ai tedeschi, which will take place at the Ridotto of the Teatro Comunale in Ferrara. The initiative is organized by the University of Ferrara as part of the activities for Giornata della Memoria.
The letters from German readers arrive in Germany
January 14th, 2026. The publication of the new set of letters from German readers is forthcoming. While we are preparing to make them all available in Italian and English, we are offering a brief preview: we have traced one of the readers who wrote to Levi in the early 1980s. A retired journalist, Heike Wells has decided to dedicate an article to her story and to our project.
Leviâs letters with German correspondents at the 2025 Winter School of the Polo del â900 in Turin
On Tuesday, November 18th, 2025, starting at 4:15 pm, the LeviNeT research group, in collaboration with the Centro Internazionale di Studi Primo Levi of Turin, will lead one of the workshops organized as part of the third edition of the Winter School of the Polo del â900 in Turin (November 18thâ20th, 2025), titled: Caos. Gli sguardi della storia sul disordine globale. This yearâs Winter School will be dedicated to the evolution of global political and economic relations from the postâSecond World War period to the present day. The workshop, titled Un dibattito epistolare sulla costruzione dellâEuropa: i carteggi tedeschi di Primo Levi, will be aimed at young people aged between 18 and 29 and will take place at the Polo del â900 (Palazzo San Daniele). The event is organized by the Fondazione di Studi Storici Gaetano Salvemini and the Associazione Culturale Vera Nocentini E.T.S.
LeviNeT guest at the 11th edition of the Fuoriluogo Festival in Biella
On Saturday, September 6th, 2025 at 10:00 am, Martina Mengoni, in conversation with Manuela Baretta, will present the LeviNeT project and the correspondence with Heinz Riedt as part of the 11th edition of the Biella Literary Festival. The event is organized in collaboration with the Centro Internazionale di Studi Primo Levi of Turin.
LeviNeT Seminars: Third Session
On Thursday, May 8th, 2025 at 10:15 am, the third meeting of the LeviNeT Seminar series will take place. The guest for this session will be Dr. Roberta Mori of the International Center for Primo Levi Studies in Turin, who will present her latest book titled: Svegliarsi adulto. Vita di Sandro Delmastro, partigiano e amico di Primo Levi, recently published by Einaudi; a meticulous biography of the co-protagonist of the âIronâ chapter of The Periodic Table, reconstructed through passionate work and careful documentary research. The meeting will take place at the Department of Humanities, Room A (Via Paradiso 12, Ferrara).
âIl carteggio con Heinz Riedtâ presented at Primo Leviâs former factory
On Thursday, May 22nd, 2025 at 6:30 pm, Martina Mengoni will present the correspondence between Primo Levi and Heinz Riedt at MU-CH, the Museum of Chemistry in Settimo Torinese, the former S.I.V.A. paint factory where Levi worked between 1948 and 1974.
The LeviNeT project for the first time in France
On Wednesday, April 30th, 2025 Martina Mengoni will present the LeviNeT project at the 20th Annual Conference of the European Society for Textual Scholarship, held from April 28th to 30th, 2025, at the University of Tours. The presentation will take place within a panel entirely dedicated to the figure of Primo Levi, titled From archives to digital scholarship. Primo Leviâs drafts, words, letters, which will also feature contributions from Claudia Rosenzweig and Mariarosa Bricchi.
LeviNeT Seminars: Second Session
On Thursday, March 20th, 2025 at 10:15 am, the second meeting of the LeviNeT Seminar series will take place. The speaker will be Dr. Bernardina Rago, author of the book Il Gattopardo a guardia del muro. Storia di un giallo letterario nella Germania socialista (Feltrinelli 2024), which describes how, while in Italy a political controversy over the novel was unfolding, the GDR promoted Lampedusaâs novel and turned it into a key work of the Italian Risorgimento in a socialist key. The author will explain how this has been possible, and through which publishing policies and processes of cultural appropriation this took place, in a lecture titled: Lo straordinario viaggio da Palermo a Berlino est. Il Gattopardo a guardia del Muro. The meeting will be held at the Department of Humanities, Room A (Via Paradiso 12, Ferrara).
Primo Levi and Heinz Riedt at the Ubik bookstore in Ferrara
On Thursday, March 6th, 2025 at 6:00 pm, Martina Mengoni will be in conversation with Matteo Marchesini about the correspondence between Primo Levi and his German translator Heinz Riedt. The event will take place at the Ubik bookstore in Ferrara, at 43/47 Via San Romano.
Presentation of the correspondence with Heinz Riedt
On Wednesday, March 5th, 2025 at 4:30 pm, Martina Mengoni will give a seminar titled Lettere sulla traduzione: il carteggio tra Primo Levi e Heinz Riedt as part of the Permanent Seminar in German Literature organized by the Department of Linguistic and Literary Studies at the University of Padua.
LeviNeT project at Palazzo Madama in Turin
The LeviNeT project will be presented on Monday, February 24th, 2025 at 5 pm in the Salone delle Feste of Palazzo Madama in Turin. The presentation will take place in the framework of the events concerning the exhibition “Giro di posta. Primo Levi, le Germanie, l’Europa”. Speakers: Martina Mengoni, Alice Gardoncini, Camilla Veneziani and Riccardo CurcurĂč.
https://www.palazzomadamatorino.it/it/evento/levinet
Presentation of the LeviNeT project at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice
On February 12th, 2025 at 4 pm Martina Mengoni presents the LeviNeT project at the Marciana National Library in Venice.
The event is organized by Anppia Venezia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Iveser, Ateneo veneto, Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani, GI-Fiap, and was included in the city program during the recurrency of the Remembrance Day coordinated by the Municipality of Venice.
The conference will be broadcasted on the Libraryâs YouTube channel, at the link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCesk4_I8FuO08GpqmnYJINg
âThe German epistolary networkâ of Levi reaches Switzerland
On Wednesday, January 29th, 2025 at 4:15 pm, Martina Mengoni will present the LeviNeT project as part of the international conference Epistolari dal Settecento al nuovo millennio, scheduled at the University of Fribourg, with a talk titled: La rete epistolare tedesca e germanofona di Primo Levi. Il caso LeviNeT.
L’ora del colloquio
The show on German correspondence staged at the Teatro Storchi in Modena
Staged at the Teatro Storchi in Modena on January 27th at 7 pm, the show debuted for the first time in Ferrara on the occasion of the LeviNeT portal launch. L’ora del colloquio put on stage some of the German-speaking correspondence between Levi and Hermann Langbein, Heinz Riedt and Ferdinand Meyer. The readings have been staged by Valter Malosti and Danilo Nigrelli of Emilia Romagna Teatro, the choice of texts is curated by Martina Mengoni and Alice Gardoncini. Fausto Ciuffi (Fondazione Villa Emma) and Martina Mengoni present the show.
Opening of the exhibition
Giro di posta. Primo Levi, le Germanie, l’Europa
at Palazzo Madama in Turin
Promoted by the Centro Internazionale di Studi Primo Levi and curated by Domenico Scarpa, Giro di posta. Primo Levi, le Germanie e l’Europa was inaugurated on January 23rd 2025 at Palazzo Madama in Turin. The exhibition anticipates and re-launches the outcomes of the LeviNeT project. See the exhibition section on the website: https://www.levinet.eu/la-mostra/
Il carteggio con Heinz Riedt
Presentation at the Acquario Studios in Turin
On Thursday, January 16th, 2025 at 18:30 at the Acquario Studios in via Ormea in Turin, Martina Mengoni presented the book Il carteggio con Heinz Riedt, Einaudi, 2024. Walter Barberis, Maurizio Crosetti and Fabio Levi moderated the meeting with the curator.
Il carteggio con Heinz Riedt
Presentation at the bookstore Lo spazio in Pistoia
Saturday, January 10th, 2025 at 18:30 occurred at the Library Lo Spazio of Pistoia the first presentation of the book Il carteggio con Heinz Riedt, Einaudi, 2024, curated by Martina Mengoni. Massimo Bucciantini and Giovanni Capecchi moderated the meeting with the curator. Dramatic readings by Massimiliano Barbini. The meeting took place within the framework of the festival “Le parole di Hurbinek”.
https://www.leparoledihurbinek.it/edizioni/2025/dettaglio/aspettando-hurbinek
LeviNeT at School
On December 5th, 2024, Martina Mengoni and Alice Gardoncini meet the students of the Istituto Superiore Luigi Einaudi in Ferrara. They presented LeviNeT project and discussed the figure of Primo Levi. More information and pictures here:
LeviNeT Seminars
First Event:
The LeviNeT Seminars cycle starts on 22 November 2024, with events on literary and interdisciplinary topics related to Primo Levi and the project LeviNeT. These seminars are opportunities for discussion with Italian and international students on the thought and work of Levi, his German correspondents and his fortune in Germany, on the epistolary networks of the â900. They concern also the topics discussed in the correspondence: private and public memory, postwar justice, the possibility of âovercoming the pastââ. The first guest is Simone Ghelli, post-doc researcher in political philosophy at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, with a conference entitled Social animals, then aggressive. The ânaturalistic moralismâ of Primo Levi. It will be an opportunity to discuss his book La vita Ăš ingiusta. Il doloroso darwinismo di Primo Levi, released this year by the Italian Institute of Philosophical Studies Press in Naples. The seminars are designed for students of the University of Ferrara, to the teachers and to the citizens.
Appointment on Friday, November 22 at 15 in Room 2, Polo Adelardi (via degli Adelardi 33, Ferrara).
The live streaming can be followed here: https://youtube.com/live/l7aqddTuWh0?feature=share
For information: martina.mengoni@unife.it
Presentation of The LeviNeT Project
LeviNeT, as well as the correspondence between Primo Levi and Hermann Langbein, has been presented in Ferrara on Sept. 26, 2024 during the conference Primo Levi Letter-Writer. The LeviNeT Project. International scholars, the translators involved in the project and the curators participated, and a theatrical reading of the letters by Valter Malosti closed the day.
Gallery
