Fabio Dei

Fabio Dei – Scientific Curriculum
Degree in Philosophy, University of Siena, 1981; Ph.D. in “Methodologies of Ethno-Anthropological Research”, Universities of Siena-Perugia-Cagliari, 1993. 1984-1999: teacher in high school. 2000-2005 Researcher in the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. From 2005: Associate professor of Cultural Anthropology, University of Pisa.
My scientific work is focused on the following main topics:
1. Epistemology and history of anthropological studies. In this field I am author of several essays and articles and the following volumes:
- Ragione e forme di vita. Razionalità e relativismo in antropologia (with A. Simonicca), Milano, Angeli, 199; 2nd edition Milano, Angeli, 2008.
- Simbolo e teoria nell’antropologia religiosa (con A. Simonicca), Lecce, Argo, 1998.
- La discesa agli inferi. James G. Frazer e la cultura del Novecento, Lecce, Argo, 1998.
- Antropologia culturale, Bologna, Il Mulino, 2012; 2nd edition Bologna, Il Mulino, 2016.
- Stato, violenza, libertà . La “critica del potere” e l’antropologia contemporanea, edited by Fabio Dei and Caterina Di Pasquale, Roma, Donzelli, 2017
2. Popular culture and mass culture. This field of research starts from the problem of investigating the role of popular and folk culture in contemporary Italian and European society. Many of my university courses have been devoted to such topics, and so is the volumes Beethoven e le mondine. Ripensare la cultura popolare, Roma, Meltemi, 2002; and Cultura popolare in Italia. Da Gramsci all’Unesco (Bologna, Il Mulino, 2018), concerning the history of Italian folklore studies or “demologia”, their Gramscian roots, and their recent and problematic conversion into an “anthropology of cultural heritage”. Furthermore, I coordinated two research projects (PRA; Ateneo Projects of the University of Pisa) concerning “Everyday life and material culture in postwar Italy: history and anthropology of ordinary objects” and “Reenacting the past. Cultural memory and territorial identities” (see the volume Rievocare il passato. Memoria culturale e identità territoriali, edited by Fabio Dei and Caterina Di Pasquale, Pisa, Pisa University Press, 2017).
3. Anthropology of violence. This field of research explores the possibility of an anthropological understanding of mass violence and genocides in contemporary history (see the volume Antropologia della violenza, Roma, Meltemi, 2005). I have also directed (with prof. Pietro Clemente, University of Florence), a research supported by the Regione Toscana, concerning the memory of nazi-fascist slaughters of civilians in 1944. On these topics, see the volumes Poetiche e politiche del ricordo (edited with P. Clemente, Roma, Carocci, 2005) and Riti e simboli del 25 aprile (Roma, Meltemi, 2004), Grammatiche della violenza. Esplorazioni etnografiche in Guerra e in pace, co-edited with Caterina Di Pasquale, Pisa, Pacini, 2013; and the recent monograph Terrore suicida. Religione, politica e violenza nelle culture del martirio, Roma, Donzelli, 2016.
4. Medical anthropology. This is the field of my PhD thesis (1993), which tried to analyze alternative and complementary medicines and new age therapies (mainly “pranoterapia” or spiritual healing) in Tuscany. In the following years, I have written several articles about related themes, like the diffusion of magic in television broadcasting, and the relation between official, alternative and popular medicine in Toscana, and blood and organs donation (on this last topic see the volumes Il sangue degli altri, F. Dei ed., Firenze, Avisbook, 2007), and La donazione del sangue. Per un’antropologia dell’altruismo, F.Dei, M. Aria, G.L.Mancini eds, Pisa, Pacini, 2008).
Currently, I am main editor of the journal «Lares. Quadrimestrale di studi demoetnoantropologici», co-editor of the journals «Studi culturali» and «AM» [Medical Anthropology].