Massimo Recalcati addresses the theme of School and the practice of teaching in a book that stands as a tribute to the figure of the teacher. Every true teacher is both a light and a wave: a light, because they expand the horizon of our world, guiding us toward the necessary subjectivation of knowledge; a wave, because they embody the impact of the student’s encounter with something that resists – and it is precisely this resistance that compels the student to find their own personal style, so that what has been academically acquired can be reappropriated in a singular way and reinvented.

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Massimo Recalcati, one of the most well-known psychoanalysts in Italy, is the director of IRPA (Istituto di ricerca di psicoanalisi applicata) and, in 2003, founded Jonas Onlus (Centro di clinica psicoanalitica per i nuovi sintomi). He is a regular contributor to the newspaper la Repubblica and currently teaches at IULM University in Milan. Together with Maurizio Balsamo, he co-directs the journal Frontiere della psicoanalisi. He is the author of numerous books, translated into several languages, including L’uomo senza inconscio (Raffaello Cortina Editore), Il complesso di Telemaco (Feltrinelli), and a two-volume monograph on Jacques Lacan (Raffaello Cortina Editore, 2012 and 2016).
Among his publications with Einaudi are: L’ora di lezione (2014), I tabù del mondo (2017 and 2018), La notte del Getsemani (2019 and 2020), Il gesto di Caino (2020 and 2021), Ritorno a Jean-Paul Sartre. Esistenza, infanzia e desiderio (2021), Il grido di Giobbe (2021 and 2022), La legge della parola. Radici bibliche della psicoanalisi (2022 and 2023), his first play Amen (2022), La Legge del desiderio. Radici bibliche della psicoanalisi (2024 and 2025), and La luce e l’onda. Cosa significa insegnare? (2025).

Genius or Madness? The debate surrounding the life and works of Edvard Munch fits into a long tradition of prejudices that have marked the history of art. Psychiatrist Giovanni De Plato tackles the issue with a multidisciplinary and multi-professional approach, questioning how much the link between "madness and art" is a product of outdated psychiatric models. After analyzing the political and artistic stigma in previous works dedicated to van Gogh and Caravaggio, the author presents a study aimed at restoring conceptual autonomy to genius and art, freeing them from the artificial association with mental illness. 

Giovanni De Plato will be in conversation with Fabrizio Asioli, former director of the Department of Mental Health in Bologna, and Mauro Mazzali, former director of the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna.

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Giovanni De Plato, medical doctor and psychiatrist, former Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Bologna and Director of the Master’s program at the Buenos Aires campus, hospital chief physician and Director of the Mental Health Department of Ausl Bologna Nord, has served as a consultant for the WHO on healthcare and psychiatric reform in Latin American countries. He was named Guest of Honor of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires.
He is the author of scientific manuals and volumes, essayist, novelist, and columnist. Among his main educational texts are: Manuale di Psicologia e Psicopatologia delle Emozioni (BUP, 2015); Elementi di Psichiatria (BUP, 2016). He is also the author of novels such as: Il mistero di Evita (Chiarelettere, 2020); Vincent van Gogh. Il giallo della follia (Libri Scheiwiller, 2022); Caravaggio. La luce e il buio della mente (Libri Scheiwiller, 2023). Published by Pendragon: Il figlio del Migliore (2018) and Genio e arte. Il caso Edvard Munch (2025).