Governing consensus
The political role of knowledge in Italy (1789-1870)

Overview

How does one govern consensus? How does one navigate the political scenarios in the wake of the age of revolutions?
The project “Governing consensus. The political role of knowledge in Italy (1789-1870)” intends to answer these questions and starts from the hypothesis that in order to illustrate these phenomena, alongside the much studied categories of celebrity and charisma, it is necessary to rediscover the political role of knowledge.
To illustrate how knowledge became central in the public sphere and in the political arena, the project investigates places of education, media events, agents and texts in the Italian area (1789-1870).

In the period analyzed, which embraces revolutionary moments and profound institutional upheavals, the Italian peninsula appears as a laboratory in which to verify how the reconfiguration of ancient knowledge and the creation of new knowledge provided the agents who populated the political arena that competence (or the pretense of having it) necessary to have an impact on society and to govern consensus, that is, to act effectively to obtain and then retain power and positions.