Dr. Bruno Grazioli, Dickinson in Italy, Italian Studies
Landscape Design and Sustainable Practices in Italian Culture
My participation to the Valley and Ridge workshop (May 2023) allowed me to reflect, explore and
ultimately design a new course on how culture can contribute to sustainable development. As
Director of and faculty in the Italian Studies Program for ºìÐÓÖ±²¥app in Bologna (Italy), one of
my main goals is to promote students’ linguistic growth and independence and facilitate their
participation and immersion in the local and national culture of Italy in a thoughtful and mindful way.
I have chosen to build my project and new course around the conceptual framework of “cultural
ecology”, a methodological approach that investigates the relationship between humans and
environments, and that considers culture as key to the understanding the evolutionary process.
Culture is indispensable for sustainability. Culture is what “enables sustainability – as a source of
strength, of values and social cohesion, self-esteem and participation.”
Yet culture is still not fully integrated into sustainable development strategies for social growth and
development worldwide. The “Humanities” play a crucial role to achieve
the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) through insights, knowledge and
comparative perspectives typical of these disciplines. However, none of the 17 UN goals is expressly
dedicated to cultural sustainability. Rather, culture is reflected transversely across several SDG.
Investigating the cultural dimension of sustainability means understanding why and how human
communities live and survive. My new course (Fall 2023) will employ a thematic (the Italian marks of
excellence: food, fashion, cars, hospitality) and experiential approach (we will meet the people
involved in those sectors) to gather stories about collective responsibility and reciprocity among
individuals and with the natural world, to better contextualize the case of Italy on the broader
international stage, and fully appreciate differences and similarities between local and global
manifestations of cultural sustainable development.