By the end of the current summer, the University of Turin – Department of Humanities, in collaboration with the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, is organizing MYREiO – MYths and REalities of Occitan, the first international Summer School dedicated to exploring and relaunching themes related to the Occitan language and culture and their teaching. This is an extraordinary opportunity for the Cuneo area, which will host a series of prestigious meetings intended for university students and researchers from the three participating institutions, but also open to the entire public of enthusiasts, speakers, and scholars. For the first time, the University of Turin is bringing authoritative experts and lecturers to the valleys with the intention of initiating fruitful collaboration and openness to the territory’s influences, offering everyone, as auditors, the free opportunity to attend the sessions, organized over several days according to the following calendar, already previewed in San Damiano Macra in June during the “Borghi in Dialogo 2026” initiative.
Monday, August 31 at 7:00 PM in the Hall of Honor of the Cuneo Town Hall: opening of the School and institutional greetings.
Tuesday, September 1 at the Aula Magna 107 of the “Ex Mater Amabilis,” from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM philologist and UniTO lecturer Andrea Giraudo will speak on Troubadours and Beyond; from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM Bruno Surace, semiologist and lecturer in cinematography at UniTO, will discuss The Occitania Brand in Cinema and Audiovisual and Digital Media. Sessions resume from 3:30 PM to 5:30 PM with Filippo Barbera, sociologist, UniTO lecturer and delegate for inland areas and metro-mountain territorial systems, with Local Identity and Territorial Development: The Case of the Cuneo Valleys.
Wednesday, September 2, again at the “Ex Mater Amabilis,” from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM Riccardo Regis, sociolinguist and UniTO lecturer, will speak on Myth and Reality in a Sociolinguistic Perspective; from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM Jean-Paul Rehr, medievalist and UniTO researcher, will present Heresy and Inquisition in Occitania: Between Myth and Reality.
Thursday, September 3 the sessions will take place in Elva, in Valle Maira: between 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM a toponymic excursion will be offered, guided by dialectologist and nature guide Aline Pons of the University of Valle d’Aosta. At 4:00 PM Philippe Biu,
Occitan lecturer at the Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, will illustrate Lo lengatge shiulat d’Aas: iniciacion e demonstracion (The Whistled Language of Aas). To conclude the day, at 5:00 PM Guido Canepa, PhD in dialectology and UniTO researcher, will speak on The Jargon of the Pelassiers of Elva.
Friday, September 4 from 8:30 AM to 11:00 AM historical-landscape excursion in lower Valle Maira; at 12:00 PM meeting at the Espaci Occitan in Dronero where Rosella Pellerino, linguist and Scientific Director of the Association, will accompany participants on a visit to the Institute of Studies and the Occitan Museum, illustrating the project dedicated to the 1000 years of Valle Maira. The afternoon continues at Espaci Occitan from 2:30 PM to 4:30 PM with Antoni Rossell, philologist and musicologist at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, who will speak on Myth and Reality in Music. Epistemology of the Interpretation of the Medieval Troubadour Repertoire. To finish, from 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM a multi-voice presentation on the teaching of the langue d’oc: Myth and Reality in the Teaching of Occitan (as a Minority Language) with Ilaria Fiorentini, sociolinguist and lecturer at the University of Pavia, Aline Pons and Rosella Pellerino.
Grand finale Saturday, September 5 in the Hall of Honor of the Cuneo Town Hall, where from 9:30 AM the Round Table The Role of European Universities in the Promotion and Protection of the Occitan Language and Culture will take place, coordinated by Giuseppe Noto, philologist and UniTO lecturer, with Filippo Barbera, Philippe Biu, Cristina Clerico (Councillor for Culture, University, Youth Policies, City of Cuneo), Gianluca Cuniberti (UniTO Vice-Rector), Alessandro Mengozzi (Director of the Department of Humanities UniTO), Antoni Rossell, Matteo Rivoira (dialectologist and UniTO lecturer, Director of the Italian Linguistic Atlas).
The Scientific Committee of the initiative is composed of Andrea Giraudo (UniTO), Philippe Biu (UPPA), Massimiliano Gaggero (UniTO), Giuseppe Noto (UniTO), Antoni Rossell (UAB); the Organizing Committee of Guido Canepa (UniTO), Andrea Giraudo (UniTO), Rosella Pellerino (Espaci Occitan).
Those interested in attending as auditors for all or only some of the days are kindly requested to contact andrea.giraudo@unito.it or guido.canepa@unito.it by August 27; participation in the sessions of September 3 (excursion and lessons in Elva) and September 4 morning (excursion in lower valley) is reserved for students enrolled in the school.
The Summer School, funded under the UniTo Starting Grants 2025 program and included in the VALLE MAIRA 28 MAGGIO 2028 initiatives