09/07/2025 08:30
- 17:30
HALL: Lecture Hall 02
Proponent:
Leone M.
Chair:
Leone M.
Speaker:
Abu-Uksa W.,
Castagnetto Alessio M.,
Costa P.,
Fabretti V.,
Galvagni L.,
Giampieri G.,
Graffeo A.,
Hejazi S.,
Leone M.,
Mavropoulos A.,
Raehme B.,
Ropelato T.,
Sabatini R.,
Schisano M.,
Tashchenko A.,
Ucar E.,
Villeneuve A.
The panel aims to foster open discussion on the diverse meanings of "conservation" in religion and ethics, encompassing established traditions and the new implications of the term in the context of global warming, climate crisis, and artificial intelligence.
In Latin, "conservo" is a specification of "servo" (to keep, preserve, maintain, protect, watch over carefully, save). The term is used to indicate the act of preserving, guarding, or maintaining something. It shares with "servo" the intricate etymology of "servus," whose original meaning (*serwo-) likely was "guard" or "shepherd," but it evolved pejoratively to mean "slave" in Italy between 700 and 450 BC. "Conservo" adds the notion of a community where this act of watching over is shared. In Latin, "conservo" applies to animals, inanimate objects, and abstract principles like benevolence, faith, and nature itself.
In a world often depicted as undergoing rapid transformation, and within the framework of the EUARE 2025 Vienna congress focused on "Religion and Socio-Cultural Transformation," we seek to explore the concept of "conservation" in religion, spirituality, and ethics. What is conserved amidst transformation? What must be preserved to prevent transformation from disrupting the very essence of "form," leading to deformation? What are the intricate, labyrinthine, and sometimes controversial relationships between the different semantic fields of conservation mentioned above? How can the nature of animals, plants, and inanimate objects be conserved if such conservation does not also apply to principles and ideas? What is the relationship between conserving the past and preserving the future? Furthermore, what are the lexical, semantic, and pragmatic distinctions between terms like conservation, preservation, and reservation? And how does the term "conservation" extend to the complex semantic structure, from the conservative to the Italian musical "conservatorio"?