Tourism and Heritage from the Border – 7–11 July 2025 | University of Trieste, Italy
Tourism is a powerful force in shaping Europe’s cultural and economic landscape, but it also raises critical issues: overtourism, simplified narratives, and the erasure of historical complexity. These effects are particularly evident in border cities where rich, layered identities and diverse memories are often reduced to stories that are easier to market.
The Festival of European Culture and Languages, organised within the Transform4Europe University Alliance, takes on these questions through an immersive and critical learning experience for students and researchers coming from across Europe.
Trieste —an emblematic border city with a complex past— becomes the stage for this open-air laboratory on heritage. Designed as a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP), the Festival combines theory and practice through several lectures, interdisciplinary workshops, urban explorations, and creative performances. The aim is to challenge standardised heritage representations and foster new reflections on identity, memory, and cultural sustainability in a changing Europe.
Programme Highlights:
25th June – An online kick-off meeting for the participants, with an introduction to the goals and structure of the week. The session includes two lectures on tourism intertwined with mobility and memory, led by Professors Roberta Altin and Alessandro Carrieri.
7th July – The official launch of the Festival at the University of Trieste, followed by a guided tour of the city led by Professors Roberta Altin, Tullia Catalan, Giuseppe Grimaldi and Alessandro Carrieri. Participants will critically examine Trieste’s tourist image through the lenses of anthropology, history, and heritage studies.
8th July – A full day dedicated to the theme of “heritage of overtourism.” Coordinated by Roberta Altin and Giuseppe Grimaldi, the day opens with a roundtable discussion featuring scholars from various disciplines. This is followed by a workshop on mapping border tourism led by Stefano Mastromarino. The day ends with the screening of Abito di Confini (2025), a film by Opher Thomson exploring the connections between tourism and migration — free and open to the public event.
9th July – A deep dive into memory tourism, coordinated by Professors Tullia Catalan and Alessandro Carrieri. The group will take a critical excursion to historical and natural heritage sites, focusing on contested, forgotten, and reinterpreted memories and the reshaping of the spaces that host them.
10th July – A day focused on multilingualism, a foundational element of Trieste’s identity. Organised by Federica Fragapane of the School for Interpreters and Translators, the day begins with a lecture by Professor Piergiorgio Trevisan on the legacy of multilingualism in Trieste, followed by hands-on language workshops.
11th July – Final presentations: students will share their projects, developed collaboratively during the week. The day concludes with the announcement of the winning initiatives for the T4EU Common Cultural Activities, a cross-alliance initiative dedicated to heritage collaboration among Transform4Europe partner universities.
The Festival — which will also be enriched by the simultaneous running of the “First T4EU Sustainable Heritage Student Competition”, focusing on the relationship between heritage, the environment, and generational awareness — will serve as an opportunity to raise participants’ awareness of key contemporary issues.
In addition to involving students, researchers, and professors from the University of Trieste and various European universities, selected events from the Festival and the Student Competition will also be open to the general public. These events, free and open-access, will be held in English and include:
- Tuesday, July 8, 9:30 AM, Androna Baciocchi (Room A) – Perspectives on Overtouristification and Heritage Roundtable with professors, researchers, and experts from UniTS, OGS, SISSA, ECAN, and UCL.
- Tuesday, July 8, 6:00 PM, Cinema Ariston Abito di Confini (2025) by Opher Thomson Film screening followed by a discussion with the director.
- Wednesday, July 9, 2:00 PM, Androna Baciocchi (Room A) – Climate Change across Space and Time Roundtable with professors, researchers, and experts from UniTS, OGS, AMP Miramare, and gECO.
- Thursday, July 10, 9:30 AM, Androna Baciocchi (Room A) – Crossroads of Voices: Multilingualism in a Global Context and the Unique Case of Trieste Lecture by Prof. Piergiorgio Trevisan, UniTS.
- Friday, July 11, 9:30 AM, Androna Baciocchi (Room A) – Work Group Projects Student Presentations Presentation of the projects developed by students during the Festival’s working week.