Conference Eco 2026

Inheriting Eco. Umberto Eco, the University of Bologna and all the knowledge in the world

Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, 27-29 May 2026 

The year 2026 will mark the 10th anniversary of Umberto Eco's death on 19 February 2016.

Ten years during which Eco himself had asked not to organise any conferences about him, so as to better determine and appreciate what to forget, what to keep, and what to build on.

Indeed, a decade is an adequate time span to allow culture to fulfil two of its essential functions, adopted by Eco as central themes of his essays: that of filtering knowledge, offering subsequent generations only that which deserves to be remembered, and of opening, or renewing, a text through new interpretations. Two actions that, alone, serve to appreciate what can and must remain.

This conference on the 10th anniversary of Eco's death, which the Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna is promoting through its Centro internazionale di Studi umanistici “Umberto Eco”, aims to make Umberto Eco's intellectual legacy visible, inviting participants to shape the conference with the ambition of developing a scientific event that is genuinely close to Umberto Eco's way of thinking.

By bringing together scholars in the many fields of knowledge in which Eco worked, the conference aims to bring out Eco's legacy of thought; the aspects that emerge following the progress and distance brought about by ten years; the elements of thought that are still worthy of attention; and the directions in which these elements can be developed and relaunched today. This conference, therefore, has no set themes or sub-themes for reflection; instead, it makes room for the most important themes to emerge from the papers, debate and work of the scholars summoned to Bologna.

More information about the conference are available on the official website.