A conference entitled “The Historical Relations between German and Italian Psychology in an International Framework” will be held in Rome this week (15-16 Oct). The conference is being sponsored by the Istituto Italiano di Studi Germanci, in collaboration with the journals Physis and History of Psychology. The organizers describe the theme as follows:

The birth and affirmation in Italy of a psychology with ‘scientific’ aspirations were broadly influenced by the psychological ‘research practices’ developed in the German cultural area: from those of an experimental kind – with Wundt and the Leipzig school, G. E. Mueller and the Goettingen school, Stumpf and the Berlin school, Kuelpe and the Wuerzburg school — to those with a ‘phenomenological’ approach inspired by Brentano, up to those tied to the psychiatric and psychoanalytic tradition. This influence, which has been recognized in the case of some contributions and individuals, has however not yet been sufficiently investigated and analyzed; above all, the role and importance of the German school, in comparison with other international trends, as well as its mutual involvement with a genuine and specific Italian tradition of psychological studies, has not been clearly determined. The intention of this Conference is thus that of beginning to identify the complex itineraries and relations that connected the ‘new’ Mitteleuropean scientific psychology to the Italian one: during both the initial stage of the latter’s ‘gestation’ in the last decades of the 19th century, and the successive period of affirmation and development in the course of the first half of the 20th century.

Speakers will include Horst Gundlach of Wuerzburg, Guido Cimino of La Sapienza (Rome), and Wade Pickren of Ryerson U. (Toronto)

The complete brochure for the conferene can be found here (pdf).