Igor Škamperle (born 21 November 1962) is a

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

n sociologist,

cultural theorist Culture theory is the branch of comparative anthropology and semiotics that seeks to define the heuristic concept of culture in operational and/or scientific terms. Overview In the 19th century, "culture" was used by some to refer to a wide a ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

essayist An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

mountaineer Mountaineering, mountain climbing, or alpinism is a set of outdoor activities that involves ascending mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing, and traversing via ferratas that have become sports ...

and

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...

. He was born in a Slovene-speaking family in

Trieste Trieste ( , ; ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital and largest city of the Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as well as of the Province of Trieste, ...

, Italy. He studied

comparative literature Comparative literature studies is an academic field dealing with the study of literature and cultural expression across language, linguistic, national, geographic, and discipline, disciplinary boundaries. Comparative literature "performs a role ...

and

cultural sociology The sociology of culture, and the related cultural sociology, concerns the systematic analysis of culture, usually understood as the ensemble of symbolic codes used by a member of a society, as it is manifested in the society. For Georg Simmel, ...

at the

University of Ljubljana The University of Ljubljana (, , ), abbreviated UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 38,000 enrolled students. The university has 23 faculties and three art academies with approximately 4,000 teaching and re ...

, where he graduated in 1990. He continued his studies at the Universities of

Bologna Bologna ( , , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in northern Italy. It is the List of cities in Italy, seventh most populous city in Italy, with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nationalities. Its M ...

and

Perugia Perugia ( , ; ; ) is the capital city of Umbria in central Italy, crossed by the River Tiber. The city is located about north of Rome and southeast of Florence. It covers a high hilltop and part of the valleys around the area. It has 162,467 ...

, where he studied cultural and social changes in the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

period and the cosmologic thought of

Giordano Bruno Giordano Bruno ( , ; ; born Filippo Bruno; January or February 1548 – 17 February 1600) was an Italian philosopher, poet, alchemist, astrologer, cosmological theorist, and esotericist. He is known for his cosmological theories, which concep ...

. Since 1999, he works as a professor of sociology at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana. His field of interest is mostly the Renaissance culture and the theory of symbolic forms. In his writings and translations, Škamperle introduced the thought of the Italian historical school (with

Eugenio Garin Eugenio Garin (May 9, 1909 – December 29, 2004) was an Italian philosopher and Renaissance historian. He was recognised as an authority on the cultural history of the Renaissance. Born at Rieti, Garin studied philosophy at the University of Flo ...

and

Federico Chabod Federico Chabod (; February 23, 1901 – July 14, 1960), also referred to as Frédéric Chabod (), was an Italian historian and politician. Biography Born in Aosta from notary Laurent Chabod, from Valsavarenche, and Giuseppina Baratono, from ...

as its main representatives) into the Slovene

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods used by historians in developing history as an academic discipline. By extension, the term ":wikt:historiography, historiography" is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiog ...

. He wrote treatises about Renaissance thinkers such as

Pico della Mirandola Giovanni Pico dei conti della Mirandola e della Concordia ( ; ; ; 24 February 146317 November 1494), known as Pico della Mirandola, was an Italian Renaissance nobleman and philosopher. He is famed for the events of 1486, when, at the age of 23, ...

and

Nicholas of Cusa Nicholas of Cusa (1401 – 11 August 1464), also referred to as Nicholas of Kues and Nicolaus Cusanus (), was a German Catholic bishop and polymath active as a philosopher, theologian, jurist, mathematician, and astronomer. One of the first Ger ...

. He was one of the first scholars of

hermetism Hermeticism, or Hermetism, is a philosophical and religious tradition rooted in the teachings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, a syncretic figure combining elements of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. This system encompasses a ...

in Slovenia, as well as one of the first Slovene interpreters of

Carl Gustav Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology. A prolific author of over 20 books, illustrator, and correspondent, Jung was a ...

. Škamperle's most important work is ''Magična renesansa'' ("The Magical Renaissance"), in which he analyzed the magical-mythological current in the European Renaissance and reflected on the reasons of its disappearance with the emergence of

Classicism Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. In its purest form, classicism is an aesthe ...

. He studied and wrote about the political thought of Machiavelli, the historical epistemology of

Alexandre Koyré Alexandre Koyré (; ; born Alexandr Vladimirovich (or Volfovich) Koyra; 29 August 1892 – 28 April 1964), also anglicized as Alexander Koyre, was a French philosopher of Russian origin who wrote on the history and philosophy of science. ...

and various religious manifestations such as

shamanism Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...

. He also published important studies on Eleazar M. Meletinskii and

Georges Dumézil Georges Edmond Raoul Dumézil (4 March 189811 October 1986) was a French Philology, philologist, Linguistics, linguist, and religious studies scholar who specialized in comparative linguistics and comparative mythology, mythology. He was a prof ...

. In his young years, Škamperle was a mountaineer. He wrote several books on mountaineering which has an important influence in the Slovene mountaineer

subculture A subculture is a group of people within a culture, cultural society that differentiates itself from the values of the conservative, standard or dominant culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures ...

. His writing insert themselves in a long tradition of Slovene mountaineering essayistics, that goes from

Julius Kugy Julius Kugy (19 July 1858 – 5 February 1944) was a mountaineer, writer, botanist, humanist, lawyer and officer of Slovenian descent. He wrote mostly in German. He is renowned for his travelogues from opening up the Julian Alps, in which he refle ...

to Tone Svetina and

Dušan Jelinčič Dušan Jelinčič (born 1953) is a writer and a journalist from the community of Slovene minority in Italy from Trieste, Italy.Slovenian Television Broadcast. The two most important were the film ''Epifanija zemlje in duha'' ("

Epiphany Epiphany may refer to: Psychology * Epiphany (feeling), an experience of sudden and striking insight Religion * Epiphany (holiday), a Christian holiday celebrating the revelation of God the Son as a human being in Jesus Christ ** Epiphany seaso ...

of Earth and Spirit"), dedicated to the 80 years of the author

Alojz Rebula Alojz Rebula (June 21, 1924 – October 23, 2018) was a Slovene writer, playwright, essayist, and translator, and a prominent member of the Slovene minority in Italy. He lived and worked in Villa Opicina in the Province of Trieste, Italy. He wa ...

, and a documentary on the Slovene philosopher

Klement Jug Klement Jug (19 November 1898 – 11 August 1924) was a Slovene philosopher, essayist and mountaineer who died while climbing Mount Triglav. Although he did not publish many works during his lifetime, he became one of the most influential thi ...

. He regularly publishes essays reflecting on contemporary society in the journals '' Sodobnost'' and '' Nova revija''.

Major works

*''Sneg na zlati veji'' ("The Snow on the Golden Branch", novel, 1992) *''Hermetizem'' ("Hermetism", monograph, 1996) *'' Kraljeva hči'' ("The King's Daughter", novel, 1997) *''Magična renesansa'' ("The Magical Renaissance, 1999) *''Šamanizem'' ("Shamanism", monograph, 2007)

Sources

Department of Sociology: Igor Škamperle

External links

Interview in the magazine Geo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Skamperle, Igor 1961 births Living people Writers from Trieste University of Ljubljana alumni University of Bologna alumni University of Perugia alumni Academic staff of the University of Ljubljana Slovenian sociologists Slovenian novelists Slovenian essayists Slovenian translators Italian–Slovene translators Slovenian mountain climbers Italian Slovenes