The voice that remains. Women’s teaching, humanitas, and the pedagogy of memory in Elisa Frauenfelder

Abstract

The article recalls the scientific work of Elisa Frauenfelder, focusing on the importance of her research for the history of Italian pedagogy and on the foresight of her interpretation of educational issues, which is still relevant today. Retracing the stages of her academic career, the article outlines Frauenfelder's human and scientific profile, starting with her early studies on Albertina Necker de Saussure and other female figures in pedagogical thought, up to her experience at the Suor Orsola Benincasa University, where her teacher Cecilia Motzo Dentice di Accadia had taught years earlier. Through a recapitulation of her research, from her studies deeply rooted in the history of modern educational thought, with insights into Leon Battista Alberti, Fausto Socino, and Tommaso Campanella, it’s possible to arrive at her research on the relationship between neuroscience and education in the 20th
century, which converged in her latest studies on bio-educational sciences. Emphasis is placed on her educational style, which has always viewed the classroom and the “chair” not as a mere “place” for the transmission of knowledge, but as a relational environment based on shared educational responsibility, with the aim of providing a full and comprehensive education for the individual.