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In this paper, aims to indicate, following the horizon proposed by Primo Levi in The drowned and the saved [1986], that it is possible to communicate or decrease the distance between expressing and comprehending. As a hypothesis, we will argue that although we are not allowed to feel in the other's place, it is possible for us to understand their expression; this understanding would be based on a conversion of the gaze, founded on a desire to communicate. For this, we will use – in the horizon of Levi's problematic – some elements of Simone de Beauvoir's philosophy, especially her notion of situation, and of Ludwig Wittgenstein, with emphasis on his notion of panoramic presentation. Both notions mentioned suggest, in our view, methodical atitudes which Levi approached.

Primo Levi's works of testimony, from If This Is a Man to The Drowned and the Saved, seek not only to connect history and memory but also to provide general social and political perspectives relevant to the end of the twentieth century. The voice of this diaspora Jew has had echoes in a country which has recently begun to acknowledge its historical responsibilities. Levi's thoughts on shame, on violence and on the need to face collective responsibilities have been applied by Australian intellectuals to two specifically Australian issues. The first is a literary hoax which triggered a major cultural controversy in 1995, now widely known as the 'Demidenko affair'. The second is the relationship between Australian identity and the 'stolen generations' of Aboriginal children and young adults forcibly taken from their families between 1910 and 1970 and compelled to grow up isolated from their culture. The aftermath of the forced removals has produced widespread debates about national responsibility and the need to offer a public apology to Aboriginal Australians for this and other wrongs. I attempt to show how dialogue with Levi's reflections expands the ethical and political dimensions of Australian self‐examination, particularly in some works by the philosopher Raimond Gaita (who comes from a Romanian‐German background) and the political scientist Robert Manne (son and grandson of Holocaust survivors).

Between the late 1960s and the mid-1980s, Primo Levi, the great Italian survivor and writer, visited classrooms across Italy to talk with students about the Holocaust. During these visits, students openly challenged Levi's testimony or failed to understand what he had to say. How Levi responded to these challenges is the subject of this essay, which considers how and why Levi, in what would become his last work, turns to the gray zone and the duplicitous figure of Chaim Rumkowski in an effort to encourage his young readers to reckon with the very thing they most wanted to forget: the sense of vulnerability that leads people, in ways conscious and unconscious, to collude with power and seek privileges. In the process, the essay brings into focus the image of Levi as a gifted teacher, deeply interested in and responsive to his young readers and students.

In his stories, Primo Levi presents contrasting planetary visions of Earth: one depicting it as an expanding technosphere made of entangled beings, and the other as a world of disparities impacted by the agency of a mutated humanity. But Levi's ideas of planet do not solely advocate for a utopian cosmopolitanism of all living beings; he critically probes the tension between technology's promises in industrialized societies and the worldview that sees Earth merely as an exploitable resource. Moreover, his stories emphasize the divisions and the contradictions created by the planetarization of the logic of industrial modernity. This essay analyzes selected short stories from Vizio di forma, seeking to unpack Levi's intricate engagements with planetary concepts and the emergent idea of a terrestrial condition. Central to this exploration is how Levi's planetary vision reflects the inherent tensions between the individual and the collective, and between different scales and ways of existing.

RESUMO Este artigo1 discute o topos do limite da representação, que não surgiu no século XX, mas foi utilizado por muitos sobreviventes da Shoah para sugerir que os eventos ocorridos nos campos de concentração não poderiam ser convertidos em narrativa verossímil. Embora Primo Levi tenha recorrido a esse lugar-comum, nem por isso furtou-se de refletir sobre os horizontes e possibilidades da representação. Pretende-se analisar de que maneira o autor mobilizou diferentes expedientes para figurar o inaudito da experiência no Lager.

Jane Nystedt, fil. dr i italienska vid Stockholms universitet, ger här en allmän översikt över Primo Levis författarskap, som på senare tid fått ökad aktualitet i Sverige genom översättningarna till svenska av Se non ora, quando? ("Om inte nu, så när?", 1986), Se questo è um uomo "Är detta en människa", 1988) och La tregua ("Fristen", 1991).