15 with Fosca

Il Mentoring: Ascolto, Riflessione & Fiducia, Part 1 Featuring Matteo Perchiazzi     Registrato il 12 Marzo 2024 a Musikalmente Firenze   “La metodologia del mentoring da costrutto, proprio come base iniziale, fa sì che il Mentor metta a disposizione la propria esperienza non solo professionale, ma anche di vita.” Matteo Perchiazzi  Oggi giorno sentiamo tanto parlare di mentoring ma che cos’è...

We are celebrating one year of the podcast with an entire episode dedicated to you, our listeners, and to your questions about Italy, Italians, and Italian culture.  Don’t miss this q&a with Mark Scott, a University of Missouri journalism major and Ask Fosca’s very first intern. Mark not only came up with the idea for the podcast, but he also selected your questions, and interviewed me for thi...

“We call it a retreat because we want people to get away from what they're normally doing and thinking. You don't have to be a foodie to go there, but you'll probably leave as one”. Rebecca Christophersen Gouttenoire on Campo Sasso  In part two of my conversation with Rebecca Christophersen Gouttenoire we speak more about leaps of faith, chance encounters, and the fortunate twists of f...

Recorded at Formaggioteca Terroir on April 2, 2024  “I really wanted to get into the culture and learn the language, which I did. I wasn't just here to visit and superficially sit and watch what was going on around me. I wanted to immerse myself and become like the locals, live like the locals, to know in my own skin what that is like and that's the only way I could understand how to creat...

“Italy changed my DNA in a sense. After a career spanning several different things, a year ago, I launched my executive coaching business. I'm working with execs, founders, and rising leaders. Through a coaching perspective I wanted some of the same things that I love about Italy, like slowing down and really connecting and getting to the heart of it with people, and I’m finding that to be a r...

“You have a relationship with the artist. This was a painting in which she put an idealized version of her face, so I am looking at her and working on her and we were communicating on so many different levels.” Elizabeth Wicks on restoring Artemisia Gentileschi’s Allegory of Inclination. This past March, Elizabeth Wicks, renowned fine art conservator, and fellow Florentine by adoption, invited me...

This past April, I sat down with members of the Mama Florence family to chat with them about their relationship with Italian cuisine, their first and most significant food memories and moments, their favorite dishes, and why they love the work they do. What comes out in our conversations is just how inextricably linked food and the idea of home are, and what Mama Florence does every day to foster...

“I really felt like I came alive here. Life felt simultaneously easier and harder, but underneath all of that, more inspiring and enlivening. And it's something that I just couldn't leave.” Alexandria Brown-Hejazi In this special, long episode featuring art historian Alexandria Brown-Hejazi, we begin by speaking about her journey from California to Italy, in the midst of the pandemic, and...

“I think for anyone who lives in Italy or is interested in Italy, it's really valuable and interesting to keep those other connections in mind. The Mediterranean touches us all in some way or other.” Ali Aydin Karamustafa In part two of our conversation, Ali and I continue to discuss Italy’s relationship to its Mediterranean neighbors and to the Islamic world through the ages and take a deeper...

Season 2, Episode 19 Italy, Islam & the Mediterranean featuring Ali Aydin Karamustafa “I'm from Saint Louis, but I'm also originally Turkish and Iranian, so I have a basic experience with the Mediterranean. Coming to Italy there were a lot of things that were immediately recognizable, even just on the visceral level: sights, sounds, colors, smells, facial features. On the other hand, I...

Season 2, Episode 18 From East to West: Art, Aesthetics & Sustainable Fashion, Part 2 featuring Vea Chen In the second half of my chat with Vea Chen we expound further upon fashion and speak about Vea’s approach to her dream of founding a sustainable fashion brand and the concrete steps she has taken and is taking to make that dream a reality. We also grapple with the meaning of fashion, today...

“In the museums, when you go there, you feel like you're taking a bath, it's like a bath in art. And then you just feel a whole refresh, your eyes are brighter, and you see things in different colors. I feel like art influences a person subconsciously a lot, much more than what you can think with your logic. After I go to the Uffizi, even after three days, the effects start to emerge in me...

Season 2, Episode 16 Languages, Literature, and Living Abroad: Cultivating One’s Garden in our Global World Featuring Chloe Summers Edmondson Recorded via Zoom, January 2024 “The tools that you gain through studying the humanities are going to serve you in any career that you have…the ability to write and express clearly, to communicate clearly, to solve problems that have no clear answers, to col...

Season 2, Episode 15 Beautiful Deep: A Journey of Faith, Part 2 Featuring Sherrita Duran “I think the world right now is so dark, darker than ever, you know, and I think about what I can do and in whatever capacity I can, I want to be the opposite of that. I want to bring light. I want to bring faith.” Sherrita Duran In the second half of my conversation with Sherrita Duran, brilliant and delightf...

Beautiful Deep: A Journey of Faith, Part 1 Featuring Sherrita Duran “I fell in love with opera, I fell in love with Puccini and Verdi, and I went to USC (University of Southern California), to the music school there, because that was my passion. I'm going to be an opera singer. That's all I want to do, be an opera singer. So, I just put all my energy into that and obviously life, you know,...

“Going back to Sarah Parker Remond, this city has a long history of what nowadays we call inclusion. At the time it was cosmopolitanism, right? This city is very, very open and welcoming and, you know, it has its challenges, but I would like to quote a student of mine who last week told me that, Florence is too big to be such a small city.” Lucia Ducci In this second part of my conversation with L...

The Power of Leaving & Returning, Part 1 featuring Lucia Ducci “So, all these practical or academic challenges that we might encounter or have encountered are really important steps that helped me, that help anybody, who's on this path to grow and to progress, personally and academically; and this is the most important thing, progress, to progress, that you are progressing.” Lucia Ducci Th...

La Giustizia & Il Futuro, Part 2 featuring Sara Celati  In questa seconda parte della mia chiacchierata con Sara Celati entriamo di più nella sua storia personale, parlando dei suoi prossimi obiettivi, le sue passioni e com’è stato partecipare come concorrente e vincere uno dei game show più amati dagli italiani, l’Eredità.  Continuiamo a riflettere sul lavoro e lo studio, sulle ingiustizie e...

Season 2, Episode 10 featuring Sara Celati Ovviamente, avendo vissuto sempre in Italia per 25 anni ormai noto più forse gli aspetti negativi di questo paese, li noto molto di più. Magari andando all'estero riesco a rinnamorare del mio paese. Sara Celati In questa prima parte della mia conversazione con Sara Celati, studentessa di giurisprudenza all’Università di Pisa, iniziamo ad affrontare de...

Season 2, Episode 9 Accessible Study Abroad: Verto Education’s Winning Model, Part 2 Cristiana Gallai, Florence Center Director, Verto Education In the second part of our two-part conversation, Cristiana Gallai and I dig deeper into the experience of Verto Education’s first year students in Florence, discuss the ins and outs of study abroad, and ask what Florence and Italy still have to offer to o...

Accessible Study Abroad: Verto Education’s Winning Model, Part 1 Cristiana Gallai, Florence Center Director, Verto Education “With Verto, students have the opportunity, regardless of their financial background, to study abroad, to study somewhere which is not their home country and learn about different cultures. And that becomes the path for them to access a college education and allows us to hos...

Space and the City, Part 2 Featuring Devorah Block, Strategy & Engagement Educator & Advisor for the Third Sector, Salon of Urban Architecture & Circles Squared “What we are looking at as a global society, in different shades and in different ways and with different contexts and nuances, and what a lot of people are seeking out, is putting a real value on the human again. With the diff...

❤️Special Valentine’s Day Weekend Edition❤️ Jill Romanelli, Head Event Planner, Tuscan Wedding Are you dreaming about getting married in Tuscany? Perhaps you’ve already decided that you want a Tuscan destination wedding, but just don’t know where to start? Or maybe you’re a hopeless romantic like me and want to celebrate Valentine’s Day weekend by listening to some fantastic stories about weddings...

“I think that arriving in Florence, where value was placed on life much more than it is on work, was key. I was much more interested in living a certain kind of life than I was in making a certain amount of money, and that's really what sustains me here. Then The Recovery Plan, Black History Month Florence, those were built to make up for all the things that I was not okay with. There's a...

“Of all the platforms, Black History Month is the one where we really work on activating our network. Because we have all year to do our work and share what we do, but we really want other institutions to be involved, to show what they're doing. To connect with us. And so that's really the moment of February for us and it's the moment of maybe more visibility. It's the moment of br...