Leonardo Massantini studied Philosophy at the University of Pisa (BA 2015, MA 2017), and at the University of Oslo (Erasmus 2015-2016). He earned his PhD in Philosophy in 2022 from the Universities of Pisa and Florence in Cotutelle with the University of Osnabrück (Germany).
In his doctoral dissertation titled ‘Philosophy of Nostalgia: Affectivity, Media, and Politics,’ he analyzes how nostalgia can be scaffolded by media and new technologies, and how these external supports can be manipulated for political ends. As a researcher, he primarily focuses on emotions, imagination, memory, and the philosophy of technology. He approaches these topics through the lenses of 4E theories (embodied, embedded, extended, enactive), ancient philosophy (mainly Plato and Aristotle), philosophy of literature, and phenomenology.
He is currently a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies – Pisa, where he works on the philosophy of technology, focusing on robotics.