Stefano Scandella

Re-reading Kierkegaard's Abraham (Gen. 22) and Kafka's Josef K. through the Kantian concepts of 'end in itself' and of 'autonomy' This paper aims to shed new light on Kierkegaard's interpretation of Abraham's ordeal (Gen. 22), as presented in Fear and Trembling, and on Kafka's main character of The Trial, 'Josef K.'. Both narratives are framed into a general problematization of the concept of law: more specifically, the relation between 'divine law' and 'human ethics'. By conceiving the human being as an 'end in itself' and as a self-coercive 'autonomous' lawgiver, Kantian philosophy can be used as an intellectual bridge to solve the aforementioned complex relation, as well as other conceptual polarization that are present in both texts: faith-reason, particular-universal, individualitycommunity, and recognition-misrecognition. After giving a condensed description of the nature of these two Kantian concepts, they will be used as guiding lines in the analysis of Kafka's and Kierkegaard's positions towards the law.

Outlining a strong stylistic feature of the early von Trier, namely quotationism, his Medea takes its cue from Carl Theodor Dreyer’s never-realized project. The influence of von Trier’s maestro turns out to be substantial but not obvious to interpret: the 1988 Medea was by no means the mere realization of a script, but rather a free interpretation and homage to Dreyer’s cinematic style, in particular to the female figure – tortured and lonely – presented in La passion de Jeanne d’ Arc (1928).

This article will show how the understanding of the English Nonconformist Protestantism influence on Foscolo is decisive to interpret the main arguments and fundamental articulations presented in the Discorso sul testo della Commedia. Providing first a general description of Foscolo’s critical approach, I will then proceed to a detailed analysis of a series of passages that will prove the actual importance of this influence.

Il lavoro di Mémoire porta sull'introduzione al commento di Foscolo alla Commedia di Dante, ossia il primo dei 5 tomi previsti per i tipi di William Pickering, all'altezza del 1825.

Analizzando nel dettaglio gli argomenti e la capacità retorica di Foscolo, l’analisi dimostra come la critica dantesca del poeta ionio sia un momento fondamentale all'interno della storia della critica letteraria della Commedia.

The Conference presents papers by a group of doctoral students from various American universities who deal with the works of poets from Guido Cavalcanti, Dante, Michelangelo, Tasso, Foscolo, and Leopardi up to Campana and Luzi. While their approaches are different, all the studies indicate a propensity to read poetry by establishing stratified associations with diverse disciplines. They open a relational space in which medieval, modern, and contemporary lyric poetry interacts with philosophy (Aristotle and Aristotelianism, Neoplatonism: Plotinus; Vico, and Hegel), history, and ethnology. The renewed interest in lyric poetry recently expressed by younger scholars does not fully explain or motivate their interpretations and methods. Rather, what emerges from their readings is the result of a more specific, focused attempt to activate a challenging interaction between the emotional-sentimental sphere and the intellectual-erudite.

Stefano Scandella and Fabio Caredda, NYU PhDs

Throughout Western European History, masks have developed from physical objects that represented character types in Ancient Greek Theater into objects that represented a deceptive concealment of identity in the Middle Ages. The platonic concept of separation between the body and the soul, the former being a mere physical shell that encased the ‘true’ self, was further transmitted by Augustine in Early Christian thought: “the body itself became a persona, a mask its wearer only escaped at death” (Napier, 1986). In the carnivalesque context, that is one that allows a temporary inversion of official values (Bakhtin, 1968) masks are the physical tool allowing individuals to escape their social established identity and to roleplay.
These concepts of persona and fictional identities may be used as tools to have new readings of Early Italian Literature works, in particular representatives of Frederick II’s itinerant court (1225-’50): Giacomo da Lentini, Pier delle Vigne, Jacopo Mostacci, Guido delle Colonne among others. In this context, there is a fundamental formal pretext: the lady sung by the poet functions as a mask or rhetorical device, allowing Frederick the II’s functionaries to debate on social and political power. Inspired by Occitan Poetry on courtly love, these poets inherited the theme of the fin’ amor though in a whole different social context: from the discourse on courtly love we move to a phenomenology of love that serves as a basis for the discovery of the ontology of the human being.