Carmen Dell'Aversano
I am a specialist in communication in the fields of literature, personal relationships and therapy. I teach at Pisa university (Italy) and in several therapist training institutes (Institute of Constructivist Psychology, Padua, Italy; European Institute of Systemic-Relational Therapies, Milan, Italy; Centro Studi in Psicoterapia Cognitiva, Florence, Italy). I have been a visiting professor at Princeton (USA) and NUS (Singapore).
In my work I have always laid great emphasis on creating and maintaining relationships across geographic, disciplinary and social boundaries. In the area of international contacts, I have founded and directed an academic exchange programme between Pisa and Harvard and have taught at Princeton and at Singapore; I have been elected several times to the boards of international scientific organizations such as the European Association of the Teachers of Academic Writing (EATAW), and I belong to the editorial board of international journals like the Journal of Constructivist Psychology and Personal Construct Theory and Practice. As for interdisciplinarity, my published work spans and connects a number of fields, from Jewish studies to psychology, from philosophy to discourse analysis, from literary theory to queer studies, from linguistics to film studies to critical animal studies.
In my choice of research interests I have always privileged issues which allow for original and productive connections between apparently distant disciplines and methodologies, creating a deeper and more nuanced understanding of complex cultural and social phenomena. My chief methodological objective is to demonstrate the possibility to connect, in a novel but enlightening way, methods and topics from fields which normally do not communicate with one another; in the most promising instances this allows to conceptualize fundamental and highly complex phenomena in a way which is not only original but useful to the progress of individual disciplines. I have always believed in the social responsibility of scholars and in the effectiveness of research in shaping society and policy; in my home institution I have worked for a long time in the Centre for Jewish Studies (CISE); I have long been a volunteer for several NGOs, among them the World Wildlife Fund, I-CARE (International Center for Alternatives in Research and Education) and Victim Support Italy; in my volunteer work I have initiated and taken part in a number of projects, in collaboration with public and private partners, at the local, national and international level.
Among my main research interests, spanning the fields of literary theory, of pedagogy and psychology, are constructions and politics of identity, particularly in the new conceptualizations which are made possible by queer studies. In connection with this over the last few years I have been working on two book projects: one on the assimilation of European Jews and one on a critical animal studies approach to queer theory shaped by Harvey Sacks's work on categories.
I have been an animal rights activist for decades, both at the local level (TNR programs for feral cats, fostering and adoption of stray animals, rehabilitation of laboratory animals, lectures and seminars about the environmental, social and ethical impact of animal products both in my university and for the general public), and at the national and international level. I have collaborated in establishing I-CARE (International Center for Alternatives in Research and Education http://www.icareworldwide.
org/); since 2000 I have served as its coordinator for Italy.
In my work I have always laid great emphasis on creating and maintaining relationships across geographic, disciplinary and social boundaries. In the area of international contacts, I have founded and directed an academic exchange programme between Pisa and Harvard and have taught at Princeton and at Singapore; I have been elected several times to the boards of international scientific organizations such as the European Association of the Teachers of Academic Writing (EATAW), and I belong to the editorial board of international journals like the Journal of Constructivist Psychology and Personal Construct Theory and Practice. As for interdisciplinarity, my published work spans and connects a number of fields, from Jewish studies to psychology, from philosophy to discourse analysis, from literary theory to queer studies, from linguistics to film studies to critical animal studies.
In my choice of research interests I have always privileged issues which allow for original and productive connections between apparently distant disciplines and methodologies, creating a deeper and more nuanced understanding of complex cultural and social phenomena. My chief methodological objective is to demonstrate the possibility to connect, in a novel but enlightening way, methods and topics from fields which normally do not communicate with one another; in the most promising instances this allows to conceptualize fundamental and highly complex phenomena in a way which is not only original but useful to the progress of individual disciplines. I have always believed in the social responsibility of scholars and in the effectiveness of research in shaping society and policy; in my home institution I have worked for a long time in the Centre for Jewish Studies (CISE); I have long been a volunteer for several NGOs, among them the World Wildlife Fund, I-CARE (International Center for Alternatives in Research and Education) and Victim Support Italy; in my volunteer work I have initiated and taken part in a number of projects, in collaboration with public and private partners, at the local, national and international level.
Among my main research interests, spanning the fields of literary theory, of pedagogy and psychology, are constructions and politics of identity, particularly in the new conceptualizations which are made possible by queer studies. In connection with this over the last few years I have been working on two book projects: one on the assimilation of European Jews and one on a critical animal studies approach to queer theory shaped by Harvey Sacks's work on categories.
I have been an animal rights activist for decades, both at the local level (TNR programs for feral cats, fostering and adoption of stray animals, rehabilitation of laboratory animals, lectures and seminars about the environmental, social and ethical impact of animal products both in my university and for the general public), and at the national and international level. I have collaborated in establishing I-CARE (International Center for Alternatives in Research and Education http://www.icareworldwide.
org/); since 2000 I have served as its coordinator for Italy.
less
InterestsView All (16)
Uploads
Papers by Carmen Dell'Aversano
artistic theory and practice, and aid progress in artistic pedagogy. It is, quite uncharacteristically, written
from my own perspective as a practicing artist, and attempts to map the construct system which forms the
foundation of my aesthetic world and to link it to my personal construct system in general. Why do I like what
I like? Why do I make art the way I do? How can my work can be understood as an attempt to elaborate and
define my construct system?
Surrealism and the Kellyan concept of reconstruction. Its main thesis is that Surrealism originates in a reconstruction of the most superordinate construct in
both Western aesthetics and Western ontology—the construct real/unreal—and that the ultimate aim of Surrealist poetics is to provoke a similar reconstruction in the audience.
elucidation of the underlying theor y, for a two-day workshop addressed to amateur and professional artists in which various PCP techniques are used to elicit
constructs related to the exercise of creativity in the visual arts and the elicited constructs are applied to the exploration of new avenues of stylistic development.
Books by Carmen Dell'Aversano
artistic theory and practice, and aid progress in artistic pedagogy. It is, quite uncharacteristically, written
from my own perspective as a practicing artist, and attempts to map the construct system which forms the
foundation of my aesthetic world and to link it to my personal construct system in general. Why do I like what
I like? Why do I make art the way I do? How can my work can be understood as an attempt to elaborate and
define my construct system?
Surrealism and the Kellyan concept of reconstruction. Its main thesis is that Surrealism originates in a reconstruction of the most superordinate construct in
both Western aesthetics and Western ontology—the construct real/unreal—and that the ultimate aim of Surrealist poetics is to provoke a similar reconstruction in the audience.
elucidation of the underlying theor y, for a two-day workshop addressed to amateur and professional artists in which various PCP techniques are used to elicit
constructs related to the exercise of creativity in the visual arts and the elicited constructs are applied to the exploration of new avenues of stylistic development.