Simona Stano
Winner of a Marie Curie Global Fellowhip (project COMFECTION, 2019-2021), Simona Stano is Associate Professor at the University of Turin (UniTo, Italy). She is also the Deputy Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Communication (CIRCe).
She holds a PhD in Sciences of Language and Communication from the University of Turin (UniTo, Italy) and a PhD in Communication Sciences from Lugano University (USI, Switzerland).
She worked as a Senior Researcher at the International Semiotics Institute (ISI, Lithuania) from 2015 to 2018 and Visiting Researcher at the University of Toronto (UofT, Canada – 2013), Universitat de Barcelona (UB, Spain 2015-2016), Observatorio de la Alimentación (ODELA, Spain – 2015-2016), Kaunas University of Technology (2015-2018) and New York University (United States, 2019-2021).
Dr. Stano deals mainly with semiotics of culture, food semiotics, body semiotics, and communication studies, and has published several papers, edited volumes (including special issues of top semiotic journals such as Semiotica and Lexia), and monographs (I sensi del cibo. Elementi di semiotica dell'alimentazione, 2018; Eating the Other. Translations of the Culinary Code, 2015) on these topics. She has given many talks at national and international conferences, also organising and directing a number of scientific events and research projects.
In recent years she has collaborated as lecturer, examiner and supervisor of undergraduate and graduate students with several universities in Italy and abroad. Moreover, she has delivered semiotic and cultural analysis for international agencies and private organisations.
She holds a PhD in Sciences of Language and Communication from the University of Turin (UniTo, Italy) and a PhD in Communication Sciences from Lugano University (USI, Switzerland).
She worked as a Senior Researcher at the International Semiotics Institute (ISI, Lithuania) from 2015 to 2018 and Visiting Researcher at the University of Toronto (UofT, Canada – 2013), Universitat de Barcelona (UB, Spain 2015-2016), Observatorio de la Alimentación (ODELA, Spain – 2015-2016), Kaunas University of Technology (2015-2018) and New York University (United States, 2019-2021).
Dr. Stano deals mainly with semiotics of culture, food semiotics, body semiotics, and communication studies, and has published several papers, edited volumes (including special issues of top semiotic journals such as Semiotica and Lexia), and monographs (I sensi del cibo. Elementi di semiotica dell'alimentazione, 2018; Eating the Other. Translations of the Culinary Code, 2015) on these topics. She has given many talks at national and international conferences, also organising and directing a number of scientific events and research projects.
In recent years she has collaborated as lecturer, examiner and supervisor of undergraduate and graduate students with several universities in Italy and abroad. Moreover, she has delivered semiotic and cultural analysis for international agencies and private organisations.
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increasingly evident and consistent, affecting (much faster than in the past) the existing culinary “traditions” and becoming part of them. The distinction between the global and the local dimension has thus progressively blurred, making established meanings and identities no longer clearly defined, but rather expressed through several and multiple interpretations. It is therefore essential to understand the semiotic
processes underlying such interpretations, and the way they contribute to the definition of contemporary food meanings and identities. This paper deals with these crucial questions by focusing on some relevant case studies related to the Peruvian foodsphere, whose recent development and success on a global scale has been promoted precisely by means of an emphasised process of glocalisation operated by local food services and haute-cuisine chefs that have become famous worldwide.
Proprio il cibo, in effetti, è generalmente considerato dagli italiani come uno degli aspetti più rappresentativi della propria identità nazionale, sentimento che arriva talvolta a sfociare in vere e proprie forme di convinto patriottismo quando non addirittura di aperto sciovinismo.
Se però, da un lato, l’universo gastronomico italiano si articola in numerose varianti regionali e locali irriducibili a un’unica tradizione e a pochi piatti stereotipati, dall’altro, la passione collettiva degli italiani per la “propria” cucina sembra fare riferimento a un immaginario ben preciso e circoscritto, che trova nella pasta il suo elemento più rappresentativo.
Perché? In che modo la pasta emerge come Oggetto di Valore in grado di sedurre il Soggetto (“gli italiani”), instaurando il processo amoroso (“amor di patria”)? E quali sono i valori di cui è investito tale Oggetto?
Al di là delle variabili di matrice storico-materiale che hanno portato alla creazione di un determinato immaginario culinario italiano, è interessante osservare ciò che avviene sul piano della significazione, analizzando il modo in cui la pasta giunge ad incarnare i valori dell’“italianità”, postulando così quella “conformità di essenza” tra Soggetto e Oggetto della passione che Roland Barthes descrive come centrale nel discorso amoroso: “io voglio essere l’altro, voglio che lui sia me, come se fossimo uniti” (1977, trad. it. 1979, 15).
In una simile prospettiva, assume particolare importanza il linguaggio pubblicitario, specchio e insieme generatore di simili valori. Si tratta, quindi, di analizzare come, nell’ambito del discorso pubblicitario, a diverse forme di rappresentazione e valorizzazione della pasta vengano a corrispondere particolari messe in scena dell’italianità. In particolare, l’attenzione sarà rivolta alle campagne audiovisive di Barilla, leader mondiale nel mercato della pasta: dal primo Carosello del 1958, che vedeva Giorgio Albertazzi recitare un sonetto dantesco per poi cedere la parola alla “nuova pastina glutinata”, ai recenti spot marchiati dalla voce di una delle icone del panorama musicale e culturale italiano, l’advertising communication della celebre azienda parmense rappresenta un repertorio di notevole interesse che permette di cogliere e analizzare il potenziale seduttivo della pasta nei confronti del pubblico italiano, prefigurando il momento dell’incontro amoroso: “una scoperta progressiva (quasi una verifica) della affinità, complicità e intimità”, in cui “ad ogni istante, [si] scopr[e] nell’altro un altro [s]e stesso” (ivi, 110)."
what you eat, and I shall tell you what you are”. In fact, food represents
a fundamental component of life, encompassing different spheres and
moments. It provides not only the energy the body consumes, but also
the very substance of the body. Moreover, from a subjective point of
view, people often believe or fear, adhering to a sort of magical thinking,
that food acts on their organism or on their identity by analogical contamination,
integration, or impregnation (Fischler 1988). That has become
particularly evident in contemporary foodscapes, mainly according to a
‘negative logic’ that would require rephrasing Brillat–Savarin’s aphorism
as follows: “Tell me what you do not eat, and I shall tell you what you
are”. Lately, food habits forbidding the consumption of specific ingredients
(e.g., vegetarianism, veganism, etc.) or even biological molecules
and other nutritional materials (e.g., gluten–free movements, protein–
based diets, etc.) have spread and become increasing visible, further enhancing the importance of taboos for both the sociocultural order
and the processes of identity building. At the crossroad of physiology
and medicine, on the one hand, and the sociocultural dimension, on the
other hand, food defines people’s identity primarily in negative terms,
through prohibitions and restraints. The essay deals with the recent
spread of gluten–free movements and with the vertiginous increase in
gluten sensitivity rates, which have resulted in the diffusion of conspiracy
theories that explain these phenomena as caused by the globalization of
markets and the misuse of genetic modifications. The analysis of relevant
case–studies leads to describe the features and internal mechanisms
of the specific rhetoric underlying such discourses, also relating to more
general observations on conspiracy theories.
increasingly evident and consistent, affecting (much faster than in the past) the existing culinary “traditions” and becoming part of them. The distinction between the global and the local dimension has thus progressively blurred, making established meanings and identities no longer clearly defined, but rather expressed through several and multiple interpretations. It is therefore essential to understand the semiotic
processes underlying such interpretations, and the way they contribute to the definition of contemporary food meanings and identities. This paper deals with these crucial questions by focusing on some relevant case studies related to the Peruvian foodsphere, whose recent development and success on a global scale has been promoted precisely by means of an emphasised process of glocalisation operated by local food services and haute-cuisine chefs that have become famous worldwide.
Proprio il cibo, in effetti, è generalmente considerato dagli italiani come uno degli aspetti più rappresentativi della propria identità nazionale, sentimento che arriva talvolta a sfociare in vere e proprie forme di convinto patriottismo quando non addirittura di aperto sciovinismo.
Se però, da un lato, l’universo gastronomico italiano si articola in numerose varianti regionali e locali irriducibili a un’unica tradizione e a pochi piatti stereotipati, dall’altro, la passione collettiva degli italiani per la “propria” cucina sembra fare riferimento a un immaginario ben preciso e circoscritto, che trova nella pasta il suo elemento più rappresentativo.
Perché? In che modo la pasta emerge come Oggetto di Valore in grado di sedurre il Soggetto (“gli italiani”), instaurando il processo amoroso (“amor di patria”)? E quali sono i valori di cui è investito tale Oggetto?
Al di là delle variabili di matrice storico-materiale che hanno portato alla creazione di un determinato immaginario culinario italiano, è interessante osservare ciò che avviene sul piano della significazione, analizzando il modo in cui la pasta giunge ad incarnare i valori dell’“italianità”, postulando così quella “conformità di essenza” tra Soggetto e Oggetto della passione che Roland Barthes descrive come centrale nel discorso amoroso: “io voglio essere l’altro, voglio che lui sia me, come se fossimo uniti” (1977, trad. it. 1979, 15).
In una simile prospettiva, assume particolare importanza il linguaggio pubblicitario, specchio e insieme generatore di simili valori. Si tratta, quindi, di analizzare come, nell’ambito del discorso pubblicitario, a diverse forme di rappresentazione e valorizzazione della pasta vengano a corrispondere particolari messe in scena dell’italianità. In particolare, l’attenzione sarà rivolta alle campagne audiovisive di Barilla, leader mondiale nel mercato della pasta: dal primo Carosello del 1958, che vedeva Giorgio Albertazzi recitare un sonetto dantesco per poi cedere la parola alla “nuova pastina glutinata”, ai recenti spot marchiati dalla voce di una delle icone del panorama musicale e culturale italiano, l’advertising communication della celebre azienda parmense rappresenta un repertorio di notevole interesse che permette di cogliere e analizzare il potenziale seduttivo della pasta nei confronti del pubblico italiano, prefigurando il momento dell’incontro amoroso: “una scoperta progressiva (quasi una verifica) della affinità, complicità e intimità”, in cui “ad ogni istante, [si] scopr[e] nell’altro un altro [s]e stesso” (ivi, 110)."
what you eat, and I shall tell you what you are”. In fact, food represents
a fundamental component of life, encompassing different spheres and
moments. It provides not only the energy the body consumes, but also
the very substance of the body. Moreover, from a subjective point of
view, people often believe or fear, adhering to a sort of magical thinking,
that food acts on their organism or on their identity by analogical contamination,
integration, or impregnation (Fischler 1988). That has become
particularly evident in contemporary foodscapes, mainly according to a
‘negative logic’ that would require rephrasing Brillat–Savarin’s aphorism
as follows: “Tell me what you do not eat, and I shall tell you what you
are”. Lately, food habits forbidding the consumption of specific ingredients
(e.g., vegetarianism, veganism, etc.) or even biological molecules
and other nutritional materials (e.g., gluten–free movements, protein–
based diets, etc.) have spread and become increasing visible, further enhancing the importance of taboos for both the sociocultural order
and the processes of identity building. At the crossroad of physiology
and medicine, on the one hand, and the sociocultural dimension, on the
other hand, food defines people’s identity primarily in negative terms,
through prohibitions and restraints. The essay deals with the recent
spread of gluten–free movements and with the vertiginous increase in
gluten sensitivity rates, which have resulted in the diffusion of conspiracy
theories that explain these phenomena as caused by the globalization of
markets and the misuse of genetic modifications. The analysis of relevant
case–studies leads to describe the features and internal mechanisms
of the specific rhetoric underlying such discourses, also relating to more
general observations on conspiracy theories.
word diet is generally defined as a set of rules regulating not only the
assumption of food, but also physical exercise. Not surprisingly, one of
the synonyms of this term is the word regime, deriving from the Latin
verb règere, “to manage, to rule”. Diet can be therefore understood as
a system of signs, namely as a language composed by particular signs,
texts, discourses, and practices. Form of life in which identity emerges in
the intersection of the body and the textual and discursive dimensions,
diet is based on particular dynamics related to the cognitive–epistemic
(belief ), pragmatic (praxis), and emotional (passion) point of view. The
main aim of this paper is to think over the agency of the images used
by the so–called health and fitness magazines, analysing how the iconic
language is able to orient, encourage, or even trigger the action of the
observer in a field that can be considered not only as a dietetic regime,
but also as a sense regime.
Drawing on these premises, we intend to analyse the largely debated issue of GMOs use in food, as opposed to organic farming and other so-called “natural” methods for the production of food products. To this purpose, we will analyse, through a semiotic approach, and problematize the institutional descriptions of such issues and their regulations, also focusing on a series of relevant discourses — mainly related to online journalism and social networks — that invest them with particular meanings and values.
some of the most evident aspects of contemporary Western foodspheres, that is to say, the “(hyper-)semioticization” of the nutritional dimension of food and the increasing spread of “free from” dietary habits.
As a vast literature indicates, the face is the most versatile interface of human interaction: most known societies simply could not function without faces. Through them, human beings manifest and perceive cognitions, emotions, and actions, being able, thus, to coordinate with each other. The centrality of the face is such that it is often attributed to non-human entities too, like animals, plants, objects, or even landscapes and, in certain circumstances, countries and cultural heritage. Symmetrically, defacing people literally means denying their faces, debasing their humanity. Such centrality of the face is the outcome of biological evolution, as well as the product of cultural post-speciation and social contextualization. On the one hand, as Darwin already showed in a seminal essay, the facial expression of some emotions, like shame, cannot be faked; on the other hand, countless cultural devices can alter faces, from makeup to tattoo, from hairdressing to aesthetic surgery.
The social centrality of the face manifests itself also in the omnipresence of its representations. The human brain is hardwired to detect face-shaped visual patterns in the environment, as the phenomenon of pareidolia or the syndrome of Charles Bonnet indicate; at the same time, most human cultures have extensively represented the human face in multifarious contexts, with several materials, and through different techniques, from the funerary masks of ancient Egypt until the hyper-realistic portraits of present-day digital art. Depicting the face, moreover, plays a primary role in religions, with Christianity setting the long-term influential tradition of a deity that shows itself through a human face whereas other traditions, like Judaism or Islam, strictly regulate the representation of the human countenance so as to avoid blasphemy.
Within this complex trans-historical and trans-cultural framework, the symposium essentially revolves around a straightforward hypothesis: since the face is so central in human behavior, facial images that are considered as produced by a non-human agency receive a special aura throughout history and cultures, as if they were endowed with extraordinary powers. Furthermore, since in many societies the face is read as the most important manifestation of interiority, ‘non man-made’ images of faces are attributed a status of authenticity and earnestness, as if they were the most sincere expression of some otherwise invisible agencies. So as to test this hypothesis, the symposium cross-fertilizes several methodologies.
"Food for Thought: Nourishment, Culture, Meaning", dirs. Dr. Simona Stano and Prof. Amy Bentley - New York (US), October 14-15, 2019
International Conference "Food for Thought: Nourishment, Culture, Meaning" (New York University, Oct 14-15, 2019)