Talking 'bout capitalism

2018

This essay traces the history of the teaching of French literature at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the lines of development of related research, from the founding of the Royal High School of Commerce to the present day. In addition, in an appendix, it draws up a list of all degree theses and graduates in French literature from 1909 to 1944. Sommario 1 Dal 1868 al 1918. – 2 Da una guerra all’altra, o da Gambier a Siciliano. – 3 Dal secondo dopoguerra al ’68, dal ’68 al 2000 e oltre.

From Nature to Space: Architecture through Perception, 2016

Symposium “The Paradigmatic City (III): Customs and Costumes (Ca’ Foscari, Ca’ Dolfin, Venice), 30 November – 2 December, 2017., 2017

The paradigmatic city can be defined as such for it occupies a special place and role in the topology of a semiosphere, which, according to semiotician Jurij M. Lotman, designates the semio-linguistic space wherein a society produces and reproduces its non-genetic memory through verbal (primarily) and non-verbal (secondarily) artifacts. As Lotman himself pointed out in several essays, cities like Rome or Saint Petersburg hold a prominent status not simply in terms of political power but also and perhaps above all since the texts that they are affiliated with (including their own urban planning and architecture) act as a sort of “secondary modeling system” for the entire national or linguistic community they are part of. Such role impacts also on clothing, through a complex system of imitation and differentiation: on the one hand, the urban center of the semiosphere ‘imposes’ its standards on the rest of the semiotic topology; on the other hand, the frontiers of this space of meaning are always fibrillating with desires for differentiation and novelty, also as a consequence of the interaction with other cultures (including the ‘barbarian’ ones). The paper will focus on such mechanisms of paradigmatic cultural shaping with reference to a particular clothing and semiotic device: the veil. A copious literature dating at least from the 16th century prescribes how women must either reveal or conceal their face through the streets and in the public space of the ‘paradigmatic city’. Handbooks of ‘good manners’ would verbally and visually depict such standards of exhibition and occultation in a city like Venice, for instance. Literature of this kind, and its paradigmatic role in the socio-semiotic space of the city, will be compared and contrasted both diachronically and synchronically. ‘Veiling paradigms’ emerge in the west as in the east, and survive and even proliferate in the transition to the digital semiosphere: as recent investigations on visual big data demonstrate, major cities in the world tend to produce social network profile pictures according to implicit standards, which might constitute a paradigm also for national communities. The hypothesis that such might be the case for ‘veiling standards’ too will be tested with reference to a plural corpus of texts and visual big data.

Mercoledì 17 Dicembre, h. 11, Aula V Università di Roma La Sapienza Dipartimento di Studi Greco-latini, italiani, Scenico-Musicali

International Conference Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, 24–27 May 2017 Organized by Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage) in collaboration with Basilica Cattedrale di San Marco, Venezia Archivio Storico del Patriarcato di Venezia Swiss National Science Foundation Spazio Svizzero (Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi, Venice) Fondazione Svizzera Pro Venezia On the basis of new perspectives offered by urban history, humanistic geography and historical anthropology, the conference aims to bring together inter- and multidisciplinary approaches to the significance of soundscape in the context of the rich and complex urban system of early modern Venice. As a supreme example of “ceremonial city”, Venice is particularly suitable for investigating how soundscape interacts with urban space in the creation of an elaborate social and cultural identity. The international conference forms part of The Sound of Eternity. A Digital Platform for the Polyphonic Choir-Books of the Ducal Chapel of St Mark’s, Venice, a research project funded by the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (in continuation of The Sound of Eternity. Investigating the Choir-Books of the Ducal Chapel of St Mark’s, Venice, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation). The official languages of the conference are English and Italian. Organizing Committee: David Bryant, Augusto Celentano, Luigi Collarile, Renzo Orsini Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

Auditoria superior de Veracruz

Naturkatastrophen. Deutungsmuster vom Altertum bis in die Neuzeit (Paderborn: Brill/Fink), 2022

RESUMEN: Dentro del marco de la psicología junguiana el concepto de “arquetipo” ocupa un lugar central en su planteamiento y es axiomático de las propias líneas maestras que definen la psicología analítica. En este artículo nos ocupamos de la definición del arquetipo junguiano, de su frecuente asimilación a la imagen y de sus relaciones con la idea, con el pensamiento sin pensador o “pensamiento preexistente”, tal como en alguna ocasión se refirió a él el propio Jung. A lo largo de todo el artículo nos movemos siempre alrededor los márgenes de esta pregunta: ¿el arquetipo en sí mismo es forma? ¿o es significado? Adelantamos ya nuestra respuesta, que es consonante con la afirmación de Jung: el arquetipo en sí es en incognoscible, es decir, no lo conocemos, y por lo tanto no podemos saber si es forma o significado o cualquier otra cosa, pero de su estudio empírico intentamos extraer ciertas consecuencias que intentarán aclarar el concepto de “arquetipo”, para lo que será necesario poner en valor, y en cierta medida clarificar, el concepto, también junguiano, de “idea”.