Thomas Browne

O presente trabalho tem como objetivo desenvolver uma análise interna do livro Os Anéis de Saturno (1995), de W.G. Sebald, no qual o autor propõe uma análise aprofundada da dialética entre progresso científico e barbárie na modernidade. Observando especialmente o modo através do qual opera uma síntese entre a forma ensaio e a prosa ficcional - permitindo uma forma particular que tornaria mais contundente a crítica ao pensamento cartesiano, à Aufklärung e à ideologia do progresso - procuro mostrar como o livro funcionaria como um local privilegiado para refletir sobre a relação entre os discursos literário e científico, assim como para observar como a literatura contemporânea vem desenvolvendo seus próprios recursos teórico-metodológicos de investigação e crítica.

CONFERENCE
The Space of Books
Encountering the Other, Identity Construction, Forms of Representation


The conference delves into the space of libraries and the action of reading as places for identity construction, notably through the encounter with the Other. A library is here understood both as physical space, aimed at encouraging the exchange of ideas, and as symbolic space, which is able to represent and preserve the identity and memory of a whole community.
Based on these general assumptions, the space of books, the places hosting them, and the forms of their conservation and ‘reactivation’ through the act of reading are investigated according to an interdisciplinary, multi-concept approach. Behind the architectural design of a library stand indeed world views, aesthetic theories, political ideas and so on. As a result, social and cultural identities are shaped within these spaces. Nowadays it is increasingly the case that libraries serve not only as rooms for the reading of books, but also as multifunctional, intergenerational and multicultural venues. In this regard they promote inclusion and citizen initiatives, qualifying as eco-systems where subjects can fulfil their educational aspirations and encounter information objects.
The space of books is rich in theoretical stimuli also from the viewpoint of artistic and literary representations, both as physical space away from the chaos of human activities and as imaginary space fostering the dialogue with the voice of the Other. The space of reading, in this respect, reactivates the voices of those who are absent, of ancient authors made present by our imagination, while the physical space of the library hosts a conversation between those who are living now and those who lived in the past. As it defines its symbolic and anthropological function, the space of libraries turns reading into an identity-making and collective practice, both for the single and for the community.   

Dates: December 12th–13th, 2019
Hosted by: Università degli Studi di Palermo

Il convegno mette a fuoco lo spazio della biblioteca e l'atto della lettura come luoghi di costruzione identitaria attraverso l'incontro con l'altro. La biblioteca è spazio reale e materi-ale, volto a favorire il confronto delle idee, ma è anche spazio simbolico, capace di rappre-sentare e custodire l'identità e la memoria di un'intera collettività. Sempre più oggi la bib-lioteca non è solo un luogo destinato alla lettura dei libri, ma diviene uno spazio polifunzio-nale, intergenerazionale e multiculturale volto a promuovere l'inclusione e la formazione di percorsi di cittadinanza attiva. Lo spazio dei libri offre produttivi stimoli di riflessione anche sul piano della rappresentazione artistica e letteraria sia che lo si intenda come luogo fisico di un ordine separato dal caos della vita attiva, sia come luogo immaginario, deputato al dialogo con la voce dell'altro. Lo spazio della lettura, inteso in questo senso, riattiva le voci degli assenti, degli autori antichi riconosciuti come fantasmatiche presenze, mentre lo spazio fisico della biblioteca accoglie la conversazione tra i vivi e i morti, ne definisce le funzioni simbolico-antropologiche, contribuendo a rendere la lettura una pratica identitar-ia e collettiva, del singolo e della comunità. Il convegno si inserisce tra le attività del gruppo di ricerca del Dipartimento di Scienze umanistiche coordinato da Elisabetta Di Stefano (FFR 2018-Identità degli spazi e forme della rappresentazione)

In 1646 Sir Thomas Browne published his Pseudodoxia Epidemica, a broad, somewhat encyclopedic catalogue of errors divided into seven books. Browne intended his work as “Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors” to help discourage “radicated beliefs” – that is, received opinions based on popular credulity and the unchallenged authority of tradition. Far from being dogmatic and assertive, the treatise engages the modern reader for its defence of open debate and of the value of contradiction; actually, Pseudodoxia appears deeply in tune with the epistemological uncertainty of our times for its complex, relativising and even dubitative approach to all things human. Browne endorses the idea that uncritical acceptance of received notions about the world hinders the advancement of learning; at the same time, though, a rigidly straight path – a unique, simplified method to decipher reality – equally perverts knowledge and is the cradle of misapprehension and mystification. Building on recent studies on his style and his connection with a culturally and politically convulsed historical period, the present contribution discusses Browne’s notion of complexity and highlights exemplary passages in which he discusses the main source of error: the human tendency to simplify what is complex, thus reducing the interpretation of notions, signs and phenomena to a one-sided and necessarily inadequate undertaking.

This article discusses the interrelation between the history of science (in this case the anatomy and physiology of the skull) and the history of social behaviour, using the case of the sneeze and the customs surrounding it, as discussed in early modernity (here approximately 1543–1756) – a subject absent from existing scholarship. In the first main section, I examine the redescription of skull anatomy by Conrad Victor Schneider (1655) and its implications for the sneeze, previously assumed to be a function of the brain. In the second, I analyse moral and religious discourses about the propriety of blessing those who sneeze, discourses which ostensibly turn on claims about the nature of the sneeze itself. These two aspects are brought together most vividly in a monograph on sneezing (1664) by the Dutch professor Marten Schoock. In conclusion I argue that the interrelation between ‘scientific’ and ‘moral’ discussions of sneezing was an early modern illusion which began to be dispelled in the eighteenth century.

« Sui generis » est une locution latine utilisée dans la plupart des langues occidentales afin de désigner un objet, un procès, un phénomène que l’on ne peut classer dans aucun genre. Sorte de monstres socio-culturels, les signes, les textes, les discours sui generis relèvent d’un statut paradoxal : toute en nécessitant d’une référence aux genres établis de sorte à pouvoir définir leur propre identité par négation, ils édifient néanmoins, par leur propre existence, un genre à eux, unique, absolu, dont on ne pourrait ni trouver des précédents ni élaborer des imitations.
La notion de « sui generis », voire de « monstruosité textuelle », demande une investigation théorétique et analytique urgente. Non seulement est-il nécessaire de se demander quelles sont les caractéristiques sémiotiques des genres qui ne sont pas tels (les hapax legomena de la culture) de façon à en saisir structurellement l’unicité (mais ce qui est unique et incomparable est-il vraiment intelligible ?), mais également de façon à caractériser, par le biais de la sémiotique, ce moment mystérieux (du point de vue à la fois génétique et génératif) qui est la naissance d’un nouveau genre (c’est-à-dire d’un genre avant qu’il ne le devienne, ou d’un genre potentiel).
L’hypothèse vers laquelle s’oriente la communication est quelque peu désolante pour la sémiotique et les autres disciplines structurales du sens : obligée d’interpréter le sens comme occurrence de (ou à la limite comme déviation de) un genre, la sémiotique n’a pas les moyens de saisir l’unicité du sens (dans la synchronie), voire son originalité (dans la diachronie). Est-elle donc condamnée à négliger, voire banaliser, tous les phénomènes les plus fondamentaux d’une « existence sémiotique » : l’amour, la poésie, la mort, et d’autres monstruosités du sens ?