Cultura Visuale in Italia. Prospettive per la comparatistica letterariaInternational Conference

Conference Organizer: Prof. Dr. Michele Cometa, Dipartimento di Arti e Comunicazioni, Universit? degli Studi di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, edificio 15, 90128 Palermo, Italy (e-mail: mcometa@unipa.it)

Palermo, Jolly Hotel Via Foro Italico 22, 90133 Palermo (PA) ITALY

Research concerning the interrelation between literature and visual culture is by now a well-established international tradition showing remarkable progress also in Italy. National philology especially (German, English, French, etc), theory of literature and comparative literature have amply acknowledged and developed international stimuli both on a theoretical level and on an applicative one. In the last decades of the twentieth century, in particular, we have witnessed a renewal of the debate on the "reciprocal illumination between the arts" obviously encouraged by the still growing role that images have "for" literature, "in" literature (the problem of explicitly intermedial production) and in the "system of literature" as a whole (distribution etc.). The meeting intends to define the methodological bases for a comparative study of literature and visual culture that is fundamental both at the level of literary theory - which has always shown meticulous interest with regard to the relationship between verbal and visual, that today seems to be at the core of the cultural debate - , and at the level of the contribution that this connection may be able to provide to the redefinition of the role that literature can and must acquire within the field of Cultural Studies and Communication Studies. The aim of this project is focused upon the analysis of literary phenomena moving from the alterations that the gaze (individual and social), the optical devices/media (from the camera obscura to the cinema) and the new images produce upon literature both on a thematic level (media and gaze as literary themes) and on that of writing, in the strict sense of the word (literary optics, ?kphrasis, etc.). In such a view the comparative study of "literacy" and "visual literacy" can contribute to reinforce the role of literary studies in the constitution of interpretative paradigms of our society, therefore avoiding the isolation of literature from the most productive and the widest context of the study of cultures. The research project in particular intends to focus its attention - in accordance with the competences already acquired by each scholar that is part of this work unit - upon three fundamental phases of the encounter between literature and visual culture: 1) a pre-photographic phase which will look at the presence in literature of the gaze changes produced by visual technologies such as camera obscura, microscope, telescope etc., up to the invention of photography (which is to say, a period that extends from Pre-romanticism to Naturalism); 2) a post-photography phase which will concentrate upon the encounter between photography and literature both on a biographic level (writers-photographers) and on the most crucial level of the modifications imposed by photography as a means of communication to literary; 3) a pre- and post-cinema phase in which, beyond the problem relative to the adaptation, the purpose will be to highlight how cinema, as an instrument of communication, and film writing have shaped and modified literary writing.

CONFERENCE PROGRAM

Thursday September 28, 3.30 p.m.

Welcome

Chairman Camilla Miglio

Hans Belting (IFK, University of Vienna) Per un'iconologia dello sguardo

W. J. T. Mitchell (University of Chicago) Realism and the Digital Image Discussion

Friday September 29, 9.00 a.m. Chairman Maria Luisa Roli

Ulrich Stadler (University of Zurich) Besser sehen, anders sehen. ?ber den wissenschaftlichen und poetischen Umgang mit visueller Erfahrung

10.00 a.m. Coffee break

Michele Cometa (University of Palermo) Letteratura e cultura visuale nell'era prefotografica

Giovanni Sampaolo (University of Rome) Skia-graphia: silhouettes, ombre cinesi e letteratura intorno al 1800

Rita Calabrese (University of Palermo) Con gli occhi di un'ebrea: Dorothea Mendelssohn Veit Schlegel

Friday September 29, 4.00 p.m. Chairman Federico Bertoni

Philippe Hamon (University of Paris 3 - Sorbonne Nouvelle) La litt?rature, la ligne, le point et le plan

5.00 p.m. Coffee break

Silvia Albertazzi (University of Bologna) Letteratura e cultura visuale nell'era della fotografia

Ferdinando Amigoni (University of Bologna) Gli strani grovigli del vedere: Celati, Ghirri, Herzog

Donata Meneghelli (University of Bologna) "Il cervello comincia dall'occhio". Raccontare le immagini, raccontare con le immagini

Saturday September 30, 9.00 a.m. Chairman Lucia Mor

Andreas Beyer (University of Basel) Il volto. Descritto. Dipinto. Letto

10.00 a.m. Coffee break

Massimo Fusillo (Universit? dell'Aquila) Letteratura e cultura visuale nell'era del cinema

Clotilde Bertoni (Universit? di Palermo) Giornalismo nel cinema e cinema giornalistico

Vincenzo Maggitti (Universit? dell'Aquila) Il "pictorial turn" nel racconto letterario del film

Saturday September 30, 4.00 p.m. Chairman Mauro Ponzi

Cultura visuale in Italia. Prospettive a confronto Round table: Antonio Bellingreri, Maurizio Cardaci, Ivano Cavallini, Gabriella De Marco, Francesco Faeta, Filippo Fimiani, Francesco Galluzzi, Fabio Lo Verde, Giuseppe Pucci, Antonio Somaini

5.30 p.m. Coffee break

Giulio Iacoli introduces the director Antonio Capuano

Roberta Coglitore introduces the photographer Giovanni Chiaramonte

Conclusions Michele Cometa

Languages: French, English, Italian, German

Further informationsr: www.culturalstudies.it