Books by stefano marino
Mimesis International Press, Milano-Udine., 2024
Stefano Marino and Eleonora Guzzi.
"The Philosophy of Radiohead: Music, Technology, Soul".
[Rev... more Stefano Marino and Eleonora Guzzi.
"The Philosophy of Radiohead: Music, Technology, Soul".
[Revised edition, translated into English, of the book "La filosofia dei Radiohead. Musica, tecnica, anima", Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2021. English translation by Dallas Hopkins, in collaboration with Stefano Marino].
ABSTRACT:
Radiohead is among the few bands in contemporary popular music that have combined considerable commercial success with widely recognized artistic significance.
In an epoch in which reflection on technological change is paramount in every discipline and field of research, its connection to music stands out as particularly intriguing.
It is precisely this capacity to establish a stimulating and creative relationship with technology that has defined Radiohead’s unique aesthetics, unlike other pop-rock bands of the same period.
Starting from the philosophical conceptions of technology and artistic technique developed by various thinkers of the 20th century (Adorno, Horkheimer, Anders, Heidegger, and others), this book offers an original philosophical interpretation of Radiohead’s musical œuvre, from the beginning of the band’s career to its most recent albums, with a specific focus on the relationships between music, society, technology, and expressivity.
Bringing together Michel Foucault's aesthetics of existence and Richard Shusterman's somaesthetic... more Bringing together Michel Foucault's aesthetics of existence and Richard Shusterman's somaesthetics, this volume provides a critical comparison of two of the most influential philosophical theories of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Introduced by a comprehensive overview of both concepts
by editors Stefano Marino and Valentina Antoniol, the ensuing chapters interrogate the affinities and variances between Foucault’s and Shusterman’s philosophies. Building on the interdisciplinary character of somaesthetics and aesthetics of existence, international scholars explore these ideas through a wide range of topics ranging from care of the self and of the social self to the ethical and political challenges posed by themes as white ignorance, construction of resistances, and production of subjectivities. Given the central role played by the body in both concepts, this volume also affords particular attention to the philosophy of sexuality.
Demonstrating the value of reading these two thinkers together through the adoption of radical interpretive perspectives, Foucault’s Aesthetics of Existence and Shusterman’s Somaesthetics highlights the potentialities and the relevance of Foucault’s and Shusterman’s theories, even with respect to our actualité.
Valentina Antoniol and Stefano Marino (ed. by)
"Foucault’s Aesthetics of Existence and Shusterma... more Valentina Antoniol and Stefano Marino (ed. by)
"Foucault’s Aesthetics of Existence and Shusterman’s Somaesthetics: Ethics, Politics, and the Art of Living".
(Bloomsbury, London-New York 2024).
***
TABLE OF CONTENTS
"Introduction.Foucault’s Aesthetics of Existence and Shusterman’s Somaesthetics: Ethics, Politics, and the Art of Living",
by Valentina Antoniol and Stefano Marino
(1) "Aesthetics of Existence: From Foucault to Stirner, via Baudelaire",
by Philippe Sabot
(2) "The Body at the Limits of Subjectivity. For a Philosophy-Performance as Political Aesthetics through the Thought of Michel Foucault",
by Arianna Sforzini
(3) "Pleasure, Scandal, and the Body: Foucault on Somatic Askesis",
by Daniele Lorenzini
(4) "Leib, Körper, and the Body Politic",
by Martin Jay
(5) "Care of the Social Self as Embodied",
by Vincent M. Colapietro
(6) "Somaesthetics and the Philosophical Life",
by Richard Shusterman
(7) "Somaesthetics, Foucauldian Aesthetics of Existence, and Living Ethically as White",
by Chris Voparil
(8) "Aphrodisia, Eros, Charis: Holistic Bodies and the Stylistic of Reciprocity",
by Barbara Formis
(9) "The Body Must Be Defended: Somapower and the Women’s Strike in Poland",
by Leszek Koczanowicz.
is one of the most important intellectuals of our time. Philosopher, critical theorist of society... more is one of the most important intellectuals of our time. Philosopher, critical theorist of society, feminist theorist and activist: with her influential work from the 1980s until today Fraser has offered significant contributions in the fields of social and political theory, feminist theory, contemporary philosophy, and lately in the debates around the relation between climate change and capitalism. On the occasion of Fraser's 75 th birthday in 2022, and on that of the 10 th and 20 th anniversaries of the publication of two of her books in 2023-respectively, Fortunes of Feminism (2013) and Redistribution or Recognition? (2003, co-authored with Axel Honneth)-, the monographic section of the present issue of "Scenari" aims to celebrate these anniversaries with selected contributions dedicated to the investigation of her work and thought. After the publication of our Call for Papers on the website of "Scenari", several scholars with different backgrounds and working in different disciplines generously submitted their contributions dealing with various aspects of Fraser's philosophical-political work and the main fields of her research, in order to assess their relevance and impact today. We had specified in our Call for Papers that we would particularly welcome articles attempting to evaluate the significance of Fraser's thought in the context of strictly contemporary debates, also by means of a critical
Dear Prof. Stögner, we would firstly like to sincerely thank you for having generously accepted o... more Dear Prof. Stögner, we would firstly like to sincerely thank you for having generously accepted our invitation to make this interview on the relation between critical theory and feminism today. We believe that this is a very important topic, perhaps today more than ever, and we are happy to have the opportunity to discuss this topic with an expert scholar like you, a Professor of Sociology at the University of Passau (Germany) and, among other things, the co-editor with Dr. Alexandra Colligs of a significant volume published last year, Kritische Theorie und Feminismus (Suhrkamp, Berlin 2022, 394 pages). We would like to start our conversation from some general questions, in order to go then into detail with more particular questions about single and specific topics. Your co-edited volume Kritische Theorie und Feminismus, published by Suhrkamp last year, is really an impressive book, a collection of eighteen contributions (essays and interviews) by several outstanding scholars in this field that truly offer to the readers a wide, rich and articulated picture of the various ways in which the relation between feminism and critical theory can be articulated and also fruitfully rethought today. The topics addressed and investigated in the book range from society to sexuality, from politics to religion, from intersectionality
L'incantesimo del capitale, 2023
S. Gandesha e J.F. Hartle (a cura di),
"L'incantesimo del capitale. Reificazione e spettacolo". ... more S. Gandesha e J.F. Hartle (a cura di),
"L'incantesimo del capitale. Reificazione e spettacolo".
Edizione italiana a cura di S. Marino.
Traduzione italiana di V. Antoniol, S. Marino e R. Vitali.
Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2023.
***
"L’incantesimo del capitale" esplora la tradizione, l’impatto e la rilevanza nella contemporaneità di due concetti fondamentali del marxismo occidentale: il concetto di reificazione, risalente a György Lukács, e il concetto di spettacolo, risalente a Guy Debord. Riportando in primo piano i contesti teorici originari (ma non per questo dimenticati) da cui scaturirono questi concetti, i contributi raccolti nel volume a cura di Samir Gandesha e Johan F. Hartle offrono una nuova visione dell’importanza e dell’attualità del marxismo occidentale, a partire dalle sue origini per arrivare fino ai nostri giorni. In questo modo, L’incantesimo del capitale evidenzia come la critica della cultura di ispirazione marxista debba continuare a giocare un ruolo vitale in ogni analisi seria del mondo contemporaneo e in ogni indagine sul rapporto fra dimensione estetica e potenziale politico.
***
INDICE
Stefano Marino,
Prefazione all’edizione italiana
Samir Gandesha, Johan F. Hartle,
Introduzione. Reificazione e spettacolo: l’attualità del marxismo occidentale
Johan F. Hartle,
La reificazione come spoliticizzazione strutturale: l’ontologia politica di Lukács e Debord
Samir Gandesha,
La “reificazione” tra autonomia e autenticità. Adorno sull’esperienza musicale
Thijs Lijster,
“Ogni reificazione è un oblio”: Benjamin, Adorno e la dialettica della reificazione
Tyrus Miller,
Interni utopici: l’arte dell’urbanismo situazionista dalla reificazione al gioco
Sudeep Dasgupta, “L’esplosione dell’invisibilità”. Tracciare il corpo nella società dello spettacolo
Noortje de Leij, La critica d’arte nella società dello spettacolo: il caso di “October”
Kati Röttger, Spettacolo e politica: è possibile una realtà politica nello spettacolo della società?
Willow Verkerk,
Reificazione, oggettivazione sessuale e attivismo femminista
Joost de Bloois,
Vita reificata: vitalismo, ambientalismo e reificazione in La società dello spettacolo e Il pianeta malato di Guy Debord
Attività di fund raising 2011 Richiesta e ottenimento di fondi (insieme al dott. F. Cattaneo) dal... more Attività di fund raising 2011 Richiesta e ottenimento di fondi (insieme al dott. F. Cattaneo) dalla Fondazione del Monte per la pubblicazione degli atti del convegno Domandare con Gadamer: 50 anni di "Verità e metodo".
Stefano Marino - Eleonora Guzzi, La filosofia dei Radiohead Musica, tecnica, anima (Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2021)., 2021
Nell’universo della popular music contemporanea, i Radiohead sono tra i pochi gruppi che hanno un... more Nell’universo della popular music contemporanea, i Radiohead sono tra i pochi gruppi che hanno unito un notevole impatto commerciale a un riconosciuto successo artistico. In un’epoca in cui la riflessione sulla tecnica è di primaria importanza in ogni campo dell’agire umano, spicca la sua applicazione alla musica. Partendo dalla concezione della tecnica artistica sviluppata da Theodor W. Adorno e altri pensatori del Novecento, queste pagine offrono un’interpretazione filosofica della produzione musicale dei Radiohead, da cui emerge la qualità intrinsecamente dialettica della tecnica: da un lato, un abuso inconsapevole rischia di “disumanizzare” la società; dall’altro, un uso consapevole – e non un’aprioristica rinuncia – permette all’umanità di conquistarsi nuovi spazi espressivi nel mondo contemporaneo. La presente interpretazione della poetica musicale dei Radiohead o, per così dire, della “filosofia dei Radiohead” apre nuovi orizzonti sul rapporto tra musica, filosofia e società.
Verità e non-verità del popular Saggio su Adorno, dimensione estetica e critica della società, 2021
Nel pensiero di Theodor W. Adorno, esponente di spicco della teoria critica della società legata ... more Nel pensiero di Theodor W. Adorno, esponente di spicco della teoria critica della società legata alla Scuola di Francoforte, il confronto con la cultura di massa (o, più precisamente, con l’industria culturale) e con l’esperienza estetica “diffusa” e spesso “distratta” che la caratterizza gioca un ruolo molto importante, ancorché perlopiù in un senso critico. In particolare, al centro di numerose ricerche e numerosi scritti di Adorno si trova il confronto critico con gli sviluppi novecenteschi della “musica leggera” o popular music, che per il filosofo tedesco comprendeva anche il jazz. Tali argomenti sono sempre analizzati da Adorno con un approccio dialettico che porta a mettere in luce e ad enfatizzare l’intreccio di aspetti diversi (filosofici, sociologici, musicologici, critico-culturali, politici) che vengono poi a raccogliersi intorno alla domanda sulla verità e non-verità dei fenomeni di volta in volta presi in esame. Il libro analizza questo complesso di problemi a vari livelli, confrontandosi con la natura aperta, plurale e dinamica del pensiero di Adorno, e investigando specificamente la tematica della verità e non-verità della popular culture. Procedendo in modo critico e mai dogmatico “con Adorno” ma al contempo, ove necessario, “contro Adorno”, il libro prende in esame i rapporti tra arte e società, tra aura e merce, tra dimensione estetica e potenziale politico, con un focus primario sulla popular music della nostra epoca e con numerosi esempi tratti da questo ambito.
"Le verità del non-vero. Tre studi su Adorno, teoria critica ed estetica"", Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2019., 2019
Introduzione al libro "Le verità del non-vero. Tre studi su Adorno, teoria critica ed estetica"",... more Introduzione al libro "Le verità del non-vero. Tre studi su Adorno, teoria critica ed estetica"", Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2019.
Aesthetics, Metaphysics, Language: Essays on Heidegger and Gadamer (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, 2015), 2015
Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer undoubtedly belong among the most important representativ... more Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer undoubtedly belong among the most important representatives of twentieth-century phenomenological hermeneutics, which represents, in turn, one of the major traditions within so-called continental philosophy. Respectively teacher and pupil, during their long and philosophically intense lives and careers Heidegger and Gadamer greatly contributed to the development of philosophical thought in our age, providing significant and often decisive contributions in various fields of philosophical inquiry. Their main works, Being and Time (1927) and Truth and Method (1960), respectively amount to the great “classics” of contemporary philosophy, both being extraordinarily influential books without which the history of twentieth- and also twenty-first century philosophy as we know it would not be conceivable. This book addresses a number of problems concerning aesthetics, metaphysics, language and philosophical anthropology, by focusing on Heidegger’s and Gadamer’s specific contributions in these fields, and by establishing fruitful and original comparisons between their views and those of other relevant thinkers of our time, such as Hannah Arendt, Richard Rorty and John McDowell. The book adopts a comparative approach that portrays the complex philosophical problems and concepts at the core of this investigation from various points of view, thus broadening the philosophical horizon, generating a more comprehensive perspective, and underlining the compatibility of different philosophical views.
Aufklärung in einer Krisenzeit: Ästhetik, Ethik und Metaphysik bei Theodor W. Adorno, Dr. Kovac Verlag, Hamburg 2015., 2015
Ein bedeutender Teil der Philosophie und allgemein der Kultur unserer Zeit ist von einem Gefühl d... more Ein bedeutender Teil der Philosophie und allgemein der Kultur unserer Zeit ist von einem Gefühl der Unsicherheit und der Vorläufigkeit, des Unbehagens und des Untergangs, der Verwirrung und manchmal auch der Verwüstung, Verzweiflung und des Unglücks charakterisiert. Wenn es ein Wort gibt, das allein einen solchen allgemeinen Zustand zusammenfassen kann, dann ist es vermutlich das Wort „Krise“. Auch wenn man sich nur auf die philosophischen Werke beschränkt, so sind es hunderte an Buchtiteln und Aufsätzen, die im 20. Jahrhundert dem Thema der „Krise der Vernunft“, der „Krise der Zivilisation“, der „Krise der Kultur“, der „Krise der Kunst“, der „Krise des Geistes“, der „Krise der Menschheit“, der „Krise der Geschichte“, der „Krise der grundlegenden Traditionen“, der „Krise der Moral“ oder der „Krise der Religion“ gewidmet sind. Dies gilt übrigens nicht nur für das vergangene Jahrhundert, sondern kann (leider) ebenso gut auf das 21. Jahrhundert angewendet werden: Ein Blick in die Tagespresse, das Hören der Nachrichten oder eine rasche Suche im Internet genügen, um sich Klarheit darüber zu verschaffen, inwiefern „Krise“ zu einem Leitbegriff unserer Zeit geworden ist. Keiner der großen Protagonisten der Philosophie und der Kultur des 20. Jahrhunderts hat sich einer solchen Herausforderung entzogen, und unter ihnen sticht sicher auch der Name von Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno hervor. Für Adorno hat die Krise der Moderne bereits Dimensionen und Tiefen angenommen, die nicht nur den Fortschrittsglauben zur Diskussion stellen, sondern allgemein die Legitimation zum Weiterleben. Wenn die Philosophie Adornos als eine der vielen Ausformungen der „Philosophie der Krise“ oder als „negatives Denken“ unseres Zeitalters interpretiert werden kann, dann muss auch festgestellt werden, dass in ihr der Begriff Aufklärung eine absolut zentrale Rolle gespielt hat. Im Unterschied zu den meisten „Krisenphilosophen“ des 20. Jahrhunderts lastete Adorno nie der Aufklärung und der modernen Kultur als solcher die Verantwortung für die Krise an, in welche die Menschheit geraten war. Wenn überhaupt, so landete auf der Anklagebank die „falsche Aufklärung“, d.h. die perverse Form, welche die Aufklärung Adorno zufolge im Lauf der Geschichte aufgrund ihrer andauernden Verstrickung mit Macht, Herrschaft und Gewalt angenommen hat. Die vorliegende Arbeit besteht in einer Interpretation des Denkens Adornos, die ihren Ausgang im grundlegenden Thema der Dialektik der Aufklärung nimmt, und von dort aus dehnt sie sich auf die Themen Natur und Geschichte, Moralphilosophie und Erkenntnistheorie, Ästhetik und Metaphysik aus. Die Leitidee des Buches ist eben jene, nach der sich im Fall Adornos stets eine interessante Konvergenz eines Aspekts des Philosophierens mit einem anderen zeigt, so zum Beispiel des erkenntnistheoretischen Aspekts mit dem ethischen oder des ästhetischen mit dem metaphysischen.
What distinguishes the philosophy and, more in general, the culture of our age is to a wide extent a sense of uncertainty and temporariness, uneasiness and decline, confusion and sometimes even devastation, desperation and tragedy. Should one indicate a single word capable to summarize and express such a general and peculiar condition of our time, then it would probably be the word “Crisis”. Indeed, even taking into consideration philosophical works only, it is apparent that during the 20th century, hundreds of books and articles were dedicated to such subjects as the “Crisis of reason”, the “Crisis of civilization”, the “Crisis of culture”, the “Crisis of art”, the “Crisis of spirituality”, the “Crisis of mankind”, the “Crisis of history”, the “Crisis of traditions”, the “Crisis of morality” and the “Crisis of religion”. By the way, this does not apply only to the 20th century but to the 21st as well. A simple look at the newspapers, watching the news on television, or making a quick search on the internet will reveal “Crisis” has become a main issue of our time. None of the leading characters of the 20th-century philosophy and culture could avoid facing such a decisive challenge as the one presented by the critical situation of our age. Among them a particular mention goes to Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno: according to his work, the crisis of modernity was so widespread and profound that “after Auschwitz”, not only the faith in progress of mankind, but also the simple right to live had been questioned. However, even if it is possible and indeed correct to interpret Adorno’s philosophy as one of several expressions of the 20th-century “philosophy of crisis” or “negative thinking”, it must be noted that a decisive role in his thought was played by the concept of enlightenment. In contrast to the majority of 20th-century “philosophers of the crisis”, Adorno never considered enlightenment, reason and modern culture as such as responsible for the crisis into which mankind had fallen. Instead he accused what may be called “false enlightenment” of having produced this critical situation: namely, the distorted form assumed by enlightenment throughout human history due to its entwinement with power, dominion, and violence. This book offers an interpretation of Adorno’s thought starting from the basic question concerning the “dialectic of enlightenment”, and then analyzing such fundamental issues as nature and history, morality and knowledge, aesthetics and metaphysics. The basic idea underlying the entire development of this book is that Adorno’s thought was precisely characterized by an interesting and indeed undeniable tendency to entwine different aspects of philosophy, such as knowledge theory with ethics, or aesthetics with metaphysics.
L’ermeneutica filosofica di Hans-Georg Gadamer rappresenta uno dei capisaldi del pensiero contemp... more L’ermeneutica filosofica di Hans-Georg Gadamer rappresenta uno dei capisaldi del pensiero contemporaneo e con il presente volume si intende offrire un’interpretazione complessiva della filosofia di Gadamer – analizzata in alcuni dei suoi aspetti principali, seguendo il filo conduttore della questione della crisi della modernità e prendendo anche in considerazione alcuni suoi scritti spesso ingiustamente considerati “minori”. Una particolare attenzione, soprattutto nella prima e terza parte del libro, viene dedicata ai risvolti etico-politici dell’ermeneutica di Gadamer. Risvolti che, talvolta, non sono stati tenuti pienamente in considerazione dagli interpreti, ma che risultano estremamente importanti per un’esatta valutazione della straordinaria rilevanza e perdurante attualità del pensiero di Gadamer. Per far fronte ai sintomi di un disagio o di una crisi del nostro mondo, la proposta di Gadamer è quella di una valorizzazione delle risorse insite in quella “dimensione ermeneutica” dell’esistenza umana, retta dalla “ragionevolezza” del comprendere inteso come “sapere pratico”, la cui ricchezza e complessità rischia di venir misconosciuta da un’umanità ormai assuefatta alla forma mentis di un riduzionismo tecno-scientifico tanto “efficace” quanto, in fin dei conti, impoverito e impoverente.
L’esperienza di Theodor W. Adorno, esponente di spicco della Scuola di Francoforte, è stata certa... more L’esperienza di Theodor W. Adorno, esponente di spicco della Scuola di Francoforte, è stata certamente una delle più rilevanti e affascinanti dell’intero XX secolo, per la sua ampiezza, profondità e multidimensionalità. Questo libro offre un tentativo di interpretazione del suo pensiero che fa leva sulla molteplicità e pluralità di prospettive che lo animano, seppur all’interno di un orizzonte filosofico-sociologico estremamente solido e coerente, definibile mediante la formula “dialettica dell’illuminismo”. In particolare, gli aspetti qui presi in esame concernono la filosofia teoretica e la filosofia della storia, l’etica e la metafisica, l’estetica e la filosofia della musica, e si ricollegano ai suoi più importanti scritti composti tra gli anni Trenta e Sessanta e oggi raccolti nell’edizione completa delle opere.
Book Synopsis:
This book is an attempt to provide a systematic interpretation of Hans-Georg Ga... more Book Synopsis:
This book is an attempt to provide a systematic interpretation of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics in light of one of the most important, interesting and debated questions of the present age: the question concerning the role played by science and technology in shaping our civilization. The author argues that this question lies at the heart of Gadamer’s thought, and that such an approach to his philosophy might help to overcome some inveterate interpretive prejudices, like, for example, the idea of Gadamer as an anti-scientific and politically authoritarian thinker. In order to clarify these points, the author closely examines not only Gadamer’s 1960 masterpiece, Wahrheit und Methode, or his main writings (later gathered in ten volumes of collected papers), but most of the works he published in his more than centenarian life, including many short essays, lectures and interviews. Gadamer’s hermeneutics is seen as offering both an intriguing description of the main «pathologies» of the Western modern civilization, and a challenging proposal for «healing» the uneasiness and malaise of modernity by revaluating all forms of unmethodical, i.e. non-scientific, experience and knowledge.
Contents:
1. Gadamer’s Long Twentieth Century
2. Science and Technology: The Real Roots of Modernity
3. The Basic Features of Our Societies: Conformism, Bureaucracy and Self-Alienation
4. Cosmopolitan Hermeneutics in the Age of the «Clash of Civilizations»
5. The Possibility of Global Disasters and the Fear for the Self-destruction of Mankind
6. On the Problematic Character of Ethic and Aesthetic Experiences in the Age of Science
7. Religious Experience in a Nihilistic Epoch
8. Hermeneutics, Techno-Science, Enlightenment: A Complex «Constellation»
9. The Rehabilitation and Universalization of Practical Knowledge and Experience
10. Reasonableness, Dialogue and Freedom: Ethical-Political Consequences of Hermeneutics.
Quello di “fusione degli orizzonti” è senza dubbio uno dei concetti-chiave dell’ermeneutica filos... more Quello di “fusione degli orizzonti” è senza dubbio uno dei concetti-chiave dell’ermeneutica filosofica di Gadamer. Introdotto in Verità e metodo per indicare l’integrazione reciproca tra l’orizzonte di partenza dell’interprete, determinato dai suoi pregiudizi e dalle sue aspettative di senso, e quello della “cosa stessa” che è in gioco nel testo da interpretare, tale concetto è stato successivamente anche applicato alla comprensione del linguaggio in quanto dialogo ed assunto come modello per lo studio dei rapporti tra culture diverse o per la comparazione tra paradigmi filosofici differenti. In questo libro si analizzano diversi aspetti della filosofia di Gadamer (estetica, etica, ontologia, linguaggio) sulla base del concetto di fusione degli orizzonti inteso in quest’ultima accezione.
Figura carismatica, incisiva e poliedrica come poche altre, capace di esprimersi ai massimi livel... more Figura carismatica, incisiva e poliedrica come poche altre, capace di esprimersi ai massimi livelli come guitar hero, critico ironico della società americana e, soprattutto, compositore fra i più importanti del secondo Novecento, Frank Zappa (1940-1993) è stato certamente un personaggio-chiave della nostra epoca. Con la sua produzione vastissima, non catalogabile o incasellabile in generi precostituiti, estremamente provocatoria (anzi, a volte persino “irritante”, soprattutto per i suoi testi), ma comunque originalissima e caratterizzata da una poetica inconfondibile e da una forte “continuità concettuale”, egli ha esercitato e continua a esercitare una profonda influenza sulla musica e, in generale, sulla cultura contemporanea. A vent’anni dalla sua morte, questo libro intende celebrare il genio e l’opera di Zappa offrendone una particolare interpretazione filosofica alla luce delle teorie del principale filosofo della musica del Novecento, Theodor W. Adorno.
Interviews by stefano marino
Università di Bologna, 2024
Sono passati 30 anni dalla morte di Kurt Cobain, leader della band grunge Nirvana, simbolo della ... more Sono passati 30 anni dalla morte di Kurt Cobain, leader della band grunge Nirvana, simbolo della generazione X e della “scena di Seattle”. Ma Cobain era molto più di una semplice icona rock! Con il Prof Stefano Marino, Dipartimento delle Arti, abbiamo parlato anche dell’impegno anti-machista e femminista di Kurt Cobain. Vicino al movimento riot grrrl, il cantante dei Nirvana ha sempre osteggiato, anche attraverso la sua musica, la violenza maschile. Nonostante la breve carriera conclusasi tragicamente nel 1994, Kurt Cobain è riuscito a esporre grandi temi legati alla condizione artistica, al disagio generazionale e alle istanze femministe e anti-omofobe.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twY2GCPT6sQ
Stefano Marino, intervista realizzata con Francesca Marchesini, Monica Baroni, Sebastiano Bardella (Redazione Social Unibo).
Scenari, 2019
"The Center for Body, Mind and Culture" alla Florida Atlantic University (FAU), è famoso per i su... more "The Center for Body, Mind and Culture" alla Florida Atlantic University (FAU), è famoso per i suoi contributi nel campo dell'estetica pragmatista e nel nuovo ambito di studi della somaestetica, da lui stesso fondato. Fra i temi principali della ricerca filosofica svolta da Shusterman nel corso dei decenni spiccano i temi dell'esperienza estetica, della difesa del valore e del significato delle arti popolari, della rivalutazione dell'idea della filosofia come arte di vivere, e infine la forte sottolineatura del ruolo del corpo nelle pratiche ed esperienze umane in generale. Tenuto conto della grande attualità e diffusione di prospettive pragmatiste nella filosofia e nell'estetica contemporanea, e tenuto conto della centralità del concetto di bellezza nell'intera tradizione filosofica ed estetica dell'Occidente (e non solo, ovviamente), abbiamo approfittato della disponibilità di Richard Shusterman, figura eminente del pragmatismo contemporaneo, per porgli alcune domande a proposito del ruolo svolto dal tema della bellezza nella sua filosofia pragmatista e somaestetica.
The Journal of Somaesthetics Volume 6, Number 1, 2020
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Books by stefano marino
"The Philosophy of Radiohead: Music, Technology, Soul".
[Revised edition, translated into English, of the book "La filosofia dei Radiohead. Musica, tecnica, anima", Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2021. English translation by Dallas Hopkins, in collaboration with Stefano Marino].
ABSTRACT:
Radiohead is among the few bands in contemporary popular music that have combined considerable commercial success with widely recognized artistic significance.
In an epoch in which reflection on technological change is paramount in every discipline and field of research, its connection to music stands out as particularly intriguing.
It is precisely this capacity to establish a stimulating and creative relationship with technology that has defined Radiohead’s unique aesthetics, unlike other pop-rock bands of the same period.
Starting from the philosophical conceptions of technology and artistic technique developed by various thinkers of the 20th century (Adorno, Horkheimer, Anders, Heidegger, and others), this book offers an original philosophical interpretation of Radiohead’s musical œuvre, from the beginning of the band’s career to its most recent albums, with a specific focus on the relationships between music, society, technology, and expressivity.
Introduced by a comprehensive overview of both concepts
by editors Stefano Marino and Valentina Antoniol, the ensuing chapters interrogate the affinities and variances between Foucault’s and Shusterman’s philosophies. Building on the interdisciplinary character of somaesthetics and aesthetics of existence, international scholars explore these ideas through a wide range of topics ranging from care of the self and of the social self to the ethical and political challenges posed by themes as white ignorance, construction of resistances, and production of subjectivities. Given the central role played by the body in both concepts, this volume also affords particular attention to the philosophy of sexuality.
Demonstrating the value of reading these two thinkers together through the adoption of radical interpretive perspectives, Foucault’s Aesthetics of Existence and Shusterman’s Somaesthetics highlights the potentialities and the relevance of Foucault’s and Shusterman’s theories, even with respect to our actualité.
"Foucault’s Aesthetics of Existence and Shusterman’s Somaesthetics: Ethics, Politics, and the Art of Living".
(Bloomsbury, London-New York 2024).
***
TABLE OF CONTENTS
"Introduction.Foucault’s Aesthetics of Existence and Shusterman’s Somaesthetics: Ethics, Politics, and the Art of Living",
by Valentina Antoniol and Stefano Marino
(1) "Aesthetics of Existence: From Foucault to Stirner, via Baudelaire",
by Philippe Sabot
(2) "The Body at the Limits of Subjectivity. For a Philosophy-Performance as Political Aesthetics through the Thought of Michel Foucault",
by Arianna Sforzini
(3) "Pleasure, Scandal, and the Body: Foucault on Somatic Askesis",
by Daniele Lorenzini
(4) "Leib, Körper, and the Body Politic",
by Martin Jay
(5) "Care of the Social Self as Embodied",
by Vincent M. Colapietro
(6) "Somaesthetics and the Philosophical Life",
by Richard Shusterman
(7) "Somaesthetics, Foucauldian Aesthetics of Existence, and Living Ethically as White",
by Chris Voparil
(8) "Aphrodisia, Eros, Charis: Holistic Bodies and the Stylistic of Reciprocity",
by Barbara Formis
(9) "The Body Must Be Defended: Somapower and the Women’s Strike in Poland",
by Leszek Koczanowicz.
"L'incantesimo del capitale. Reificazione e spettacolo".
Edizione italiana a cura di S. Marino.
Traduzione italiana di V. Antoniol, S. Marino e R. Vitali.
Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2023.
***
"L’incantesimo del capitale" esplora la tradizione, l’impatto e la rilevanza nella contemporaneità di due concetti fondamentali del marxismo occidentale: il concetto di reificazione, risalente a György Lukács, e il concetto di spettacolo, risalente a Guy Debord. Riportando in primo piano i contesti teorici originari (ma non per questo dimenticati) da cui scaturirono questi concetti, i contributi raccolti nel volume a cura di Samir Gandesha e Johan F. Hartle offrono una nuova visione dell’importanza e dell’attualità del marxismo occidentale, a partire dalle sue origini per arrivare fino ai nostri giorni. In questo modo, L’incantesimo del capitale evidenzia come la critica della cultura di ispirazione marxista debba continuare a giocare un ruolo vitale in ogni analisi seria del mondo contemporaneo e in ogni indagine sul rapporto fra dimensione estetica e potenziale politico.
***
INDICE
Stefano Marino,
Prefazione all’edizione italiana
Samir Gandesha, Johan F. Hartle,
Introduzione. Reificazione e spettacolo: l’attualità del marxismo occidentale
Johan F. Hartle,
La reificazione come spoliticizzazione strutturale: l’ontologia politica di Lukács e Debord
Samir Gandesha,
La “reificazione” tra autonomia e autenticità. Adorno sull’esperienza musicale
Thijs Lijster,
“Ogni reificazione è un oblio”: Benjamin, Adorno e la dialettica della reificazione
Tyrus Miller,
Interni utopici: l’arte dell’urbanismo situazionista dalla reificazione al gioco
Sudeep Dasgupta, “L’esplosione dell’invisibilità”. Tracciare il corpo nella società dello spettacolo
Noortje de Leij, La critica d’arte nella società dello spettacolo: il caso di “October”
Kati Röttger, Spettacolo e politica: è possibile una realtà politica nello spettacolo della società?
Willow Verkerk,
Reificazione, oggettivazione sessuale e attivismo femminista
Joost de Bloois,
Vita reificata: vitalismo, ambientalismo e reificazione in La società dello spettacolo e Il pianeta malato di Guy Debord
What distinguishes the philosophy and, more in general, the culture of our age is to a wide extent a sense of uncertainty and temporariness, uneasiness and decline, confusion and sometimes even devastation, desperation and tragedy. Should one indicate a single word capable to summarize and express such a general and peculiar condition of our time, then it would probably be the word “Crisis”. Indeed, even taking into consideration philosophical works only, it is apparent that during the 20th century, hundreds of books and articles were dedicated to such subjects as the “Crisis of reason”, the “Crisis of civilization”, the “Crisis of culture”, the “Crisis of art”, the “Crisis of spirituality”, the “Crisis of mankind”, the “Crisis of history”, the “Crisis of traditions”, the “Crisis of morality” and the “Crisis of religion”. By the way, this does not apply only to the 20th century but to the 21st as well. A simple look at the newspapers, watching the news on television, or making a quick search on the internet will reveal “Crisis” has become a main issue of our time. None of the leading characters of the 20th-century philosophy and culture could avoid facing such a decisive challenge as the one presented by the critical situation of our age. Among them a particular mention goes to Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno: according to his work, the crisis of modernity was so widespread and profound that “after Auschwitz”, not only the faith in progress of mankind, but also the simple right to live had been questioned. However, even if it is possible and indeed correct to interpret Adorno’s philosophy as one of several expressions of the 20th-century “philosophy of crisis” or “negative thinking”, it must be noted that a decisive role in his thought was played by the concept of enlightenment. In contrast to the majority of 20th-century “philosophers of the crisis”, Adorno never considered enlightenment, reason and modern culture as such as responsible for the crisis into which mankind had fallen. Instead he accused what may be called “false enlightenment” of having produced this critical situation: namely, the distorted form assumed by enlightenment throughout human history due to its entwinement with power, dominion, and violence. This book offers an interpretation of Adorno’s thought starting from the basic question concerning the “dialectic of enlightenment”, and then analyzing such fundamental issues as nature and history, morality and knowledge, aesthetics and metaphysics. The basic idea underlying the entire development of this book is that Adorno’s thought was precisely characterized by an interesting and indeed undeniable tendency to entwine different aspects of philosophy, such as knowledge theory with ethics, or aesthetics with metaphysics.
This book is an attempt to provide a systematic interpretation of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics in light of one of the most important, interesting and debated questions of the present age: the question concerning the role played by science and technology in shaping our civilization. The author argues that this question lies at the heart of Gadamer’s thought, and that such an approach to his philosophy might help to overcome some inveterate interpretive prejudices, like, for example, the idea of Gadamer as an anti-scientific and politically authoritarian thinker. In order to clarify these points, the author closely examines not only Gadamer’s 1960 masterpiece, Wahrheit und Methode, or his main writings (later gathered in ten volumes of collected papers), but most of the works he published in his more than centenarian life, including many short essays, lectures and interviews. Gadamer’s hermeneutics is seen as offering both an intriguing description of the main «pathologies» of the Western modern civilization, and a challenging proposal for «healing» the uneasiness and malaise of modernity by revaluating all forms of unmethodical, i.e. non-scientific, experience and knowledge.
Contents:
1. Gadamer’s Long Twentieth Century
2. Science and Technology: The Real Roots of Modernity
3. The Basic Features of Our Societies: Conformism, Bureaucracy and Self-Alienation
4. Cosmopolitan Hermeneutics in the Age of the «Clash of Civilizations»
5. The Possibility of Global Disasters and the Fear for the Self-destruction of Mankind
6. On the Problematic Character of Ethic and Aesthetic Experiences in the Age of Science
7. Religious Experience in a Nihilistic Epoch
8. Hermeneutics, Techno-Science, Enlightenment: A Complex «Constellation»
9. The Rehabilitation and Universalization of Practical Knowledge and Experience
10. Reasonableness, Dialogue and Freedom: Ethical-Political Consequences of Hermeneutics.
Interviews by stefano marino
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twY2GCPT6sQ
Stefano Marino, intervista realizzata con Francesca Marchesini, Monica Baroni, Sebastiano Bardella (Redazione Social Unibo).
"The Philosophy of Radiohead: Music, Technology, Soul".
[Revised edition, translated into English, of the book "La filosofia dei Radiohead. Musica, tecnica, anima", Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2021. English translation by Dallas Hopkins, in collaboration with Stefano Marino].
ABSTRACT:
Radiohead is among the few bands in contemporary popular music that have combined considerable commercial success with widely recognized artistic significance.
In an epoch in which reflection on technological change is paramount in every discipline and field of research, its connection to music stands out as particularly intriguing.
It is precisely this capacity to establish a stimulating and creative relationship with technology that has defined Radiohead’s unique aesthetics, unlike other pop-rock bands of the same period.
Starting from the philosophical conceptions of technology and artistic technique developed by various thinkers of the 20th century (Adorno, Horkheimer, Anders, Heidegger, and others), this book offers an original philosophical interpretation of Radiohead’s musical œuvre, from the beginning of the band’s career to its most recent albums, with a specific focus on the relationships between music, society, technology, and expressivity.
Introduced by a comprehensive overview of both concepts
by editors Stefano Marino and Valentina Antoniol, the ensuing chapters interrogate the affinities and variances between Foucault’s and Shusterman’s philosophies. Building on the interdisciplinary character of somaesthetics and aesthetics of existence, international scholars explore these ideas through a wide range of topics ranging from care of the self and of the social self to the ethical and political challenges posed by themes as white ignorance, construction of resistances, and production of subjectivities. Given the central role played by the body in both concepts, this volume also affords particular attention to the philosophy of sexuality.
Demonstrating the value of reading these two thinkers together through the adoption of radical interpretive perspectives, Foucault’s Aesthetics of Existence and Shusterman’s Somaesthetics highlights the potentialities and the relevance of Foucault’s and Shusterman’s theories, even with respect to our actualité.
"Foucault’s Aesthetics of Existence and Shusterman’s Somaesthetics: Ethics, Politics, and the Art of Living".
(Bloomsbury, London-New York 2024).
***
TABLE OF CONTENTS
"Introduction.Foucault’s Aesthetics of Existence and Shusterman’s Somaesthetics: Ethics, Politics, and the Art of Living",
by Valentina Antoniol and Stefano Marino
(1) "Aesthetics of Existence: From Foucault to Stirner, via Baudelaire",
by Philippe Sabot
(2) "The Body at the Limits of Subjectivity. For a Philosophy-Performance as Political Aesthetics through the Thought of Michel Foucault",
by Arianna Sforzini
(3) "Pleasure, Scandal, and the Body: Foucault on Somatic Askesis",
by Daniele Lorenzini
(4) "Leib, Körper, and the Body Politic",
by Martin Jay
(5) "Care of the Social Self as Embodied",
by Vincent M. Colapietro
(6) "Somaesthetics and the Philosophical Life",
by Richard Shusterman
(7) "Somaesthetics, Foucauldian Aesthetics of Existence, and Living Ethically as White",
by Chris Voparil
(8) "Aphrodisia, Eros, Charis: Holistic Bodies and the Stylistic of Reciprocity",
by Barbara Formis
(9) "The Body Must Be Defended: Somapower and the Women’s Strike in Poland",
by Leszek Koczanowicz.
"L'incantesimo del capitale. Reificazione e spettacolo".
Edizione italiana a cura di S. Marino.
Traduzione italiana di V. Antoniol, S. Marino e R. Vitali.
Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2023.
***
"L’incantesimo del capitale" esplora la tradizione, l’impatto e la rilevanza nella contemporaneità di due concetti fondamentali del marxismo occidentale: il concetto di reificazione, risalente a György Lukács, e il concetto di spettacolo, risalente a Guy Debord. Riportando in primo piano i contesti teorici originari (ma non per questo dimenticati) da cui scaturirono questi concetti, i contributi raccolti nel volume a cura di Samir Gandesha e Johan F. Hartle offrono una nuova visione dell’importanza e dell’attualità del marxismo occidentale, a partire dalle sue origini per arrivare fino ai nostri giorni. In questo modo, L’incantesimo del capitale evidenzia come la critica della cultura di ispirazione marxista debba continuare a giocare un ruolo vitale in ogni analisi seria del mondo contemporaneo e in ogni indagine sul rapporto fra dimensione estetica e potenziale politico.
***
INDICE
Stefano Marino,
Prefazione all’edizione italiana
Samir Gandesha, Johan F. Hartle,
Introduzione. Reificazione e spettacolo: l’attualità del marxismo occidentale
Johan F. Hartle,
La reificazione come spoliticizzazione strutturale: l’ontologia politica di Lukács e Debord
Samir Gandesha,
La “reificazione” tra autonomia e autenticità. Adorno sull’esperienza musicale
Thijs Lijster,
“Ogni reificazione è un oblio”: Benjamin, Adorno e la dialettica della reificazione
Tyrus Miller,
Interni utopici: l’arte dell’urbanismo situazionista dalla reificazione al gioco
Sudeep Dasgupta, “L’esplosione dell’invisibilità”. Tracciare il corpo nella società dello spettacolo
Noortje de Leij, La critica d’arte nella società dello spettacolo: il caso di “October”
Kati Röttger, Spettacolo e politica: è possibile una realtà politica nello spettacolo della società?
Willow Verkerk,
Reificazione, oggettivazione sessuale e attivismo femminista
Joost de Bloois,
Vita reificata: vitalismo, ambientalismo e reificazione in La società dello spettacolo e Il pianeta malato di Guy Debord
What distinguishes the philosophy and, more in general, the culture of our age is to a wide extent a sense of uncertainty and temporariness, uneasiness and decline, confusion and sometimes even devastation, desperation and tragedy. Should one indicate a single word capable to summarize and express such a general and peculiar condition of our time, then it would probably be the word “Crisis”. Indeed, even taking into consideration philosophical works only, it is apparent that during the 20th century, hundreds of books and articles were dedicated to such subjects as the “Crisis of reason”, the “Crisis of civilization”, the “Crisis of culture”, the “Crisis of art”, the “Crisis of spirituality”, the “Crisis of mankind”, the “Crisis of history”, the “Crisis of traditions”, the “Crisis of morality” and the “Crisis of religion”. By the way, this does not apply only to the 20th century but to the 21st as well. A simple look at the newspapers, watching the news on television, or making a quick search on the internet will reveal “Crisis” has become a main issue of our time. None of the leading characters of the 20th-century philosophy and culture could avoid facing such a decisive challenge as the one presented by the critical situation of our age. Among them a particular mention goes to Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno: according to his work, the crisis of modernity was so widespread and profound that “after Auschwitz”, not only the faith in progress of mankind, but also the simple right to live had been questioned. However, even if it is possible and indeed correct to interpret Adorno’s philosophy as one of several expressions of the 20th-century “philosophy of crisis” or “negative thinking”, it must be noted that a decisive role in his thought was played by the concept of enlightenment. In contrast to the majority of 20th-century “philosophers of the crisis”, Adorno never considered enlightenment, reason and modern culture as such as responsible for the crisis into which mankind had fallen. Instead he accused what may be called “false enlightenment” of having produced this critical situation: namely, the distorted form assumed by enlightenment throughout human history due to its entwinement with power, dominion, and violence. This book offers an interpretation of Adorno’s thought starting from the basic question concerning the “dialectic of enlightenment”, and then analyzing such fundamental issues as nature and history, morality and knowledge, aesthetics and metaphysics. The basic idea underlying the entire development of this book is that Adorno’s thought was precisely characterized by an interesting and indeed undeniable tendency to entwine different aspects of philosophy, such as knowledge theory with ethics, or aesthetics with metaphysics.
This book is an attempt to provide a systematic interpretation of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s hermeneutics in light of one of the most important, interesting and debated questions of the present age: the question concerning the role played by science and technology in shaping our civilization. The author argues that this question lies at the heart of Gadamer’s thought, and that such an approach to his philosophy might help to overcome some inveterate interpretive prejudices, like, for example, the idea of Gadamer as an anti-scientific and politically authoritarian thinker. In order to clarify these points, the author closely examines not only Gadamer’s 1960 masterpiece, Wahrheit und Methode, or his main writings (later gathered in ten volumes of collected papers), but most of the works he published in his more than centenarian life, including many short essays, lectures and interviews. Gadamer’s hermeneutics is seen as offering both an intriguing description of the main «pathologies» of the Western modern civilization, and a challenging proposal for «healing» the uneasiness and malaise of modernity by revaluating all forms of unmethodical, i.e. non-scientific, experience and knowledge.
Contents:
1. Gadamer’s Long Twentieth Century
2. Science and Technology: The Real Roots of Modernity
3. The Basic Features of Our Societies: Conformism, Bureaucracy and Self-Alienation
4. Cosmopolitan Hermeneutics in the Age of the «Clash of Civilizations»
5. The Possibility of Global Disasters and the Fear for the Self-destruction of Mankind
6. On the Problematic Character of Ethic and Aesthetic Experiences in the Age of Science
7. Religious Experience in a Nihilistic Epoch
8. Hermeneutics, Techno-Science, Enlightenment: A Complex «Constellation»
9. The Rehabilitation and Universalization of Practical Knowledge and Experience
10. Reasonableness, Dialogue and Freedom: Ethical-Political Consequences of Hermeneutics.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twY2GCPT6sQ
Stefano Marino, intervista realizzata con Francesca Marchesini, Monica Baroni, Sebastiano Bardella (Redazione Social Unibo).
Allievo diretto di Arnold Gehlen, del quale cura l’opera omnia (Gesamtausgabe) pubblicata dall’editore Klostermann, Rehberg è professore ordinario presso la Technische Universität di Dresda. Autore di numerosi saggi sulla storia del pensiero sociologico, nel corso della sua lunga e prolifica carriera Rehberg ha concentrato la propria attenzione anche su tematiche antropologico-culturali ed estetiche. Pur essendo stato chiaramente influenzato dalla concezione del suo maestro Gehlen, Rehberg ha sempre manifestato un grande interesse anche per prospettive diverse, come ad esempio quella della teoria critica della società della Scuola di Francoforte, uno dei cui esponenti principali, com’è noto, è stato Theodor W. Adorno. Non tutti sanno che, durante gli anni Sessanta, a dispetto delle loro notevoli divergenze intellettuali e soprattutto politiche, Adorno e Gehlen intrattennero una corrispondenza in cui, accanto alle ovvie diversità fra loro, emerse anche l’esistenza di alcune significative convergenze, soprattutto sul piano dell’interpretazione filosofica delle opere d’arte, con un’esplicita manifestazione di stima da parte di Adorno per il libro Zeit-Bilder di Gehlen. Abbiamo approfittato della grande gentilezza del Prof. Rehberg per porgli alcune domande proprio sul rapporto fra questi due grandi protagonisti della filosofia e della sociologia del Novecento: Adorno e Gehlen.
Giuseppina Capone, interview with Stefano Marino,
in "Hermeneia: Journal of Hermeneutics, Art Theory and Criticism",
n. 29 (2022)
Starting from my last books on Adorno and Radiohead ("Le verità del non-vero", 2019; "Verità e non-verità del popular", 2021; "La filosofia dei Radiohead", with Eleonora Guzzi, 2021), Capone asked me some questions about my views about the relation between philosophy and popular culture, about my idea of philosophy and my last researches in this field (trying to intersect critical theory, hermeneutics and pragmatism), and about the meaning and value of culture today.
The interview is accessible at this link: https://giusycapone.home.blog/2021/11/10/verita-e-non-verita-estetica-e-sociale-della-cultura-popular/
Overcoming “the Penetration Model”: Rethinking Sexuality with Foucault, Shusterman, and Contemporary Feminism.
ABSTRACT.
In the present contribution, dealing with the intellectual legacy of Michel Foucault forty years after his death, I offer an analysis of some possible relations between certain aspects of Foucault’s project of a history of sexuality, Richard Shusterman’s somaesthetic investigation of the experience of lovemaking, and some recent attempts to critically rethink sexuality in the context of feminist scholarship. My approach towards Foucault’s thinking in this contribution is not philological or attentively reconstructive but rather selective and interpretive. In the first section, I briefly examine Foucault’s general view of sexuality as a “limit-experience”; then, in the second section, I specifically focus my attention on his (critical) analysis of “the penetration model”—an expression coined by Foucault in the context of his inquiry into Greco-Latin sexual culture. In the third section, I take into examination the important influence of Foucault’s aesthetics of existence on Shusterman’s somaesthetics and, in particular, on his book Ars Erotica. Finally, in the fourth section, I make reference—without any ambition of completeness or systematicity—to the question of the relation between Foucault’s thinking and contemporary feminism, focusing my attention on some recent proposals for a critical rethinking of sexuality by feminist scholars such as Bini Adamczak, Ilka Quindeau, Amia Srinivasan, Tamara Tenenbaum, and bell hooks.
Keywords:
Michel Foucault, Aesthetics of Existence, History of Sexuality, Richard Shusterman, Somaesthetics, Contemporary Feminism.
***
This article is one of the outcomes of my participation—as a member of the Research Unit based at the University of Bologna—to the Research Project of National Interest (PRIN) entitled “Italian Feminist Photography,” funded by the Italian Ministry for University and Research and guided by Prof. Federica Muzzarelli as Principal Investigator. I would like to sincerely thank Valentina Antoniol, Ginestra Bacchio, Elena Romagnoli and Ines Zampaglione for their careful reading of this article and their precious observations, which helped me improve my analysis of the relation between Foucault’s history of sexuality, Shusterman’s somaesthetics, and contemporary feminism.
The case study I want to examine here refers to power executed on bodies by global corporations and to somapower that can be emancipating from corporation’s practices of power. Then, I take on board the outbreak of the Covid-19 that allowed global corporations to reach out to potentially all the bodies in the world, by means of pharmaceutics corporations in cooperation with the World Health Organization imposing on countries the necessity of vaccinations. The critical response to such situation that can be understood in terms of somapower is for example the revival of interest in traditional healing, knowledge in herbs and traditional activities (for example infusions and syrups from Plantago lanceolata are used as anti-virus protection). These activities sit firmly in bodies, which are active and integral part of persons, and are a form of resistance to contemporary biopower by developing bodily sensibility, what is the practical postulate of Richard Shusterman somaesthetics. Arnold Berleant stresses it also advocating for recovering of the sensibility from the capitalist abuse. For him the sensibility should be recovered from overtake by images, smells, tastes, and sounds done by corporations making profit from abuse of senses. From such perspective, the decision to listen to the body, to strengthen it with natural methods, also calming the mind, to develop its abilities and sensibility, not allowing the total corporations’ control over it, is a political decision.
A cura di Stefano Marino.
Con la partecipazione di: Alessandro Alfieri, Valeria Sgarella, Davide Sisto, Stefano Solventi, Luca Villa.
Università di Bologna, Dipartimento delle Arti (DAR).
DAMSLab - Auditorium, P.tta Pasolini 5b, Bologna.
27 maggio 2024, ore 15:30 - 19:00.
Kurt Cobain (1967-1994), cantante, chitarrista e principale compositore nella band Nirvana, rappresenta senza dubbio una delle figure-chiave della storia del rock degli ultimi decenni: una figura i cui effetti e la cui influenza, a un livello musicale e anche a un livello di immaginario collettivo, continuano indubbiamente a farsi sentire fino a oggi e non mancano di lasciare tracce significative nel panorama odierno, a vari livelli.
L'evento "Kurt Cobain 1994-2024", organizzato nel 30° anniversario della sua morte, consisterà di una giornata di studio presso l'Università di Bologna in cui studiosi/e molto esperti/e di Kurt Cobain, dei Nirvana e della sottocultura "grunge" legata principalmente alla scena musicale di Seattle degli anni '90 presenteranno i propri interventi e le proprie interpretazioni della figura di Cobain e della sua eredità nella musica e nella cultura contemporanea.
Link: https://magazine.unibo.it/calendario/2024/05/27/kurt-cobain-1994-2024-un2019icona-della-musica-rock-e-della-cultura-contemporanea-a-30-anni-dalla-morte?%3Fd=2024-05-27&fbclid=IwAR0rSrw56nQgBaMqI479D9i25mv6Yy4CLgbkuTNQ4PkG9E4wUyTRvxzdq5k
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
Friday, April 28, 2023
10:00 am — 6:00 pm
***
Stefano Marino and Nickolas Pappas. "Fashion's Reflections on Mind and Body: Two Philosophers Reflect"
We begin with a passage from Elizabeth Wilson, Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity. Dress “links the biological body to the social being, and public to private”, and this “makes it uneasy territory”: in fact, "it forces us to recognize that the human body is more than a biological entity, It is an organism in culture, a cultural artefact even, and its own boundaries are unclear. [...] If the body with its open orifices is itself dangerously ambiguous, then dress, which is an extension of the body yet not quite part of it, not only links that body to the social world, but also more clearly separates the two. Dress is the frontier between the self and the not-self. [...] In all societies the body is ‘dressed’, and everywhere dress and adornment play symbolic, communicative and aesthetic roles. Dress is always ‘unspeakably meaningful’. [...] Dress in general seems then to fulfill a number of social, aesthetic and psychological functions; indeed it knots them together, and can express all simultaneously. This is true of modern as of ancient dress. What is added to dress as we ourselves know it in the West is fashion. The growth of the European city in the early stages of what is known as mercantile capitalism at the end of the Middle Ages saw the birth of fashionable dress, that is of something qualitatively new and different. Fashion is dress in which the key feature is rapid and continual changing of styles. Fashion, in a sense is change, and in modern Western societies no clothes are outside fashion.” From Wilson’s remarks on fashion’s thinking, we separately and then collectively consider political and metaphysical implications of fashion: for the body, but also for the mind and for the self.
Stefano Marino is Professor of Aesthetics at the University of Bologna. His main research fields include hermeneutics, critical theory, somaesthetics, philosophy of music, and aesthetics of fashion. He has authored books on Gadamer, Adorno, Frank Zappa, and Radiohead, and has co- edited books and special issues on Kant, Nietzsche, Gadamer, Adorno, and Pearl Jam.
Nickolas Pappas is Professor of Philosophy and Classics at the City University of New York. He works mainly on topics in and surrounding ancient philosophy, including the conjunction of ancient thought with fashion. His books include The Philosopher’s New Clothes: The Theaetetus, the Academy, and Philosophy’s Turn against Fashion (Routledge, 2016).
University of Bologna, Department of the Arts.
Palazzo Marescotti (Aula Cruciani, via Barberia 4 - Bologna).
Giornata di studio su alcuni nodi fondamentali del pensiero di Richard Shusterman, che saranno discussi dallo stesso Shusterman con i relatori/le relatrici e con il pubblico in aula.
Saranno presenti anche il prof. Matteo Santarelli e il prof. Alberto Fabio Ambrosio come "discussant".
Il pensiero di Richard Shusterman rappresenta un punto di riferimento importante all’interno del dibattito filosofico contemporaneo.
Pur muovendosi in modo rigoroso all’interno della tradizione di pensiero del pragmatismo statunitense – alla quale ha contribuito offrendone una declinazione specificamente estetica, sviluppando poi il pragmatismo nella direzione di una filosofia specificamente incentrata sul corpo, la somaestetica –, Shusterman ha sempre mantenuto un dialogo aperto anche con tradizioni di pensiero e tematiche proprie della “filosofia continentale”, quali teoria critica, fenomenologia ed ermeneutica.
Sulle basi di un approccio filosofico generale di tipo pluralista, migliorista e interdisciplinare, Shusterman ha offerto contributi originali e stimolanti su una grande varietà di questioni, concentrandosi ad esempio sulla liberazione dell’indagine estetica da ogni suddivisione schematica, dicotomica e astratta delle arti in “basse” e “alte”, nonché sulla rivalutazione dell’esperienza estetica nel suo complesso e, soprattutto, sul recupero della dimensione della corporeità e del piacere.
In questa giornata di studio presso il DAR verranno approfonditi alcuni nodi fondamentali del pensiero di Shusterman, che saranno poi discussi insieme allo stesso Shusterman (come partecipante all’evento) e al pubblico in aula.
Saranno presenti all’evento, nel ruolo di discussant, i professori Matteo Santarelli (Bologna) e Alberto Fabio Ambrosio (Luxembourg School of Religion & Society).
Il programma della giornata di studio sul pensiero di Shusterman prevede un'introduzione di Stefano Marino, una sezione con gli interventi di:
Elena Romagnoli ("Ermeneutica ed estetica pragmatista in dialogo: l'influenza di Gadamer nella filosofia di Shusterman"),
Vittoria Sisca ("Body Consciousness: Shusterman oltre Merleau-Ponty"),
Olmo Nicoletti ("Le cose intermedie: la caduta dell'aura e l'emancipazione dell'arte da Benjamin a Shusterman"),
Giovanni Mugnaini ("Somaestetica e pop culture: una piattaforma necessaria"),
e una sezione dal titolo "Philosophy as a Way of Life – On Camera", comprendente la proiezione di alcuni video relativi alla carriera di Shusterman e infine una discussione aperta con lo stesso Shusterman, con i relatori/le relatrici e con il pubblico.
Webpage:
https://site.unibo.it/damslab/it/eventi/somaestetica-pragmatismo-interpretazione-la-filosofia-di-richard-shusterman
Link Teams:
https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_MzhlMjJmMGQtMTE1ZC00ZjUzLWFkNDgtYzE3YjhlYjc1ODg5%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22e99647dc-1b08-454a-bf8c-699181b389ab%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%2221612a47-8f8c-4469-bfea-3cdfbfe2cf2e%22%7d
Insieme al traduttore e curatore dell'edizione italiana dell'opera, Diego D'Angelo ne discuteranno Stefano Marino e Ludovica Neri, presso il Dipartimento di Filosofia dell'Università di Bologna (via Zamboni 38, Bologna) in data 21 settembre 2016, ore 15-17.
with: Ubaldo Fadini, Stefano Marino, Enrico Ghezzi, Igor Pelgreffi, Andrea Sartini, Eleonora De Conciliis, Vincenzo Cuomo, Riccardo Panattoni, Daniele Goldoni, Fabrizio Scrivano
Philosophy and Fashion in the Contemporary "Lebenswelt".
Lecture at the MoMe University of Art & Design in Budapest, 27 November 2024.
The scientific field of Fashion Studies has grown in a significant way in the last decades. Although specifically and rigorously philosophical contributions on fashion are still a minority in this broad and complex field, it is nonetheless possible to observe the notable diffusion of some relevant philosophical investigations of fashion in recent years. On this basis, one is tempted to ask if philosophy can seriously contribute to a better understanding of fashion and, conversely, if fashion can teach us something about philosophical questions and even "illuminate" philosophy.
Stefano Marino is Associate Professor of Aesthetics and Head of BA in Fashion Cultures and Practices at the University of Bologna, Department of Arts. Series editor of "Fashion, Media and Culture: Perspectives on Global Lifestyles" at Bloomsbury, he has authored and edited numerous books and articles on fashion, popular music, critical theory, hermeneutics, somaesthetics, and feminism.
Unpublished presentation at the International Philosophical Congress 'Roman Ingarden and Our Times', Jagiellonian University of Krakow, April 2021.
Link: https://ingarden2020.confer.uj.edu.pl/program
Short version, for oral presentation at the conference, of an essay to be published in November 2021 with the title 'Contingency, (In)significance, and the All-Encompassing Trip: Pearl Jam and the Question of the Meaning of Life' in the book 'Pearl Jam and Philosophy', ed. by Stefano Marino and Andrea Schembari, Bloomsbury Academic, London 2021.
Link: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/pearl-jam-and-philosophy-9781501362798/
Live recording at the music club "Arterìa" in Bologna, April 2015.
Daniele Cutrufo: guitar. Fabio Vassallo: bass. Stefano Marino: drums
"Quattro inediti"
(in Almanacco Letterario, editore Punto a Capo, novembre 2022)
1. sentimento inespresso taciuto
2. radieuse
3. guido, mi ricompongo, respiro
4. lasci fluire il dolore
Link: https://www.almanaccopunto.com/single-post/stefano-marino-quattro-inediti
Le poesie di "Fratture multiple alle ossa e al cuore" vertono sull'esperienza della relazione con l'alterità, con la diversità dell'altro che col suo sguardo, il suo sapore, il suo odore, la sua parola o il suo silenzio, la sua vicinanza o la sua lontananza, il tocco del suo corpo o il rifiuto di un contatto, sa sgretolare la saldezza dell'io, metterlo radicalmeante in discussione e in crisi, e manifestarsi dunque come presenza disorientante che rende consapevoli del non-senso.
Nell'itinerario che si compie dalla prima all'ultima poesia si tenta allora di delineare, di ferita in ferita, di frattura in frattura, un percorso di affrancamento dell'io da ogni "tu" e ogni "voi" e ogni "loro", di liberazione dalle faticose e spesso alienanti relazioni con gli altri, di emancipazione dal bisogno stesso di essere in rapporto con l'altro, dove alla fine si scorge (con rassegnazione) nella solitudine, nell'abbandono, nel richiudersi in sé, l'unica residuale chance di serenità.
FASHION, MEDIA AND CULTURE: PERSPECTIVES ON GLOBAL LIFESTYLES
Series Editors:
Mariella Lorusso, University of Bologna, Italy
Stefano Marino, University of Bologna, Italy
Federica Muzzarelli, University of Bologna, Italy
Editorial Board:
Daniela Calanca, University of Bologna, Italy
Fabriano Fabbri, University of Bologna, Italy
Pasquale Fameli, University of Bologna, Italy
Sherry Farrell-Racette, University of Regina, Canada
Nicole Hudgins, University of Baltimore, USA
Veronica Innocenti, University of Bologna, Italy
Susan Kaiser, University of California, Davis, USA
Vicki Karaminas, Massey University, New Zealand
Vittorio Linfante, University of Bologna, Italy
Gustavo Marfia, University of Bologna, Italy
Roy Menarini, University of Bologna, Italy
Chiara Pompa, University of Bologna, Italy
Monica Sassatelli, University of Bologna, Italy
Simona Segre-Reinach, University of Bologna, Italy
Anneke Smelik, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Valerie Steele, Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, USA
Ines Tolic, University of Bologna, Italy
Series Description:
The Fashion, Media and Culture: Perspectives on Global Lifestyles is a new series published by Bloomsbury Visual Arts in partnership with the CFC (Culture Fashion Communication) – International Research Centre at the University of Bologna, Italy. The series brings together the contributions of authors from different contexts, countries, and disciplinary fields in order to offer a renewed and updated approach to issues related to mass culture, media, communication, and fashion. The series explores the fashion system in all its breadth and complexity, and hence as a part of contemporary culture as a whole, the lifestyle dynamics and the cultural and communication processes related to it as privileged tools for the investigation of contemporary aesthetic trends and social transformations.
Call for book proposals:
The series comprises monographs, edited collections and, occasionally where the market/audience justifies this, supplementary student texts. The series is transdisciplinary and welcomes scholars from all disciplines and backgrounds. The editors seek proposals for volumes of between 60,000 and 90,000 words with approximately 30-50 images.
To submit a proposal, please send a query letter accompanied by the Bloomsbury academic proposal form to the Series Editors:
Mariella Lorusso ([email protected]), Stefano Marino ([email protected]), Federica Muzzarelli ([email protected]), including in CC Bloomsbury’s Fashion Editor, Rosie Best ([email protected]).
"Aesthetics, Popular Music, and Subcultures".
Edited by Stefano Marino, Giovanni Mugnaini, and Anna Scalfaro.
"Scenari. Rivista di Filosofia", n. 2 (2024).
Link: https://mimesisjournals.com/ojs/index.php/scenari/call-for-papers-1-23
***
Our Call for Papers on the topic “Aesthetics, Popular Music, and Subcultures” (issue n. 2/2024 of “Scenari”) invites scholars from different disciplines and with different backgrounds to submit contributions dealing with contemporary Aesthetics and Musicology, with a focus on Popular Music and especially on its Subcultural genres, styles, and forms. Submitted contributions can address topics such as the aesthetic relevance of Popular Music, the significance of particular styles of musical production and performance, or the relation between the musicological, social and political impact of Subcultural musical styles. Another core topic that we invite our potential contributors to address is the question concerning the dialectics of inclusion and exclusion of Popular Music within the broader framework and narrative of the History of Music. Also contributions addressing questions of ontology of music, production practices, and new forms of music consumption will be highly considered and particularly welcome.
The deadline for submitting the application to participate in the "FASHION NOW!" event in Rimini has been postponed to 30 September 2022.
Registration for the event is free but mandatory.
In order to participate, please fill in the web site application form with your biography, affiliation, title and short abstract.
The "FASHION NOW!" Scientific Committee will notify accepted authors by 15 October 2022.
Proposals (full papers) should be sent to [email protected] by 31 January 2023
https://mimesisjournals.com/ojs/index.php/scenari/call-for-papers-1-23?fbclid=IwAR1g7W377No0YJhYATF6EenMoYWglrYYOfOehiyzdWrXS3WEudHq8VcxI14
ed. by D. Burke, C. J. Campbell, T. Laughlin, J. Luftig and S. Marino,
monographic section of “Scenari. Rivista semestrale di filosofia contemporanea & nuovi media”, n. 13, 2021
“Aesthetics and Affectivity”
The Polish Journal of Aesthetics No. 60 (1/2021)
Editors:
Laura La Bella (Independent Scholar, PhD)
Stefano Marino (University of Bologna, Associate Professor of Aesthetics)
Vittoria Sisca (Independent Scholar)
Submission Deadline: October 30, 2020
Emotions, feelings, and, generally, the whole sphere of affectivity make up one of the most fundamental elements of human life, and also play an essential (although sometimes problematic) role in art and aesthetic experience. In this regard, let us simply consider this: on one hand, it is certainly possible to think and talk of something like a “common world” in terms of sensations shared by all human beings; on the other hand, if we focus on each individual’s emotions and feelings, and the way the latter often condition our perception of the real, this same notion becomes somewhat ambiguous. If this is true concerning our experience of the world in general, it is even truer and clearer in the specific case of our experience with art. Reflections on the fundamental role played by affectivity in the whole realm of human experience leads us to recognize, for example, that every experienced object, apart from its purely factual properties, presents some “splits” into which the subject fits, so to speak—specifically, to recognize (following Merleau-Ponty) that our description of reality, even as it appears in perceptual experience, is always full of “anthropological predicates.” This becomes fully apparent if we consider such experiences as fantasizing and dreaming (or, in a more radical and even dramatic way, certain psychological pathologies in which the subject’s “private world,” especially influenced by his/her emotions and feelings, sometimes almost completely eclipses evidence of what we conventionally consider “real”), and also applies to a great extent to art and aesthetic experiences of different kinds. From Plato and Aristotle to modern and contemporary times, philosophers have always assumed a close connection between art and what we may call the realm of affectivity (passions, feelings, emotions), sometimes also developing forms of skepticism and suspiciousness towards them as supposedly non-rational or irrational components of human life. However, throughout the history of philosophy there have always been also other voices, so to speak, that have proposed to think about affectivity, feelings, and emotions in a different way, leading to identification with emotional and even instinctual aspects, such as that of the feeling of horror, no less than with the obscure origin of the brightness of ancient Greek culture and art (Nietzsche), or to acknowledgment of the undeniably powerful and indeed constitutive role of “attunement” and “mood” in human existence (Heidegger), or to the proposal for the rediscovery and rehabilitation of the specific “intelligence of emotions” (Nussbaum). Of course, philosophical reflection on affectivity, with a specific focus on its role in the aesthetic dimension, can also lead to questioning of the validity and appropriateness of categories such as “rational” and “irrational” that we sometimes tend to use in an easy, unproblematic, and somehow dualistic way, both in everyday language and in philosophical discourses. In fact, it is a widely shared and quite common belief that our feelings and emotions (or at least some of them) are irrational, but it is also true that many philosophers and especially artists (poets, novelists, composers, painters, performers, etc.) have shown that it is often very difficult to simply draw a line sharply differentiating between the rational and emotional components of our knowledge, inasmuch as the affective component is not at all marginal in the general economy of our convictions and beliefs.
In adopting a broad and open philosophical approach—the only one which can do justice to the multiform and complex character of a question such as that of emotions and feelings—we invite authors to submit articles concerning the role of affectivity in human experience, with a particular focus on aesthetics, as broadly understood.
Thus we welcome proposals addressing (but not limited to) the following aspects:
– phenomenological analysis of emotions and their intentionality;
– the relationship between emotion and perception in normal, pathological, or dreamlike/fantastic experience;
– the phenomenon of affectivity as part of the grounds of philosophical thinking and aesthetic experience;
– the revealing power of affective dispositions and emotional states understood as primary expression of human embeddedness in the world;
– the investigation of the various roles played by moods in the history of aesthetics;
– questions concerning the corporeality of emotional states, including somaesthetic investigations;
– the relationship between moods, aesthetic enjoyment, and moral sentiments;
– the interaction between intellectual and emotional components within the aesthetic experience, including (but not limited to) artistic creation and fruition.
We encourage authors to seek original perspectives on aesthetics and affectivity. We are interested in articles that address this topic in innovative ways, including both historical and theoretical approaches. We accept submissions written only in English.
***
We kindly ask all authors to familiarize themselves with the journal’s guidelines, available under “For Authors,” and to double-check the completeness of each article (with the inclusion of an abstract, keywords, a bibliography, and a note on the author) prior to submission. Only completed papers should be submitted, using the submissions page, which can be found here.
All articles are subjected to double-blind reviews. Articles published in The Polish Journal of Aesthetics are assigned DOI numbers. Please do not hesitate to contact us via email: [email protected].
Please visit our website at: http://pjaesthetics.uj.edu.pl/
Call For Papers: Deconstruction. Volume 10 n. 1, 2020.
Editors: Stefano Marino (University of Bologna), Ines Tolic (University of Bologna).
Abstract.
Deconstruction, understood both as a philosophical doctrine or concept (and hence as theory) and as practice of planning and realization, emerged during the 1970s and 1980s and rapidly disseminated in all fields of cultural, artistic and media production. After some decades since its inception, and on the basis of the persistence of deconstruction at least in some domains, the "ZoneModa Journal" monographic issue dedicated to deconstruction in 2020 aims at assessing the situation of deconstruction in our time and at inquiring into its consequences and implications. We especially invite authors to submit contributions focused on the several ramifications and intersections of deconstructive theories and practices in different but nevertheless always connected fields, such as, for example, philosophy, architecture, art, design,
literature and music.
Submissions.
Abstracts of no more than 1000 words + 5 bibliographical references (word *.docx format), written either in Italian or English, must be sent to: [email protected]
“Be cool! Aesthetic Imperatives and Social Practices”.
University of Bologna, Rimini Campus.
Department for Life Quality Studies.
International Research Centre “Culture Fashion Communication”.
ZoneModa Conference is a scientific event which aims to become an occasion for scholars to deal with fashion as an interdisciplinary research field, which encompasses dynamic and cross-cutting forces, hybrid forms of analysis and experimental research methodologies.
With the goal of exploring groundbreaking research tracks in the world of Fashion Studies, each Conference will focus on a different topic.
The topic of the 2019 conference will be: “Be cool! Aesthetic Imperatives and Social Practices”.
***
It is almost trivial to underline how our current reality has undergone a process of widespread aestheticization.
On the one hand, this fact proves that the aesthetic has fundamentally become an “imperative” while playing a relevant role in social practices, and on the other hand it reminds us that what is required today is a better understanding of what is actually at stake when we talk about the aesthetic in terms of “imperatives”, and we inextricably link it to social dynamics.
The dimension of appearances and the expression of taste preferences cannot but be considered as determining factors in this framework.
All this makes emerge fashion’s paradigmatic role for dealing with the pressing theme ZMC 2019 aims to inquire into: not only fashion is intrinsically connoted by the priority of appearances and taste over other features of our experience, but it does so while intertwining the aesthetic and the social implications it has.
And this is presumably why the imperative “be cool!” is supposed to work on both levels and has such a deep impact on our reality. In this framework, the conference will focus on both considering fashion as an exemplary case of aesthetic practice, especially in the current context, and emphasizing the need for social-human sciences to understand the widely aestheticized character that reality itself has assumed today.
Oriented by a multidisciplinary approach – the only one which can do justice to fashion’s multiform and complex character – the 2019 conference will investigate such implications by welcoming proposals addressing (but not limited to) the following questions/aspects:
- What does it mean and imply determining social relationships on the basis of values and criteria that are also, if not especially, aesthetic?
- How does fashion influence other domains of life and culture (art, design, mass media, music, lifestyle etc.), and actually lead them to focus or even centre their attention on aesthetic aspects in order to improve their impact on society?
- What is the exact role played by fashion with regard to such relevant phenomena as the increasing digitalization of our experience, the reorganization of economic processes of production, and finally globalization?
- To what extent is it possible to conceive of the aesthetic mediation carried out by fashion as an essential factor to achieve a fruitful and, so to speak, peaceful or non-colliding “fusion” of Western and Eastern cultural paradigms?
- Is it desirable today to have a conflict of aesthetic and ethic values, or at least some kind of difference and friction between the aesthetic and the ethic dimensions, or does the ongoing development of aestheticization progressively nullify any autonomous rest of “the ethical”?
- What does the socio-aesthetic relevance of fashion consist of?
- What’s the phenomenological, ontological, or social status of appearances?
- What are the prospects of the so-called “social fashion” (whether fashion can be socially engaged/beneficial; whether fashion helps define a new genre of fashion replacing the old cliché of elitism and class, etc.)?
- What is the relationship between fashion and body practices (tattoos, plastic surgery, scarification) seen as phenomena of aestheticization and also of constitution/expression of one’s identity?
- How is the concept of aestheticization, in general, related to questions concerning “cultural legitimacy” in such realms as mass media, film, television, gaming and web aesthetics?
***
The Conference will take place in Rimini on May 16-18, 2019.
Location: Department for Life Quality Studies, Palazzo Ruffi-Briolini, C.so d’Augusto 237, 47921 – Rimini, Italy.
Keynote speakers will be Prof. Joanne Entwistle (King's College London) and Prof. Elizabeth Wilson (London Metropolitan University).
Concluding remarks with Prof. Emanuele Arielli (IUAV University Venezia) and Prof. Elena Esposito (University Bielefeld and University of Modena-Reggio Emilia).
Special plenary session “Not just glossy words: The language of fashion in the digital media era”, organized by the research group supervised by Prof. Emanuela Mora (Cattolica University of Milano): an excursus on the recent transformation of the Fashion Media System aiming at stressing the performative role played by the fashion media in providing an aesthetic and practical imaginary for the aestheticization of reality and human experience.
The conference organizers welcome individual papers and panel proposals to: [email protected]
Website of the ZoneModa 2019 conference: https://eventi.unibo.it/becool
Website of the Department for Life Quality Studies: http://www.scienzequalitavita.unibo.it/it
Website of the International Research Centre “Culture Fashion Communication”: https://centri.unibo.it/culturefashioncommunication/en
Deadline for submission: January 15, 2019.
Authors will be notified by February 28, 2019.
Proposals should not exceed 800 words in length.
Please make sure to also attach a short CV (max. 150 words).
Language: English.
After the conference, speakers are expected to send a full paper of their speech for publication of the official proceedings, by August 31, 2019.
Conference participants are required to pay a fee of EUR 100,00, or EUR 80,00 if they register before March 15 at: https://eventi.unibo.it/becool.
The conference fee is EUR 70,00 for PhD, Graduate and Undergraduate Students of other Universities.
No conference fee for PhD, Graduate and Undergraduate Students of all courses at the University of Bologna.
Among the main protagonists of contemporary philosophy who carefully and intensely dealt with dialectics, Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno must be surely mentioned. In the last decade, the in-ternational philosophical community seems to have realized again how important and indeed essential his theoretical contribution has been and still is. The publication of previously unpublished writings of the Frankfurter thinker, edited by the Theodor W. Adorno Archiv, has probably contributed to the renewed interest in Adorno’s philosophy. Among these unpublished works, some of his lec-ture courses are of greatest importance, such as those on Aesthetics (1958-59), on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1959), on the Problems of Moral Philosophy (1963), and on Metaphysics (1965).
The aim of this issue of “Discipline filosofiche” is to explore how Adorno contributed to the development of dialectical thinking by outlining an original kind of negative dialectics; and in particular to analyze the decisive role played by the question concerning truth that Adorno also (but not only) explored with regard to the “truth content” of art, and always (i.e. even outside of aesthetic theory) with reference to the fundamental “enigmatic character” of truth. These questions can be addressed by focusing on the following themes:
a) the relationship of Adorno’s concept of dialectics to traditional models of dialectics in the his-tory of Western philosophy (Plato, Kant, Hegel, Marx);
b) the theory/praxis connection, as it was rethought and re-elaborated by the Frankfurt School, in general, and by Adorno, in particular;
c) the relationship between the final results, so to speak, of Adorno’s entire path of thinking: negative dialectics and aesthetic theory;
d) the relationship between Adorno’s dialectic philosophy and other forms of thought of our time, either “continental” (phenomenology, hermeneutics, structuralism, deconstructionism, post-modernism) or belonging to the Anglo-American tradition (analytic philosophy, pragmatism);
e) the comparison of Adorno’s concept of truth to other theories of truth that are currently at the core of philosophical inquiry;
f) the concept of enigma within Adorno’s philosophy and his ideas on how it should be dialectically deciphered.
Deadline for submission: March 31, 2016.
Notification of acceptance, conditional acceptance, rejection: June 30, 2016.
Final version due: September 30, 2016
Submission guidelines:
Submission can be made in English, Italian, French and German, and should not exceed 9,000 words including abstract, references and footnotes. Manuscripts are welcome in English, Italian, German or French. They should be prepared for anonymous refereeing and sent by email attachment in Microsoft Word together with a Pdf version to Giovanni Matteucci ([email protected]) or Stefano Marino ([email protected]). Contributions are sent to two independent reviewers in a double-blind procedure prior to the publication decision.
The text of my book review is freely available and also downloadable at the web site of the philosophical journal "Studi di Estetica": http://mimesisedizioni.it/journals/index.php/studi-di-estetica/article/view/493/851
Il testo completo è stato pubblicato sul n. 5/2016 della versione cartacea della rivista "Scenari" (ed. Mimesis, Milano-Udine).
Nel mio articolo prendo spunto dalla domanda che dava il titolo allo stesso incontro di Udine: “Può la musica segnare i tempi del pensiero filosofico?”, generalizzando però tale domanda e tramutandola in: “Può la musica segnare i tempi della nostra vita?”.
Ciò, ovviamente, sulla base della premessa secondo cui il pensiero filosofico non è qualcosa di avulso o estraneo rispetto alla vita, ma è al contrario qualcosa che emerge da essa e si innesta spontaneamente in essa, giungendo – quando ne è davvero capace – a fornirne un’articolazione più chiara tramite intuizioni e concetti e, per così dire, a innervarla dall’interno.
A partire da qui, nel mio articolo mi soffermo poi sulla questione della temporalità tra musica e filosofia, offrendo una rapida analisi di alcuni fra i molteplici modi in cui la musica segna i tempi della nostra esperienza quotidiana, e sottolineando alla fine due caratteristiche fondamentali dell'esperienza attuale con la musica che erano probabilmente impensabili nel passato: una diffusione pervasiva (tendente anche a sfociare nel fastidio, come nei vari casi di onnipresenza di un sottofondo musicale subìto più che voluto) e un legame fluido, "liquido", non più chiaramente definito ma, al contrario, soggetto a continue trasformazioni e rinegoziazioni, con gli spazi, i luoghi, gli ambienti in cui la musica ci viene offerta (o, se si vuole, in cui essa ci si offre, si offre a noi, confidando nella nostra capacità di recepirla in maniera non inadeguata).
Introduction to Stefano Marino and Ines Tolic (eds.),
"Decostruzione", monographic volume of "ZoneModa Journal", n. 1/2020.
***
Deconstruction, understood both as a philosophical doctrine or concept (and hence as theory) and as practice of planning and realization, emerged during the 1970s and 1980s and rapidly disseminated in all fields of cultural, artistic and media production.
After some decades since its inception, and on the basis of the persistence of deconstruction at least in some domains, we aim at assessing the situation of deconstruction in our time and at inquiring into its consequences and implications in different but nevertheless always connected fields, such as, for example, philosophy, fashion, architecture, art, design, literature and music.
Among the main protagonists of contemporary philosophy who carefully and intensely dealt with dialectics, Theodor W. Adorno must be surely mentioned. In the last decade, the in-ternational philosophical community seems to have realized again how important and indeed essential his theoretical contribution has been and still is. The publication of previously unpublished writings of the Frankfurter thinker, edited by the Theodor W. Adorno Archiv, has probably contributed to the renewed interest in Adorno’s philosophy. Among these unpublished works, some of his lec-ture courses are of greatest importance, such as those on Aesthetics (1958-59), on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1959), on the Problems of Moral Philosophy (1963), and on Metaphysics (1965). The aim of this issue of “Discipline filosofiche” is to explore how Adorno contributed to the development of dialectical thinking by outlining an original kind of negative dialectics; and in particular to analyze the decisive role played by the question concerning truth that Adorno also (but not only) explored with regard to the “truth content” of art, and always (i.e. even outside of aesthetic theory) with reference to the fundamental “enigmatic character” of truth.
Contents:
- Giovanni Matteucci, Stefano Marino, Presentazione
- Stefano Marino, Giovanni Matteucci, The Dark Side of the Truth. Nature and Natural Beauty in Adorno
- Josef Fruchtl, Tell Me Lies, and Show Me Invisible Images! Adorno’s Criticism on Film – Revisited
- Tom Huhn, The Enigma of Experience; Art and Truth Content
- Giuseppe Di Giacomo, Form, Appearance, Testimony: Reflections On Adorno’s Aesthetics
- Samir Gandesha, Adorno’s Reading of Endgame: Between Autonomy and Authenticity
- Fabrizio Desideri, Ratio, Mimesis, Dialectics: On Some Motifs in Theodor W. Adorno
- Giovanni Zanotti, Contingent Antagonism. A Key to Adorno’s Dialectic
- Paolo A. Bolaños, The Promise of the Non-Identical: Adorno’s Revaluation of the Language of Philosophy
- Filippo Costantini, Cosa mostra la dialettica? Contraddizione, negazione e non identità in Hegel e Adorno
- Giacomo Fronzi, Dialettica negativa, metafisica e intersoggettività. Una lettura relazionale del pensiero di Th.W. Adorno
- Pietro Terzi, Critica e decostruzione dell’immediato. Adorno e Derrida di fronte a Husserl
edited by Iulian Apostolescu and Stefano Marino,
Special Issue of the "Continental Philosophy Review"
(Volume 55, issue 4, December 2022).
Table of Contents:
(1) Iulian Apostolescu and Stefano Marino.
"Varieties of the Lifeworld: Phenomenology and Aesthetic Experience".
(2) Günter Figal.
"Lifeworld art: on Husserl’s Crisis book and beyond".
(3) Shaun Gallagher.
"The unaffordable and the sublime".
(4) Pietro Terzi.
"Brave new lifeworld: vicissitudes of the Lebenswelt in French “phenomenology” and beyond".
(5) Elodie Boublil.
"Healing the Lifeworld: On personal and collective individuation".
(6) Sebastiano Galanti Grollo.
"Rethinking Husserl’s lifeworld: The many faces of the world in Heidegger’s early Freiburg lecture courses".
(7) Annika Schlitte.
"Lines made by walking—On the aesthetic experience of landscape".
(8) David Seamon.
"Moments of realization: extending Homeworld in British-African Novelist Doris Lessing’s Four-Gated City".
Link: https://link.springer.com/journal/11007/volumes-and-issues/55-4
Hans-Georg Gadamer è stato uno dei principali protagonisti del pensiero novecentesco. Riallacciandosi alle impostazioni teoriche e alle dottrine ermeneutiche di W. Dilthey e del suo maestro M. Heidegger, ma ampliandole e modificandole in profondità anche in virtù di un originale recupero di istanze e aspetti ancora attuali della filosofia antica (in particolare, della dialettica platonica e dell’etica aristotelica), con il suo capolavoro Verità e metodo del 1960 Gadamer ha contribuito in maniera decisiva a imporre l’ermeneutica come una delle principali correnti di pensiero nel dibattito filosofico del nostro tempo.
"Philosophical Perspectives on Fashion" places philosophical approaches at the heart of contemporary fashion studies. Considering the mutual relationships between aesthetics, modern society and culture, fashion and the fine arts, and the way these relationships have influenced and shaped our views on identity and taste, this ground-breaking book also explores the various intellectual and cultural movements that inform how people dress. The leading fashion and philosophy scholars contributing to this volume refer to and apply theories posed by key thinkers of the modern and contemporary age, from Darwin and Wittgenstein to Husserl and Goodman, in order to answer questions such as: What is the essence of fashion and the reasons behind its fascination? What is 'anti-fashion'? What or who do we imitate when we 'follow' fashion? What is fashion criticism and what should it be? Anyone studying or interested in fashion or philosophy will find this book a rich source of ideas, insight and information. "Philosophical Perspectives on Fashion" is a valuable contribution to contemporary fashion theory, one that revitalises the way we look at the form, purpose and meaning of fashion.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Introduction: Philosophical Perspectives on Fashion,
Giovanni Matteucci and Stefano Marino
- 1 Philosophical Accounts of Fashion in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century,
Stefano Marino
- 2 Fashion: A Conceptual Constellation,
Giovanni Matteucci
- 3 Anti-Fashion: If Not Fashion, Then What?,
Nickolas Pappas
- 4 Fits of Fashion: THe Somaesthetics of Style,
Richard Shusterman
- 5 On Fashion Criticism,
Lars Svendsen
- 6 Thought Without Concept: Carol Christian Poel's Paradoxical Aesthetics,
Christian Michel
- 7 Caprices of Fashion in Culture and Biology: Charles Darwin's Aesthetics of 'Ornament',
Winifried Menninghaus
- 8 Fashionable Proteus: The Euphoria of FAshion for Fashion's Sake,
Cesar Moreno-Marquez
- 9 The Fascination of Contingency: Fashion and Modern Society,
Elena Esposito
Index
REVIEWS.
“This edited volume is likely to provoke much-needed debate about the relationship between philosophy and fashion. Using a philosophical lens, the authors address and push questions with which fashion theorists have been grappling: is anti-fashion a useful concept in fashion criticism? Is there, or can there be, an essence of fashion? To what extent can fashion be understood as a dialectic between imitation and differentiation? To what extent does fashion rely on ambivalence and ambiguity? Philosophical Perspectives on Fashion will be a welcome addition to the literatures on fashion and philosophy alike.” – Susan B. Kaiser, University of California, Davis, USA,
“A timely and thought-provoking collection of contributions, which explore fashion from a specifically philosophical perspective and reflect on the complex and dynamic nature of fashion itself. This book, much needed in philosophy, will open the field to further debates and lines of inquiry.” – Flavia Loscialpo, Southampton Solent University, UK.
This book collects Adornian contributions on different trends, genres and artists belonging to the broad and complex and in-itself-articulated field of popular music.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Adorno’s death, this book aims to represent an important contribution for the international community of Adorno scholars and, additionally, for scholars of both philosophy and musicology in general, in order to assess and celebrate the persistent actuality of Adorno’s contribution to the understanding of popular music in the context of the dynamics and processes of the culture industry.
But the book also aims to critically rethink some of the main concepts and themes of Adorno’s influential philosophy of music and thus to develop it at a further level, also intersecting it with other philosophical perspectives or adapting it when necessary to the partially changed conditions of popular music in our time in comparison to his epoch.
Colin J. Campbell is a Sessional Lecturer in Communication and Culture for the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Sciences at OCAD University in Toronto.
Samir Gandesha is Associate Professor in the Department of the Humanities and Director of the Institute for the Humanities at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.
Stefano Marino is Associate Professor of Aesthetics in the Department for Life Quality Studies at the University of Bologna.
ed. by Stefano Marino and Andrea Schembari,
Bloomsbury Academic Publishing, London-New York 2022.
The first scholarly discussion on the band, "Pearl Jam and Philosophy" examines both the songs (music and lyrics) and the activities (live performances, political commitments) of one of the most celebrated and charismatic rock bands of the last 30 years. The book investigates the philosophical aspects of their music at various levels: existential, spiritual, ethical, political, metaphysical and aesthetic. This philosophical interpretation is also dependent on the application of textual and poetic analysis: the interdisciplinary volume puts philosophical aspects of the band's lyrics in close dialogue with 19th- and 20th-century European and American poetry. Through this widespread philosophical examination, the book further looks into the band's immense popularity and commercial success, their deeply loyal fanbase and genuine sense of community surrounding their music, and the pivotal place the band holds within popular music and contemporary culture.
Table of Contents
Preface
Theodore Gracyk, Minnesota State University, USA
Introduction
Stefano Marino, University of Bologna, Italy, and Andrea Schembari, Univesity of Szczecin, Poland
1. Contingency, (In)significance, and the All-Encompassing Trip: Pearl Jam and the Question of the Meaning of Life
Stefano Marino, University of Bologna, Italy
2. “Just Like Innocence”: Pearl Jam and the (Re)Discovery of Hope
Sam Morris, University of South Carolina Beaufort, USA
3. Who's the Elderly Band Behind the Counter in a Small Town?
Radu Uszkai, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania, and Mihail-Valentin Cernea, Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania
4. Making a Choice When There Is No “Better Man”
Laura M. Bernhardt, University of Southern Indiana, USA
5. That's Where We're Living: Determinism and Free Will in “Unthought Known”
Enrico Terrone, University of Torino, Italy
6. No Code Aesthetics
Alberto L. Siani, University of Pisa, Italy
7. Can Truth Be Found in the Wild?
Paolo Stellino, Nova Institute of Philosophy, Portugal
8. “They Can Buy, But Can't Put On My Clothes”: Pearl Jam, Grunge, and Subcultural Authenticity in a Postmodern Fashion Climate
Stephanie Kramer, Independent Scholar
9. Pearl Jam's Ghosts: The Ethical Claim Made From the Exiled Space(s) of Homelessness and War-An Aesthetic Response-Ability
Jacqueline Moulton, Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts, USA
10. Pearl Jam: Responsible Music or the Tragedy of Culture?
Cristina Parapar, Sorbonne University (Paris IV), France
11. Pearl Jam / Nirvana: A Dialectical Vortex that Revolves around the Void
Alessandro Alfieri, Accademia Delle Belle Arti Di Roma, Italy
12. The Tide on the Shell: Pearl Jam and the Aquatic Allegories of Existence
Andrea Schembari, Univesity of Szczecin, Poland
"ESPERIENZA ESTETICA E ARTI POPOLARI. PROSPETTIVE SOMAESTETICHE SULLA TEORIA E LA PRATICA",
translation from English into Italian by Teresa Gallo and Stefano Marino,
edited by Stefano Marino,
MIMESIS, MILANO-UDINE 2023.
***
Il pensiero di Richard Shusterman rappresenta oggi un punto di riferimento importante all’interno del dibattito filosofico, in generale, ed estetico, in particolare. Partendo da un background filosofico-analitico ma aprendosi presto agli stimoli offerti dal pragmatismo e mantenendo un dialogo anche con autori e tradizioni di pensiero “continentali”, Shusterman ha offerto contributi originali e stimolanti su una grande varietà di pratiche estetiche della contemporaneità, concentrandosi sulla rivalutazione dell’esperienza estetica nel suo complesso e, soprattutto, sul recupero della dimensione della corporeità e del piacere. Ciò si è rivelato estremamente utile e proficuo dal punto di vista filosofico anche al fine di liberare l’indagine estetica da ogni suddivisione schematica, meramente dicotomica e astratta delle arti in “basse” e “alte”, “popolari” e “serie”, e al fine di elevare la dimensione corporea nel suo insieme, nella sua capacità unica di unire insieme natura e cultura. Di ciò e di molto altro ancora offrono una testimonianza esemplare i saggi di Shusterman selezionati per questa raccolta di suoi scritti in lingua italiana.
This book aims to account for the various interpretations of Kant’s notion of aesthetic judgment formulated in the last century. The book approaches the subject matter from both a historical and a theoretical point of view and in relation to different cultural contexts, also exploring in an unprecedented way its influence on some very up-to-date philosophical developments and trends. It represents the first choral and comprehensive study on this missing piece in the history of modern and contemporary philosophy, capable of cutting in a unique way across different traditions, movements and geographical areas. All main themes of Kant’s aesthetics are investigated in this book, while at the same time showing how they have been interpreted in very different ways in the 20th century.
With contributions by A. Bertinetto, P. Canivez, D. Cecchi, D. Costello, N. Emery, S. Feloj, G. Figal, T. Huhn, H.-P. Krüger, T. W. Leddy, S. Marino, C. Paolucci, A. Sauvagnargues, D. J. Schmidt, A. Schubbach, S. R. Stroud, T. Teufel, and P. Terzi.
Link: https://zmj.unibo.it/article/view/10573/10922
In this paper, the author takes into account some works of the American philosopher Richard Rorty which have been recently published in Italy. The author argues that these writings can provide an important contribution to the diffusion and examination of Rorty’s ideas on both an epistemological-metaphysical and an ethical-political level. Although the account of Rorty’s ideas in this paper is supposed to be mostly descriptive, the author also tries to furnish a critical reading of Rorty’s works and to point out both the strong and weak points of his original and provocative thesis.
Keywords: Ethics; Politics; Pragmatism; Relativism; Religion; Truth.
***
Dieser Aufsatz behandelt zwei Interpretationen der Kritik der Urteilskraft. Mein Ziel ist es zu zeigen, daß Arendt und Gadamer, trotz vieler biographischer und philosophischer Gemeinsamkeiten zu unterschiedlichen Schlussfolgerungen über das Verhältnis von Ästhetik und Politik in Kants dritter Kritik kommen. Für Gadamer bedeutet die Kantische Charakterisierung der ästhetischen Urteilskraft als ein nicht an Regeln gebundenes Gemütsvermögen (wie die des Genies), daß Kant soziale und politische Tugenden von seiner Betrachtung ausschließt. Im Gegensatz hierzu betont Arendt, daß Kants Auffassung von Geschmack und Gemeinsinn von Unparteilichkeit und Kommunikationsfähigkeit charakterisiert ist, und so eine erweiterte Denkungsart darstellt, die die Orientierung in der Öffentlichkeit ermöglicht. Meine These ist, daß ein solcher Interpretationsunterschied damit zu erklären ist, daß beide Denker eine nur selektive und unvollständige Lektüre von Kants dritter Kritik liefern.
In questo contributo offrirò in primo luogo una sintetica ricostruzione della storia del dissidio fra Heidegger e Adorno (§ 1), tenendo dapprima presente il piano biografico o personale, e soffermandomi quindi sul versante più specificamente filosofico e intellettuale. Successivamente, prenderò in considerazione i lavori di alcuni studiosi che, come ho accennato poc’anzi, hanno tentato di instaurare un “dialogo postumo” fra i due filosofi (§ 2), prestando infine una particolare attenzione ad alcuni studi relativamente recenti sull’argomento (§ 3). Il tutto tenendo sempre a mente le parole di Hermann Mörchen – un allievo forse non tra i più celebri, ma comunque fra i più stimati, di Heidegger, che è stato lo studioso che più di ogni altro si è impegnato nel compito di sviluppare il succitato “dialogo postumo” tra i due filosofi – il quale nell’Introduzione alla sua seconda monografia su questo argomento scriveva: “un dialogo postumo [scil. fra Heidegger e Adorno] è problematico”, ma proprio perché è “così difficile, esso è anche necessario”.
The official PDF-version of the article, as well as the whole issue on "Theodor W. Adorno: Truth and Dialectical Experience", is available at the website of the publishing house Quodlibet: http://www.quodlibet.it/rivista/9788874629572
Il jazz è stato spesso, se non sempre, considerato dagli storici, dai critici musicali e dagli stessi musicisti come un genere musicale collegato essenzialmente alla libertà e all’emancipazione. Da un punto di vista interno o squisitamente musicale, ciò è sempre stato associato ad aspetti fondamentali e qualità distintive di questo genere come l’improvvisazione (la quale, a sua volta, può essere intesa ovviamente in modi diversi) e l’interplay, il dialogo libero fra i musicisti durante la performance. Da un punto di vista esterno o extramusicale, ciò è sempre stato associato alle radici del jazz negli spiritual e nel blues, e nell’eredità e nello spirito “neri” che essi veicolano, includendo dunque la lotta per l’emancipazione da una condizione di schiavitù, razzismo, segregazione, soggiogamento ecc. In questo articolo dapprima analizzo alcuni aspetti di una tale connessione fra jazz, libertà ed emancipazione, e poi pongo la domanda se ciò che vale per la lotta per l’emancipazione dei neri espressa da questa musica nel corso del decenni (specialmente con “stili” o “correnti” del jazz come il be-bop o il free jazz) sia anche valido per la lotta per l’emancipazione femminile che ha caratterizzato in misura non minore il Novecento. L’articolo comprende anche un’intervista originale su questo tema a una delle cantanti jazz italiane più importanti e rinomate, Maria Pia De Vito, la quale contribuisce a far luce sulla domanda-guida se, quando e quanto il jazz abbia fornito un contributo alla libertà ed emancipazione femminile.
Abstract (Eng.).
Jazz music has often, or always, been considered by historians, music critics and also musicians as a kind of music essentially connected to freedom and emancipation. From an inner or strictly musical point of view, this has always been associated to such fundamental features and distinctive qualities of this music as improvisation (which, of course, can be understood in turn in different ways) and interplay, the free dialogue or conversation between the musicians during the performance. From an outer or extra-musical point of view, this has always been associated to the roots of jazz music in the spirituals and the blues, and in the “black” heritage and spirit that they convey, thus including the struggle for emancipation from a condition slavery, racism, segregation, subjugation etc. In this article I first analyze some aspects of this connection between jazz, freedom and emancipation, and then ask if what is true for the struggle for black emancipation that this music has expressed throughout the decades (especially with jazz “styles” or “currents” like be-bop and free jazz) also holds true for the struggle for women’s emancipation that has characterized to no less extent the history of the 20th century. The article also includes an original interview on the topic with one of the most important and celebrated Italian jazz singers, Maria Pia De Vito, who contributes to shed light on the guiding question if, when and how much jazz has contributed to women’s freedom and emancipation.
Parole-chiave:
Jazz, libertà, femminismo, Angela Davis, lotta per l’emancipazione.
Keywords:
Jazz, freedom, feminism, Angela Davis, struggle for emancipation.