L'immagine nel mondo, il mondo nell'immagine. Nuove prospettive per un approccio pluridisciplinare alla rappresentazione testuale ed extratestuale / the image in the World, the World in the image. New perspectives for an interdisciplinary approach to textual and extra-textual representation

Abstract

The PhD programme in “Literary, Linguistic and Comparative Studies” aims at fostering an open dialogue and a fruitful contamination among different disciplines, thus we chose to explore the functions of images – a topic particularly prone to multiple readings and investigations – for the Graduate Conference held at the University of Naples “L’Orientale” on 21-23 October 2015. Beyond its disciplinary investigations and specific working definitions, we conceive the image as an element fluctuating between representation and creation. In the passage from textual to extra-textual reality, the image represents on the one hand a world ‘in being’ – sometimes becoming symbol – while on the other it discloses, through its generative power, the possibility of a world ‘in becoming’. Considering that nowadays individuals are exposed to constant flows of visual solicitations, the dialectics between the fixity of mimesis and the dynamics of creation continues to offer a fertile ground of scientific inquiry. Hence, the aim of this volume is to trace the different trajectories along which this duplicity develops. The volume gathers the proceedings (in Italian and English) of the papers presented during the conference in which a number of issues were addressed: from language-through-images to semiotics, from strategies for the construction of textual meaning to visual culture. The opening essay is by Hans Belting, keynote speaker of the conference and theorist working in the fields of art history, anthropology and media theory. His research interests mainly focus on the investigation of the functions and modalities of the reception of the work of art in relation to its social and cultural context. Belting’s essay employs anthropological insights for iconological readings thus providing a precious frame of reference for the subsequent essays. Written by former and ongoing PhD students, these essays tackle issues linked to archaeology, Italian linguistics and philology, literature (American and African American, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, German), cinema, theatre and comics. Bearing in mind not only the variety of perspectives involved in the investigation of the conference theme, but also the wide time span of the individual essays – from Ancient Greece to the contemporary period – we have opted for a chronological arrangement of the material in order to ensure coherence to the whole ensemble. We invite a reading of the abstracts following each essay for a brief description of their specific content.