PRODOTTI DELLA RICERCA

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.

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Abstract:

Richard Shusterman’s Pragmatist Aesthetics, which celebrated its 30th anniversary of publication in 2022, is a book characterized by a great richness of sources and a great variety of topics. In fact, the questions addressed in Pragmatist Aesthetics include not only strictly aesthetic themes, but also a range of issues that have tended to be ignored by mainstream modern aesthetics (for example, popular art) and subjects frequently associated with other areas of philosophizing, such as ethics and politics. In my chap ter, I first discuss and explain the meaning of chapter nine of Pragmatist Aesthetics (titled “Postmodern Ethics and the Art of Living”), which deals with the relationship between aesthetics and ethics. Then, I focus my attention on the intriguing concept of an “ethics of taste,” whereby I move beyond Pragmatist Aesthetics to address Shusterman’s recent works: Ars Erotica, which he penned in 2021, and Bodies in the Streets, which he edited in 2019. In my view, these important books bring out some promising and highly relevant connections between somaesthetics and certain aspects of contemporary feminism in ethics and politics.

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Incipit:

Nancy Fraser 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 sig-nificant 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 Fra-ser’s 75th birthday in 2022, and on that of the 10th and 20th 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 contribu-tions dedicated to the investigation of her work and thought.

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Abstract:

In this contribution we present to the readers of “Scenari” a conversation on critical theory and feminism with the German sociologist Karin Stögner. The text includes four questions written together by Stefano Marino and Ines Zampaglione, and four long, complex and detailed answers to those questions written by Karin Stögner. The questions and answers included in this interview are partly based on the structure and contents of the book Kritische Theorie und Feminismus, co-edited by Karin Stögner with Alexandra Colligs, and published by Suhrkamp press in 2022.

Incipit:

Nancy Fraser 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 sig-nificant 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 Fra-ser’s 75th birthday in 2022, and on that of the 10th and 20th 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 contribu-tions dedicated to the investigation of her work and thought.

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Abstract

Con il contributo Donne & Arte dedicato da Daniela Palazzoli nella primavera del 1974 ai principali centri e alle teorie dell’arte femminista negli Stati Uniti, «DATA» avvia una riflessione mirata e approfondita sulla creatività al femminile che si svilupperà in svariati numeri del periodico fino al suo ultimo anno di attività. Il largo spazio riservato all’arte delle donne sulle pagine di «DATA» e che fa di essa la rivista specializzata più aggiornata allora su questi temi in Italia, è dovuto alla sensibilità e agli interessi della cofondatrice e codirettrice Ciacia Nicastro e alla collaborazione attiva di critiche impegnate in quel frangente nel favorire la visibilità al lavoro di artiste e fotografe rimaste generalmente ai margini del sistema dell’arte. Il saggio intende offrire una prima ricognizione e analisi di alcuni tra i principali contributi su arti visive e critica al femminile pubblicati da «DATA» tra il 1974 e il 1978, individuando come focus d’indagine l’interesse rivolto alle mostre collettive dedicate alla sola espressività creativa delle donne. Si tratta di un filone tematico che emerge con forza dalle pagine del periodico milanese ma non ancora esplorato a oggi attraverso un quadro d’insieme tale da rileggere e riconnettere tra loro, con una messa a fuoco cronologica, le diverse prospettive teorico-critiche e informative su una ricca costellazione espositiva germinata in anni determinanti per il diffondersi delle istanze femministe nel contesto sociale e culturale italiano.

ENG /// Starting from the article Donne & Arte dedicated by Daniela Palazzoli in the spring of 1974 to the main centers and theories of feminist art in the United States, «DATA» launched an in-depth reflection on female creativity that would develop in several issues of the periodical until its last year of activity. The ample space reserved for women’s art in the pages of «DATA» and which made it the most up-to-date specialized magazine on these issues in Italy at the time, was due to the sensitivity and interests of the co-founder Ciacia Nicastro and the active collaboration of art critics committed to promoting visibility for the work of female artists and photographers who had generally remained on the margins of the art system. The essay intends to offer a first analysis of some of the main contributions on the female visual arts and criticism published by «DATA» between 1974 and 1978, focusing on the group exhibitions dedicated to the creative expressiveness of women. This is a thematic strand that emerges forcefully from the pages of the Milanese periodical but has not yet been explored through an overall framework capable of rereading and reconnecting, with a chronological focus, the different theoretical-critical and informative perspectives on a rich constellation of expositions germinated in years that were decisive for the spread of feminist demands in the Italian social and cultural context.

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Abstract

In this article I investigate the relation between popular culture and feminism through the specific example of popular music (and more precisely, within this field, pop-rock music). In the first two sections of my article I mostly focus on such aspects as the form/content relation in an artwork, the commodity status of contemporary popular culture, the role of standardization in the musical material used by pop-rock musicians, and the relation between aesthetic dimension and political potential, drawing on the stimulating insights offered by the critical theorists Theodor W. Adorno and Herbert Marcuse but also trying to critically rethink some of their ideas. In the third section, shifting my attention from Adorno’s critical theory to Richard Shusterman’s pragmatist aesthetics and somaesthetics, I introduce the theme of the important role played by the dimension of performance in pop-rock music and, within the musical performance, by the somatic component of the musician’s use of his/her body, sometimes also to spread certain politically committed messages, as in the case of songs that aim to support feminist ideas and struggles. In the fourth and final section I try to exemplify some of the ideas emerged in the previous sections through a selective and specific reference to the grunge subculture of the 1990s and its relation to feminism, with a special focus on the rock band Pearl Jam and also in connection to some ideas expressed by the feminist theorist Angela Davis.

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Incipit

Popular culture surely represents a fundamental aspect in our time and hence an important phenomenon to be investigated also for contemporary intellectuals (including philosophers, art therists, sociologists, cultural anthropologists, fashion theorists, scholars of cultural studies, etc.). This is due to popular culture’s role in compelling us to broaden and rethink a part of the vocabulary and conceptuality of certain academic disciplines, its leading role in shaping our taste preferences and aesthetic criteria, and – more generally – its undeniable impact and influence on people’s ideas, opinions and choices, including aesthetic, ethical and socio-political views at a global scale. Popular culture definitely deserves a serious attention at various levels, including a philosophical level, inasmuch as philosophy (also profitably intersected with different research approaches in the social and human sciences) has often proved to be able to offer significant and fruitful conceptual tools to decipher in original ways these and other defining phenomena of our time.

Incipit:

Le molte proposte arrivate a seguito della Call for Papers Storia, teoria e pratiche femministe nell’arte del XX secolo, lanciata da “pianob”, dimostra-no come la prospettiva di genere e lo sguardo critico sviluppato dalla teoria femminista e dai Women Studies siano oggi al centro di un forte interesse da parte di storiche e storici dell’arte di diverse generazioni e con molteplici approcci e ambiti di studio. Il numero, suddiviso in due se-zioni, propone venticinquesaggi che mirano a riflettere sul ruolo delle donne nella storia dell’arte italiana e internazionale, e ad analizzare le condizioni socio-culturali entro le quali artiste e critiche d’arte hanno operato e i tanti e radicati pregiudizi contro cui hanno lottato. L’obiettivo del numero, preso nel suo complesso, è infatti quello di provare a porre in discussione i modelli storico-artistici tradizionali, gettando luce su vi-cende, artiste, esposizioni e dibattiti critici esclusi dalle narrazioni domi-nanti, e di mostrare come la differenza di genere abbia giocato un peso decisivo nella costruzione della storia dell’arte e del suo racconto.

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Incipit:

Le molte proposte arrivate a seguito della Call for Papers Storia, teoria e pratiche femministe nell’arte del XX secolo, lanciata da “pianob”, dimostra-no come la prospettiva di genere e lo sguardo critico sviluppato dalla teoria femminista e dai Women Studies siano oggi al centro di un forte interesse da parte di storiche e storici dell’arte di diverse generazioni e con molteplici approcci e ambiti di studio. Il numero, suddiviso in due se-zioni, propone venticinquesaggi che mirano a riflettere sul ruolo delle donne nella storia dell’arte italiana e internazionale, e ad analizzare le condizioni socio-culturali entro le quali artiste e critiche d’arte hanno operato e i tanti e radicati pregiudizi contro cui hanno lottato. L’obiettivo del numero, preso nel suo complesso, è infatti quello di provare a porre in discussione i modelli storico-artistici tradizionali, gettando luce su vi-cende, artiste, esposizioni e dibattiti critici esclusi dalle narrazioni domi-nanti, e di mostrare come la differenza di genere abbia giocato un peso decisivo nella costruzione della storia dell’arte e del suo racconto.

Letter from the Editors: Italian Feminist Photography.
Incipit:

This issue of the Journal of Asia-Pacific Pop Culture (JAPPC) is the result of a collaboration with an Italian research group working on a research project entitled “Italian Feminist Photography” (IFP),1 funded by the Italian Ministry for University and Research after winning a national funding call. The IFP project aims at reconstructing the contribution of feminism to Italian photographic production from the origins of the medium to 1980, analyzing the contribution of women to the history of Italian photography within the framework of a progressive spread of demands for feminist emancipation and recognition of identity, according to the most recent perspectives offered by gender and feminist studies. Our investigation and reflection extend to practices which, while outside any militant positions, helped to underline a specific policy of construction of the female imagination and different self-assertion strategies.

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Abstract

The article proposes an interpretative reading of the research that Nicole Gravier conducted during the 1970s. From her first tests, the artist made use of the photographic medium, which would remain her expressive tool of choice throughout the decade. She deconstructs the myths of visual communication, even everyday ones, by immersing herself in them through photography. Often the protagonist of her own works, Gravier arrives with the Photoromans series to criticize and question the stereotyped rhetoric of the female image, making these works interesting materials for a feminist reading.

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Abstract

This contribution aims to focus on the experimentation of artists and authors who, in the Genoese context, between the 1960s and 1970s, dealt in various ways with the photographic medium. The focus on Lisetta Carmi, Nanda Lanfranco, Reneta Boero, and Guliana Traverso highlights questions related to feminism, to strategies of self-affirmation and repositioning of the gaze, to the relationship with the social and cultural context, and to the dynamics of the reception and practice of the archive as nonlinear perspectives of investigation. Not all of them participated in feminist collectives. Feminism was for them more about an existential practice in which the relationship with photography was connected to an autobiographical dimension, daily rituals, and reflections on the margins.

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Abstract

Following the current perspectives offered by international gender and feminist studies, this paper aims to analyze the history of a very interdisciplinary artist, Edith Arnaldi, for her pioneering role in the history of Italian photography. Even if Arnaldi has been deeply studied as an illustrator and writer within Italian futurism, her photographic production has been the subject of little interest in scholarly context until recently. This article is intended to provide an opportunity to reflect on her photographic production in relation to early twentieth-century art and photography in Italy, especially for what concerns the so-called photography of the invisible, to verify the extent to which her interest in the medium of photography and her special attraction for female portraits can be read from a gender perspective and not only for its impact on her literary and pictorial work.

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Abstract

From the beginning of the twenty-first century, the expression photobook has proven highly successful in the wake of a rich series of studies, festivals, workshops, fairs, and publishing initiatives. The term photobook has, however, often been used to indicate, without much distinction, different types of photographic books that do not necessarily share aesthetic, political, or social aims, generating misleading perspectives on the genre. In order to examine the history of feminist photobooks in Italy in the 1970s, this article analyzes both the material and symbolic structures of these books as well as the contexts of their production and circulation, the artists’ careers, and their relationship to Italian neofeminism. Through a selection of books, the article offers case studies that can be considered significant examples of the relationship between photography, artist’s books, and feminist politics in the specific context of Italy in the 1970s.

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