International Conference

Cultura Visuale in Italia. Prospettive per la comparatistica letteraria
Palermo
28-30 settembre 2006

Organisation: Ministero dell\'Istruzione, dell\'Università e della Ricerca
scientifica PRIN 2005 | Università di Palermo | Facoltà di Scienze della
Formazione | Dipartimento di Arti e Comunicazioni | Centre Culturel
Français
| Istituto Svizzero di Roma | Associazione Siciliana Amici della Musica |
Alitalia | Feedback | :duepunti edizioni | Broadway Libreria dello
Spettacolo | Master in Comunicazione e Cultura Visuale | Laboratorio di
Cultura Visuale | Con il Patrocinio del Senato della Repubblica

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

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

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

CONFERENCE PROGRAM

Thursday September 28, 3.30 p.m.

Welcome

Chairman Camilla Miglio

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

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

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

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

10.00 a.m. Coffee break

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

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

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

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

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

5.00 p.m. Coffee break

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

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

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

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

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

10.00 a.m. Coffee break

Massimo Fusillo (Università dell\'Aquila)
Letteratura e cultura visuale nell\'era del cinema

Clotilde Bertoni (Università di Palermo)
Giornalismo nel cinema e cinema giornalistico

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

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

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

5.30 p.m. Coffee break

Giulio Iacoli introduces the director
Antonio Capuano

Roberta Coglitore introduces the photographer
Giovanni Chiaramonte

Conclusions
Michele Cometa

Languages: French, English, Italian, German