Percorsi di gender performance: fotografia tra arte e moda dagli anni Novanta ad oggi

My project explores and compares different forms of gender performance in contemporary art and visual culture according to a perspective centered on photography. Thanks to its attesting power this medium can work as a ready-made. In fact during the 20th century it played a key role in the cultural emancipation of the body which (using a Michel Foucault’s expression) has now become «the zero point of the world». Through performance the body proves to be a living material of expression and communication while photography ensures the recording of any ephemeral event that happens in time and space. My questioning approach considers the gender constructed imagery from the 1990s to the present in order to investigate how photography’s strong aura of realism promotes and allows fantasies of transformation. The contemporary fascination with gender (especially for art and fashion) represents a crucial issue in the global context of postmodernity and is manifested in a variety of visual media, from photography to video and film. Moreover the internet along with its digital transmission of images has deeply affected our world (from culture to everyday life) leading to a postmodern preference for performativity over the more traditional and linear forms of narrativity. As a consequence individual borders get redefined by the skin itself which (dissected through instant vision) turns into a ductile material of mutation and hybridation in the service of identity. My critical assumptions are taken from the most relevant changes occurred in philosophy during the last two decades as a result of the contributions by Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze who developed a cross-disciplinary and comparative approach to interpret the crisis of modernity. They have profoundly influenced feminist studies so that the category of gender has been reassessed in contrast with sex (as a biological connotation) and in relation to history, culture, society. The ideal starting point of my research is the year 1990. I chose it as the approximate historical moment when the intersection of race, class and gender were placed at the forefront of international artistic production concerned with identity, diversity and globalization. Such issues had been explored throughout the 1970s but it was only from the mid-1980s onward that they began to be articulated more consistently. Published in 1990, the book "Gender trouble: feminism and the subversion of identity" by Judith Butler marked an important breakthrough by linking gender to performance as well as investigating the intricate connections between theory and practice, embodiment and representation. It inspired subsequent research in a variety of disciplines, art history included. In the same year Teresa de Lauretis launched the definition of queer theory to challenge the academic perspective in gay and lesbian studies. In the meantime the rise of Third Wave Feminism in the US introduced a racially and sexually inclusive vision over the global situation in order to reflect on subjectivity, new technologies and popular culture in connection with gender representation. These conceptual tools have enabled prolific readings of contemporary cultural production whether fine arts or mass media. After discussing the appropriate framework of my project and taking into account the postmodern globalization of the visual, I have turned to photography to map gender representation both in art and in fashion. Therefore I have been creating an archive of images around specific topics. I decided to include fashion photography because in the 1990s this genre moved away from the paradigm of an idealized and classical beauty toward a new vernacular allied with lifestyles, art practices, pop and youth culture; as one might expect the dominant narrative modes in fashion photography are now mainly influenced by cinema and snapshot. These strategies originate story lines and interrupted narratives using models’ performance to convey a particular imagery where identity issues emerge as an essential part of fashion spectacle. Focusing on the intersections of gender identities with socially and culturally produced identities, my approach intends to underline how the fashion world has turned to current trends in art photography and in some case turned to the artists themselves. The growing fluidity of the categories that distinguish art from fashion photography represents a particularly fruitful moment of visual exchange. Varying over time the dialogue between these two fields has always been vital; nowadays it can be studied as a result of this close relationship between contemporary art world and consumer culture. Due to the saturation of postmodern imagery the feedback between art and fashion has become much more immediate and then increasingly significant for anyone who wants to investigate the construction of gender identity through performance. In addition to that a lot of magazines founded in the 1990s bridged the worlds of art and fashion because some of their designers and even editors were art-school graduates encouraging innovation. The inclusion of art within such magazines aimed at validating them as a form of art in themselves supporting a dynamic intersection for music, fashion, design and youth culture: an intersection that also contributed to create and spread different gender stereotypes. This general interest in fashion produced many exhibitions of and about fashion itself at major international venues such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Since then this celebrated success of fashion has been regarded as a typical element of postmodern culture. Owing to that I have also based my analysis on some important exhibitions dealing with gender performance like "Féminin-Masculin" at the Centre Pompidou of Paris (1995), "Rrose is a Rrose is a Rrose. Gender performance in photography" at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum of New York (1997), "Global Feminisms" at the Brooklyn Museum (2007), "Female Trouble" at the Pinakothek der Moderne in München together with the workshops dedicated to "Performance: gender and identity" in June 2005 at the Tate Modern of London. Since 2003 in Italy we have had Gender Bender - an international festival held annually in Bologna - to explore the gender imagery stemming from contemporary culture. In few days this festival offers a series of events ranging from visual arts, performance, cinema, literature to conferences and music. Being aware that any method of research is neither race nor gender neutral I have traced these critical paths to question gender identity in a multicultural perspective taking account of the political implications too. In fact, if visibility may be equated with exposure, we can also read these images as points of intersection of visibility with social power. Since gender assignations rely so heavily on the visual, the postmodern dismantling of gender certainty through performance has wide-ranging effects that need to be analyzed. In some sense this practice can even contest the dominance of visual within postmodernism. My visual map in contemporary art and fashion photography includes artists like Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, Hellen van Meene, Rineke Dijkstra, Ed Templeton, Ryan McGinley, Anne Daems, Miwa Yanagi, Tracey Moffat, Catherine Opie, Tomoko Sawada, Vanessa Beecroft, Yasumasa Morimura, Collier Schorr among others.

Il repertorio italiano del Ms Gr. Rés. Vm7 676 della Biblioteca Nazionale di Parigi

La tesi esamina il codice musicale Gr. Rés Vm7 676 della Biblioteca Nazionale di Parigi, che rappresenta una fonte di grande interesse per lo studio della musica vocale italiana tra Quattro e Cinquecento. Compilato nel 1502, il codice è stato oggetto di analisi da parte di vari studiosi, che ne hanno preso in esame singoli brani o intere sezioni, allo scopo di attestare procedimenti compositivi particolari (Torrefranca) o caratteri stilistici locali, in particolare relativi alla frottola mantovana e ferrarese (Prizer). Un’accurata ricognizione sul repertorio è stata effettuata da Nanie Bridgman in un saggio degli anni Cinquanta del secolo scorso, ma non è mai stato realizzato uno studio organico sul manoscritto. Pertanto la ricerca si è proposta di riconsiderare l’intero repertorio italiano tramandato dal codice, per proporre un plausibile inquadramento stilistico nella cultura della poesia per musica coeva. La trascrizione dei testi e delle musiche, supportata dal confronto con le fonti manoscritte e a stampa, letterarie e musicali, ha consentito di formulare alcune ipotesi in merito alla circolazione del repertorio tramandato e all’ambiente di produzione del documento. L’inconsueta varietà di forme musicali riscontrate nel codice consente inoltre di assumere questo manoscritto come una delle principali fonti della tradizione musicale che precede immediatamente la ‘sistemazione’ del repertorio frottolistico effettuata da Ottaviano Petrucci, a partire dal 1504, con la pubblicazione dei suoi undici libri di frottole (1501-1514).

Mangia, bevi, ama. Cibo e rituali alimentari del matrimonio nell'Occidente altomedievale

La ricerca pone al centro dell’indagine lo studio dell’importanza del cibo nelle cerimonie nuziali dell’Europa occidentale nei secoli V-XI. Il corpus di fonti utilizzate comprende testi di genere diverso: cronache, annali, agiografie, testi legislativi, a cui si è aggiunta un’approfondita analisi delle antiche saghe islandesi. Dopo un'introduzione dedicata in particolare alla questione della pubblicità della celebrazione, la ricerca si muove verso lo studio del matrimonio come “processo” sulla base della ritualità alimentare: i brindisi e i banchetti con cui si sigla l’accordo di fidanzamento e i ripetuti convivi allestiti per celebrare le nozze. Si pone attenzione anche ad alcuni aspetti trasversali, come lo studio del caso della “letteratura del fidanzamento bevuto”, ossia una tradizione di testi letterari in cui il fidanzamento tra i protagonisti viene sempre ratificato con un brindisi; a questo si aggiunge un’analisi di stampo antropologico della "cultura dell’eccesso", tipica dei rituali alimentari nuziali nel Medioevo, in contrasto con la contemporanea "cultura del risparmio". L'analisi si concentra anche sulle reiterate proibizioni al clero, da parte della Chiesa, di partecipare a banchetti e feste nuziali, tratto comune di tutta l’epoca altomedievale. Infine, la parte conclusiva della ricerca è incentrata sulla ricezione altomedievale di due figure bibliche che pongono al centro della narrazione un banchetto nuziale: la parabola delle nozze e il banchetto di Cana. L’insistente presenza di questi due brani nelle parole dei commentatori biblici mostra la straordinaria efficacia del “linguaggio alimentare”, ossia di un codice linguistico basato sul cibo (e su contesti quali l’agricoltura, la pesca, ecc.) come strumento di comunicazione sociale di massa con una valenza antropologica essenzialmente universale.

Simbolismi etno-antropologici nell'opera di Elsa Morante

La ricerca sviluppa le più recenti proposte teoriche dell'antropologia interpretativa, applicandole alla teoria della letteratura. Si concentra sull'ipotesto antropologico attivo nell'opera di Elsa Morante, con particolare riferimento alla produzione successiva agli anni Sessanta (Il mondo salvato dai ragazzini, 1968; La Storia, 1974; Aracoeli, 1982), in cui si verifica la concentrazione del materiale etno-antropologico di derivazione demartiniana. La tesi si propone di sondare la prolificità del rapporto intertestuale Morante-De Martino, soprattutto mediante la ricorrenza di alcuni luoghi significanti che accomunano la ricerca poetica e quella scientifica degli autori, uniti da una fondamentale rielaborazione del concetto di "umanesimo". Centrale, a questo proposito, diviene la nozione di "crisi" della persona, direttamente collegata al vissuto da "fine del mondo" e alla percezione apocalittica post-atomica. Alla crisi del soggetto contemporaneo si guarda nei termini di una risoluzione culturale, che chiama direttamente in causa il rapporto tra letteratura e ritualità. Secondo la prospettiva sociologica durkheimiana, si indagano i momenti della piacularità e della festa, ricorsivi nella scrittura morantiana, come fondanti il discorso (la narrazione mitografica) della comunità. Di qui, la riflessione si attesta sulle strategie della comunicazione finzionale in ambito etno-antropologico, con attenzione all'autorialità dello stesso antropologo sul campo. Non mancano raffronti con le esperienze letterarie più significative nell'orizzonte culturale delineato: in particolar modo, si tiene in considerazione il fondamentale rapporto Morante-Pasolini. 

Tracce di cinefilia su Facebook

La mia tesi approfondisce le dinamiche della cinefilia su Facebook: quali relazioni s'instaurano tra lo spettatore cinefilo, e dunque il suo particolare sguardo, e la moltitudine di frammenti di cinema dispersi nella rete; come si sono modificati i rapporti, gli atteggiamenti, i processi di negoziazione, le abitudini e soprattutto i discorsi dei cinefili al cospetto di tracce di cinema sui social network e in particolare su Facebook. Inoltreprovo a dimostrare che la cinefilia è un'esperienza costitutivamente autobiografica, cui il web permette il perpetuare potenzialmente infinito della (auto)narrazione di sé.

Fluxus. Prima, durante, dopo

Fluxus è stato definito il più radicale e sperimentale movimento artistico degli anni Sessanta. Dalla prima comparsa ad oggi è stato osannato, analizzato, dimenticato e riscoperto molte volte, tuttora però rimane una delle più grandi incognite critiche della storia dell’arte del Novecento. La ricerca si sviluppa secondo uno schema tripartito: indagare origini, ascendenze e ispirazioni; collocare e contestualizzare il periodo di nascita e sviluppo; esaminare influenze e lasciti. Attraverso un confronto di manifesti, scritti autografi e opere si è cercato di verificare punti di contatto e di continuità tra Fluxus e le Avanguardie Storiche, con particolare riferimento a Futurismo e Dadaismo. Successivamente si è cercato di ricostruire le dinamiche che hanno portato, alla fine degli anni Cinquanta, al definirsi di un terreno fertile dal quale sono germinate esperienze strettamente legate quali Happening, Performance Art e lo stesso Fluxus, del quale si sono ripercorsi i cosiddetti “anni eroici” per evidenziarne le caratteristiche salienti. Nella terza sezione sono state individuate diverse ipotesi di continuazione dell’attitudine Fluxus, dal percorso storico-filologico dei precoci tentativi di musealizzazione, alle eredità dirette e indirette sulle generazioni successive di artisti, fino alla individuazione di idee e concetti la cui attualità rende Fluxus un elemento imprescindibile per la comprensione della cultura contemporanea.

Visualising In/Equalities through Contemporary Documentary Cinema. A Diffractive Reading of Feminist Practices in Spanish and Italian Non-Fiction Films

This thesis brings together feminist documentary film theory and feminist new materialism(s) to describe how feminist material-discursive practices in a sample of Spanish and Italian documentary cinema made between 2013-2018 (can) visualise gender in/equalities. The accomplished objectives have been: 1. Building a bridge between feminist documentary film theory and Karen Barad’s diffractive methodology by approaching non-fiction cinema that deals with social inequalities as a diffraction apparatus. 2. Developing a feminist toolbox for a response-able gaze by gathering different insights from feminist film theory. 3. Identifying feminist material-discursive practices in a sample of documentary films produced in Spain and Italy over the last six years (2013-2018). 4. Analysing the effects that these feminist material-discursive practices in documentary cinema have, particularly in terms of visualising gender in/equalities on both sides of the camera and on both sides of the screen. 5. Revealing patterns between the ten case studies by reading through one another (i.e. diffractively) insights raised in each one of them. In ten documentary films/case studies, I identify patterns of continuities and differences concerning feminist material-discursive practices at four levels: content, form, production and reception. In terms of contents, I detect two patterns in which feminist material-discursive practices may operate: enacting the right to appear or enacting the right to look back and/or against the grain. As for the forms, I exemplify how feminism politicises Bill Nichols’s six modes of representation. My analysis of production practices is elaborated along the filmmakers’ self-positions/situatedness, tensions/obstructions, and effects/affects/emotions regarding four key concepts: documentary cinema, equality, gender and feminism(s). And in the case of reception practices, I identify patterns of affective identification and/or intellectual reflections.

"Ancestry, gender and language - The role of culture in economic development"

This thesis is a combination of research questions in development economics and economics of culture, with an emphasis on the role of ancestry, gender and language policies in shaping inequality of opportunities and socio-economic outcomes across different segments of a society. The first chapter shows both theoretically and empirically that heterogeneity in risk attitudes can be traced to the ethnic origins and ancestral way of living. In particular, I construct a measure of historical nomadism at the ethnicity level and link it to contemporary individual-level data on various proxies of risk attitudes. I exploit exogenous variation in biodiversity to build a novel instrument for nomadism: distance to domestication points. I find that descendants of ethnic groups that historically practiced nomadism (i) are more willing to take risks, (ii) value security less, and (iii) have riskier health behavior. The second chapter evaluates the nature of a trade-off between the advantages of female labor participation and the positive effects of female education. This work exploits a triple difference identification strategy relying on exogenous spike in cotton price and spatial variation in suitability for cotton, and split sample analyses based on the exogenous allocation of land contracts. Results show that gender differences in parental investments in patriarchal societies can be reinforced by the type of agricultural activity, while positive economic shocks may further exacerbate this bias, additionally crowding out higher possibilities to invest in female education. The third chapter brings novel evidence of the role of the language policy in building national sentiments, affecting educational and occupational choices. Here I focus on the case of Uzbekistan and estimate the effects of exposure to the Latin alphabet on informational literacy, education and career choices. I show that alphabet change affects people's informational literacy and the formation of certain educational and labour market trends.

Holocaust postmemory in contemporary anglophone children's literature

This dissertation discusses contemporary Anglophone children’s literature representing the Holocaust and it claims that, through the reading of historical novels, children can acquire a specific kind of postmemory, which I call ‘attitudinal postmemory’. The works analyzed have been written by ‘non-related’ authors, meaning writers who are not witnesses nor their descendants. Attitudinal postmemory is based on the readers’ establishment of a personal-emotional link with the Holocaust by means of narrative empathy towards the characters; it is an ‘active’ kind of memory because it will hopefully convert into an informed, respectful attitude towards peers that opposes the Nazi ideology. The dissertation is structured into two main parts. Part One provides an overview of the origins and development of Holocaust memory in Western countries. Chapter 1 introduces two major historiographical-literary debates and the following chapter discusses three main issues concerning the representation of the Holocaust (naming, the need to represent, and the ‘right to’ represent) while considering the forms and genres traditionally used and considered ‘appropriate’. Focusing on the scope of literary narratives, Chapter 3 explains how the presence of a personal-emotional link is essential to acquire Holocaust postmemory and, in particular, attitudinal postmemory. The criteria adopted with regard to the case studies are described in Chapter 4. Part Two discusses the process of interweaving historical truth with fiction and how historical fiction helps child readers acquire attitudinal postmemory. After a brief overview of the genre in Chapter 5, Chapter 6 probes how it is possible to meet the two main expectations of historical fiction while avoiding a disrespectful stance towards the Holocaust. Chapter 7 discusses the idea of empathy and some issues in the representation of Nazi evil, while Chapter 8 offers a comparative analysis of the case studies proposed, including authors from the UK, Ireland, Australia, and the USA.