Performative Aesthetics

A.Y. 2024/2025
9
Max ECTS
60
Overall hours
SSD
M-FIL/04
Language
Italian
Learning objectives
This course aims to provide students with an in-depth historical and critical-theoretical investigation of the main issues within aesthetics, with a special focus on performance. The proposed path will address the fundamental questions and authors of this disciplinary field, while also taking into consideration its interdisciplinary connections with other domains such as: the history of theater, the history of literature, the art history, media history and theory, psychology, anthropology, and cognitive science, in order to deepen the philosophical education of the BA students.
The students will be able to critically analyze and employ the acquired notions particularly in the professional areas of secondary school teacher, professional in the field of education and popularization, editor-in-chief of texts and images, and coordinator of cultural projects in the public and private domain.
Expected learning outcomes
Knowledge and understanding:
Students will acquire an in-depth knowledge and critical awareness of the main theories and issues addressed within aesthetics. Notions as agency, performance and embodiment will be addressed. Along the way, students will be called on to critically compare the fundamental authors and concepts of this disciplinary field, and to develop an understanding of its methods and specialized terminology.

Ability to apply knowledge and understanding
Students will acquire the skills necessary to apply the conceptual frameworks of the major aesthetic theories to situations pertaining to aesthesiology, visual and performance studies, and performative practices, through recourse to an adequate specialized lexicon. They will be able to critically discuss the main theoretical models (of both the continental and analytic traditions) and the corresponding literature. Students will be able to securely navigate interdisciplinary study environments. They will be encouraged to propose original and stand-alone solutions to problems arising from the joint discussion.
Single course

This course can be attended as a single course.

Course syllabus and organization

Single session

Responsible
Lesson period
First semester
Course syllabus
The course will discuss the processes of individual and social individualization, with a focus on the relationship that living human beings can establish with the environment and with machines. The influence that gender education has on these processes, and the ways in which it affects bodily habits, will be explored.
Prerequisites for admission
Specific preliminary notions are not required
Teaching methods
Lectures
Lectures in co-presence with other faculty members
Discussions between the teacher and other scholars about specific texts
Discussions with students

The final lesson of each unit will be recorded, as well as the opening one.
Teaching Resources
Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, MIT, 1961.
David Scott, Gilbert Simondon's Psychic and Collective Individuation: A Critical Introduction and Guide, Edimburgh UP, 2014.
Ihde, D. & Malafouris, L. (2019). Homo faber revisited: Postphenomenology and material engagement theory. Philosophy & Technology 32(2), 195-214.

Students who want to get 9 CFU, prepare also:
Iris Marion Young, On Female Body Experience: "Throwing Like a Girl" and Other Essays, Oxford University Press, 2005.
or, alternatively,
Katherine Hayles, My mother was a computer. University of Chicago Press, 2005.

Non attending students will add:
Pietro Montani, Bioestetica. Senso comune, tecnica e arte nell'età della globalizzazione, Carocci, Roma 2008.
Assessment methods and Criteria
The exam for attending students consists of an oral interview on the topics proposed in class and questions designed to verify knowledge and understanding of all the texts in the syllabus.

Each attending student will be questioned by the main teacher and one of the committee members.

For non-attending students, questions on the course will be replaced by questions on the additional text dedicated to them.

During the tests, the following will be assessed:
- the level of knowledge of theory (comprehension);
- the ability to exemplify concepts (competence);
- communication skills in terms of the adequacy of language in explicating the skills acquired and related issues (exposition).

Normally, the exam is completed on the scheduled day.
M-FIL/04 - AESTHETICS - University credits: 9
Lessons: 60 hours
Professor: Cappelletto Chiara
Professor(s)