Papers in English by Mario Panico
Journal of Perpetrator Research, 2024
This paper explores the role played by the material objects of perpetrators in the representation... more This paper explores the role played by the material objects of perpetrators in the representation of their lives, crimes and memory legacies. To locate and situate these objects, I concentrate not on the propaganda monuments built during regimes but on the domestic arena, that is, on places connected to the private lives of perpetrators that now feature in memorial sites. In the cases examined here, these feature within artistic exhibitions at such sites. In the first part of the article, I propose that these cases also provide a particularly fruitful opportunity to question the ‘infra-ordinary’ of perpetrators. In this, I borrow Georges Perec’s notion (1997) that the study of apparently trivial things unveils the most ‘authentic’ dimension of the real. In the context of perpetrator heritage, what emerges is a very thorny infra-ordinary, as it is overlaid topologically and phenomenologically with the space of violence. Having outlined this reasoning, in the second part of the article, I examine two examples of artistic practices which integrate the objects of perpetrators into the site’s narratives. The first is a temporary exhibition entitled ‘Bilder, Stimmen und Klischees’ (Pictures, Voices and Clichés), which was hosted in a part of the SS Auxiliaries’ quarters at the Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück in Germany. My second example is the permanent artistic installation at the ESMA Museo Sitio de Memoria in Buenos Aires. The analysis of these two artistic practices sheds light on the strategies adopted to represent perpetrators through the material infra-ordinary, thereby challenging the stereotype of absolute evil.
International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 2023
This article seeks to investigate the role that a symbol-connected to a legal event and a collect... more This article seeks to investigate the role that a symbol-connected to a legal event and a collective trauma-has in the construction of a past imaginary. It begins with a theoretical reflection on the role of the symbol as proposed by Juri Lotman and the function of repetition in the consolidation of collective memory. It subsequently focuses on the semiotic resonance of one specific object: the bulletproof cabin of the Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann, used during his trial in Jerusalem, in 1961. I consider the 'afterlives' of this object, examining the different 'remakes' of Eichmann's cabin in several mediatic and artistic contexts, focusing on the modalities that have anchored it to the post-1961 imaginary of the perpetrator and the legal consequences of his actions. To do so, the article proposes a typology of uses of the cabin, identifying the different nuances of its representation and how they encapsulate the thorny issues surrounding that infamous legal event.
Social Semiotics, 2022
Can the perpetrator or the collaborator "speak"? How, and for whom? Do they have a "right to a bi... more Can the perpetrator or the collaborator "speak"? How, and for whom? Do they have a "right to a biography" and, if so, what are the terms of this right? Who can speak for them? In short, what does it mean to work through their lives and the crimes they committed for those who decide to tell their stories? The main goal of this paper is to answer these questions using a particular kind of documentary directed by those who, in a certain moment of their lives, have discovered that a member of their families was a perpetrator or a collaborator relating to a dictatorship. Using Lotman's theory of culture and memory, we discuss the positionalities of those who "wrote" these documentaries, located constantly between the individual and the collective semiosphere. Taking into account two case studies-El pacto de Adriana directed by Lissette Orozco (Chile, 2017) and L'occhio di vetro directed by Duccio Charini (Italy, 2020)-we look at the mechanisms of investigation and recollection that they use and "show," in order to elucidate family secrets within the broader contexts of the collective traumas of Chile's and Italy's postconflict societies.
Memory Studies, 2021
This article explores the narratives of the Covid-19 crisis in Italy, in the ways that they inter... more This article explores the narratives of the Covid-19 crisis in Italy, in the ways that they intersect with cultural memory processes. Moving from the hypothesis that the Covid-19 crisis, in Italy, has undergone two distinct narrative phases, we focus on the comparison between the forms taken, during the first lockdown, by an important (but also somehow divisive) memory ritual: the celebration of 25 April (the day that Italy was liberated from Nazi-Fascism) and the newly established commemorations of Covid-19 casualties. The aim is to observe the osmoses between two discursive domains (memory discourse vs emergency discourse). To do so, we propose the concept of “pre-emptive memory,” which can be defined as an act of—unwitting—anticipation, pre-figuration, and re-combination of the future cultural memory of an ongoing event in the present.
Lexia. Rivista di Semiotica, 2020
This essay aims to investigate the various semiotic roles played by islands in the memory of the ... more This essay aims to investigate the various semiotic roles played by islands in the memory of the Italian Fascist confino (forced confinement) of opponents of the Mussolini's regime. In particular, starting from the assumption that the little islands in the south of Italy were used by the regime as a space of exclusion for its enemies, I consider the possible encyclopaedical network related to the fascist construction and anti-fascist memory of islandness. The essay compares different forms of cultural perception of the island of confino: as a space for anti-fascist enemies and minorities, as a stereotypical space of "villeggiatura", relaxation and holiday, and as space of nostalgia.
Ocula - Semiotic Eye on Media, 2020
The main goal of this contribution is to investigate the way in which a figure of memory , the im... more The main goal of this contribution is to investigate the way in which a figure of memory , the image of a person linked to an event of the past, symbolically travels in a specific culture. Investigating the role of recognition and repetition, I will reframe the modality of remembering the traumatic past through remediation. In particular, the analysis of an emblematic example from the contemporary Italian semiosphere, Benito Mus-solini, allows me to focus on the creation of a common heritage of knowledge that is synthesized in a single person, culturally defined as a synecdoche of specific beliefs and values.
Studi Culturali, 2020
If you happened to pass through Predappio on the anniversary of the birth or the death of Benito ... more If you happened to pass through Predappio on the anniversary of the birth or the death of Benito Mussolini, or that of the march on Rome, there is a good chance you would meet a sizeable group of neo-fascists wearing t-shirts, watches or baseball caps adorned with the dictator’s face, bought at the souvenir shops on the town’s main street. You might meet young men and women with the angular face of the ex-duce tattooed on their arms or shoulders. If you then decided to follow that group of people, you would arrive at the cemetery of San Cassiano, two kilometres from the town’s main square, where Mussolini was buried in the family crypt. After a few minutes, if you looked around the crowd, you might realize that what the press and public opinion often call the «nostalgic people of Predappio» are actually not all the same. In this contribution, I propose a possible typology of the different degrees of nostalgia in the people that animate Predappio during these «holy» days for the Fascist calendar.
Puntum. International Journal of Semiotics, 2019
In Italy there is a difference between the historical experience of Fascism and what is remembere... more In Italy there is a difference between the historical experience of Fascism and what is remembered of it. In many cases, violence and repression have been interpreted as a kind of historical removal. In particular, the lack of the Nuremberg trial, as happened in Germany, allowed the traumatic memories of Mussolini's dictatorship to be banalized and made nostalgic. To understand these defects of Italian cultural memory, it may be useful to look at urban space. If urban space always speaks of something other than itself, then looking at the monumental traces of Fascism still standing in Italy allows to provide answers about the collective amnesia that has transformed Fascism into a parenthesis. The main goal of this article is to investigate the mechanisms of conservation, a practice able to include new enun-ciations and remove old ones. In particular, through the analysis of some fascist monuments, I address four semiotic strategies of elaboration and cancellation of the past that weaken the sense of monumental representation. Specifically, I investigate the mechanisms of erasure, nor-malization, narcotization-latency and the construction of polyphonic memories.
Punctum. International Journal of Semiotics , 2016
This paper aims at delineating the basic principles for a semiotic approach to monuments and memo... more This paper aims at delineating the basic principles for a semiotic approach to monuments and memorials. Monuments are built forms erected to confer dominant meanings on space. They present an aesthetic value as well as a political function. Often, political elites erect monuments to promote selective historical narratives that focus on convenient events and individuals while obliterating what is discomforting. While representing selective historical narratives, monuments can inculcate specific conceptions of the present and encourage future possibilities. As such, monuments become essential for the articulation of the national politics of memory and identity through which political elites set political agendas and legitimate political power. However, once erected, monuments become social properties and users can reinterpret them in ways that are different or contrary to the intentions of the designers. Previous research has explored monuments as either aesthetic objects presenting historical and artistic values or as political tools in the hand of those in power. Hence, this research has wittingly or unwittingly created a gap between the material-symbolic and the political dimensions of monuments. Moreover, it has variously given more emphasis either to the intentions of the designers or to the interpretations of the users. The semiotic approach to monuments can address these issues providing a holistic approach that overcomes the rigid distinctions predominant in previous research on monuments. Although useful analytical categories, the distinction between material-symbolic and political dimensions cannot be extended to the ontological state of monuments. Semiotics can be useful in investigating the meanings of monuments as actively created by the interplay of the material, the symbolic and the political dimensions. It provides a methodological basis to consider designers and users as equally contributing to the meaning-making of monuments.
Papers by Mario Panico
Estudos Semiotics, 2021
L'obiettivo di questo articolo è di indagare la correlazione tra cultura e memoria così come prop... more L'obiettivo di questo articolo è di indagare la correlazione tra cultura e memoria così come proposta nella teoria semiotica di Juri M. Lotman e dagli altri studiosi della scuola di Tartu-Mosca. In queste pagine, particolare spazio è dato alla disamina del concetto di "longevità della cultura", intesa come la "durata" semantica di testi e codici. Questo concetto, proposto per la prima volta da Lotman e Uspenskij, viene messo in dialogo con specifici aspetti comuni al binomio cultura/memoria: il carattere relazionale e retrospettivo, la comune diacronia. Inoltre, con l'obiettivo finale di enfatizzare la componente politica nella teoria semiotica della memoria e della cultura, in questo articolo la longevità è posta in relazione ai processi traduttivi del filtraggio e della dimenticanza.
Parole-chiave: longevità; capacità di memoria; filtraggio; dimenticanza; Juri M. Lotman.
Actes Sémiotiques , 2021
(with Patrizia Violi) This paper seeks to reflect on the narrative and discursive organizations o... more (with Patrizia Violi) This paper seeks to reflect on the narrative and discursive organizations of violence, proposing a semiotic typology that takes into account two specific stages which correspond roughly to the categories of private vs public, or collective, violence which have different Destination and forms of Agency.
In the first case we will examine the object towards which the violent action is directed, in the second the rhetoric justifications that the violent subject adopts in relation to his/her own action. Among the different forms of private violence we will consider those hurled against an individual object. Examples of this include the case of domestic violence, where a husband killing a wife activates a system of passions specifically directed towards the object; violence towards a generic object, which can be instantiated by an individual, as in the case of actions against a person that is intended as token of a general type (minority groups, the lgbtqi community, etc.); and violence per se, that does not have an object defined a priori. In the second instance, we will address the modality in which collective violence is rhetorically explained by the perpetrators. Here we look at the various enunciative strategies that are used for the semantic transformation of the violent action into a form of justifiable behaviour.
E/C, 2020
The main goal of this paper is to investigate the enunciation created when a subject, in a space ... more The main goal of this paper is to investigate the enunciation created when a subject, in a space of memory, looks at a photograph where a person, connected with a traumatic event, is represented. In particular, considering the dynamics of "me-you" (as theorized by Schapiro) evoked by the frontality of the photographs, I propose a reflection on the "proxemics of memory". In particular, I consider the positioning in space of the spectator-subject that allows him/her to always change his/her acting role, "becoming" perpetrator and victim according to the enunciation that is activated. To do this, I focus on three case studies that represent three different ways of changing the spectator's acting role, so as to propose reflections on the ways in which traumatic memory is transmitted through photographs that "look into the eyes".
Tópicos del Seminario. Revista de Semiotica, 2020
The aim of this article is to demonstrate how post-memory, that is, the process of generational t... more The aim of this article is to demonstrate how post-memory, that is, the process of generational transmission of memory, is closely linked to the concepts of translation and re-writing. To confirm this argumentation, the author analyses the documentary El silencio es un cuerpo que cae (2017), written and directed by the Argentinian filmmaker Agustina Comedi. The movie, an example of found footage, using amateur home movies of her family, intertwines private and collective memories with reflections on the new, possible and different modalities to transmit the memory of homosexuality across generations.The aim of this article is to demonstrate how post-memory, that is, the process of generational transmission of memory, is closely linked to the concepts of translation and re-writing. To confirm this argumentation, the author analyses the documentary El silencio es un cuerpo que cae (2017), written and directed by the Argentinian filmmaker Agustina Comedi. The movie, an example of found footage, using amateur home movies of her family, intertwines private and collective memories with reflections on the new, possible and different modalities to transmit the memory of homosexuality across generations.
Bibliomanie. Letterature, Storiografie, Semiotiche, 2020
Today, we take for granted the fact that the past century’s Fascism, in the specific historical ... more Today, we take for granted the fact that the past century’s Fascism, in the specific historical form that it had in Italy, could not possibly return. We also cannot but recognize the outdatedness of the rhetoric and the communicative register of Benito Mussolini. Why, then, is the former Italian dictator still in fashion, in particular for certain social groups? This article begins with these assumptions and general questions. Its main objective is to investigate the resemantizations of Benito Mussolini, and specifically those produced in his hometown, Predappio. Today, the village in Romagna is a vital destination for nostalgic, neo-fascist groups who, three times a year (on the anniversary of Mussolini’s birth and death, and on the anniversary of the March on Rome), gather in the town square to commemorate the former dictator. Having provided some important context about this place, the article investigates the semiotic variations of the dictator within it, demonstrating the cultural schemes utilized to transmit Mussolini into the present, namely as “saint”, as “family man and father”, and as “souvenir”. To meet this aim, I address three spaces in Predappio that are emblematically linked to the memory of the former dictator. First, I consider the resemantization of Mussolini as “saint”, examining the Mussolini family crypt. This is located in the cemetery of San Cassiano, not far from the main square of Predappio, and it is where the dictator has been buried since 1957. Second, I interrogate the image of Mussolini as the “father of a family” in the objects contained in the “Villa Carpena”, the ex-residence of the duce. This building has since become a private museum, open only to fascist enthusiasts. Finally, I reflect on the notion of Mussolini as a “souvenir”, investigating how the image of the dictator is reproduced in the various objects and merchandise sold in the souvenir shops of Predappio. These objects, I argue, encourage a form of nostalgic tourism, whereby visitors can return home from the village, taking with them a small reproduction of the dictator.
Versus. Quaderni di Studi Semiotici, 2018
Monuments are memory mediators (Assmann 2002) that convey a particular interpretation of history.... more Monuments are memory mediators (Assmann 2002) that convey a particular interpretation of history. When the hegemonic version of events is "questioned" different semiotic strategies impair the sense of the monument design. The aim of this research is to show how all interpretations of a single monument can be complementary, thereby offering to the monument a fluctuating and not exclusive meaning. The Bulgarian Soviet Army Monument is the case study that allows us to define this idea. It was built in 1954, but since the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989, this monument has undergone a profound resemantization by those who daily live its space, creating new meanings and new memories.
L'obiettivo di questo contributo è indagare le azioni di street art e ricolorazione pra-ticate su... more L'obiettivo di questo contributo è indagare le azioni di street art e ricolorazione pra-ticate sui monumenti della dittatura comunista " sopravvissuti " alla demolizione dopo la fine del regime. Si considereranno le riscritture che hanno permesso ai monumenti di diventare spazio della protesta, in netto contrasto con il valore di progettazione affi-datoli. In queste pagine, inoltre, si indagheranno gli effetti delle esplosioni semiotiche prodotte dalla risemantizzazione monumentale e dall'inversione enciclopedica messa in atto dalla protesta stessa. Attraverso l'analisi di tre monumenti si approfondirà il rapporto tra immaginario e iconoclastia, definendo una nuovo genere di " attacco alle icone " , non finalizzato solo alla distruzione ma alla generazione di altri ecosistemi narrativi e nuove deontologie delle immagini.
The aim of this paper is to consider the actions of street art and urban recolouring on the monuments of communist dictatorship, which have not been demolished after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Such rewriting actions have converted these monuments in spaces of artistic disputes in stark contrast with the memory conveyed by the communist regime. My goal is to understand the semiotic logic that characterizes the art of protest on the dictatorship monuments. In addition, with the analysis of three specific monuments I will investigate the relationship between imaginary and iconoclasm with the purpose of defining a new form of " attack on image " which is aimed not only at the destruction but also at the creation of new imaginaries.
Projects by Mario Panico
by Magdalena Waligórska, etta grotrian, Stsiapan Stureika, Mindaugas Kelpša, Ulrike Huhn, S. Lawrence, Myriam Gerber, Mario Panico, Nadzeya Charapan, Uladzimir Valodzin, Tatsiana Kasataya, and Anastasiya Astapova The idea for this summer school was to speak of “difficult heritage” that is both intangible, or... more The idea for this summer school was to speak of “difficult heritage” that is both intangible, or takes the form of an absence, and tangible, taking the form of spaces and objects that unsettle us, haunt us, pose a challenge to our memory. Its immediate goal was not only to explore the new methodological approaches to so-called “dissonant heritage”, but also to provide the young scholars with an interdisciplinary set of research tools and experience that would enhance and facilitate their further research.
It was our guiding principle to start this summer school in the so-called “periphery of Europe”, and try to export some of the lessons learned there into the much more theorized context of Western Europe. The German leg of the school was therefore to take place only after we had explored the Lithuanian-Belarusian borderlands.
See our blog and the documentation of our findings on our website: http://www.digitalhistory.uni-bremen.de/summerschool/wordpress/
Books by Mario Panico
by Franciscu Sedda, Paolo Sorrentino, Alexandre Marcelo Bueno, Federico Cavalleri, Cíntia Sanmartin Fernandes, Alice Iacobone, Tarcisio Lancioni, Rafael Giardini Lenzi, Inna Merkoulova, Mario Panico, Giacomo Pezzano, Mauro Puddu, and Bruno Surace Lexia 35-36, 2020
Dire “isola” pare implicare un senso di chiusura, oggettivazione, naturalità, sintetizzato dal co... more Dire “isola” pare implicare un senso di chiusura, oggettivazione, naturalità, sintetizzato dal concetto d’insularità.
Questo volume di semiotica delle culture vuole invece cogliere la soggettività delle isole e di chi le popola. Per farlo tesse connessioni fra mito e storia, utopia e distopia, metafora e modelli, immaginario e teoria; fra semiotica, nissologia, antropologia, filosofia, mediologia, studi culturali.
Parlare d’isolanità significa dunque contribuire ad emancipare lo studio delle isole da una concezione riduttivistica, facendo vedere tutta l’arcipelagica ricchezza di relazioni e identificazioni che queste custodiscono nella loro storia, nel loro presente, nelle loro aspirazioni.
***
Saying "island" seems to imply a sense of closure, objectification, naturalness, synthesized by the concept of insularity.
This volume of semiotics of cultures, on the other hand, seeks to capture the subjectivity of islands and of those who populate them. To do this, the volume weaves connections between myth and history, utopia and dystopia, metaphor and models, imagination and theory; between semiotics, nissology, anthropology, philosophy, mediology, cultural studies.
Speaking of islandness therefore means contributing to emancipating the study of islands from a reductivistic conception, showing all the archipelagic richness of relationships and identifications that they preserve in their history, in their present, in their aspirations.
Articles in Scientific Journals by Mario Panico
Come cambia il senso del luogo. Spazi urbani e ambienti mediali, 2021
This paper seeks to provide an investigation of the use of memory spaces and the practice of comm... more This paper seeks to provide an investigation of the use of memory spaces and the practice of commemoration during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, when people were forced to stay at home due to the lockdown. In particular, the authors point out how the reconfiguration of urban and domestic spaces, together with the increasing use of electronic and technological devices, has contributed to the production of new forms of memorial gathering, in which the collective subject has taken on different semiotic configurations each time. All the case studies in this article are related to a specific memorial day: the Italian commemoration of the 25 th April, the date of Nazi-fascist liberation in 1945. 1. L'oggetto della ricerca: come cambia il senso dei luoghi della memoria durante una pandemia? Autentico "fatto sociale totale" (Mauss 1923-24), la pandemia da Covid-19 ha stravolto ogni dimensione della vita sociale e culturale. Tra gli aspetti maggiormente investiti, quello più evidente e pervasivo riguarda la riconfigurazione degli usi e dei sensi dello spazio, pubblico e privato. Non è azzardato affermare che il virus abbia prodotto forme proprie di spazialità, da una parte accelerando, o perlomeno rendendo visibili, certi processi di trasformazione dello spazio pubblico già avviati, dall'altra innescando trasformazioni imprevedibili. Le misure attuate dai diversi governi nazionali per contenere la diffusione della pandemia hanno determinato una totale ridefinizione dei nostri "spazi vissuti". Da una parte, lo spazio pubblico, svuotato il più possibile di ogni presenza umana e di ogni attività "non essenziale", ha assunto un carattere sempre più marcato di spazio sospeso; dall'altra, gli spazi privati delle nostre abitazioni hanno acquisito un carattere sempre più pubblico, trasformandosi da retroscene in goffmaniane ribalte (Cfr. Lorusso, Marrone, Jacoviello 2020). In questo processo di rideterminazione dei sensi dei luoghi-che per certi versi porta alle estreme conseguenze le intuizioni di Meyrowitz (1986) 2-le nuove tecnologie della comunicazione hanno, ovviamente, giocato un ruolo centrale: dalle tecnologie, vecchie e nuove, di "tele-visione" e trasmissione di immagini agli strumenti di comunicazione interpersonale per le videochiamate, passando per le applicazioni di realtà virtuale e aumentata.
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Papers in English by Mario Panico
Papers by Mario Panico
Parole-chiave: longevità; capacità di memoria; filtraggio; dimenticanza; Juri M. Lotman.
In the first case we will examine the object towards which the violent action is directed, in the second the rhetoric justifications that the violent subject adopts in relation to his/her own action. Among the different forms of private violence we will consider those hurled against an individual object. Examples of this include the case of domestic violence, where a husband killing a wife activates a system of passions specifically directed towards the object; violence towards a generic object, which can be instantiated by an individual, as in the case of actions against a person that is intended as token of a general type (minority groups, the lgbtqi community, etc.); and violence per se, that does not have an object defined a priori. In the second instance, we will address the modality in which collective violence is rhetorically explained by the perpetrators. Here we look at the various enunciative strategies that are used for the semantic transformation of the violent action into a form of justifiable behaviour.
The aim of this paper is to consider the actions of street art and urban recolouring on the monuments of communist dictatorship, which have not been demolished after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Such rewriting actions have converted these monuments in spaces of artistic disputes in stark contrast with the memory conveyed by the communist regime. My goal is to understand the semiotic logic that characterizes the art of protest on the dictatorship monuments. In addition, with the analysis of three specific monuments I will investigate the relationship between imaginary and iconoclasm with the purpose of defining a new form of " attack on image " which is aimed not only at the destruction but also at the creation of new imaginaries.
Projects by Mario Panico
It was our guiding principle to start this summer school in the so-called “periphery of Europe”, and try to export some of the lessons learned there into the much more theorized context of Western Europe. The German leg of the school was therefore to take place only after we had explored the Lithuanian-Belarusian borderlands.
See our blog and the documentation of our findings on our website: http://www.digitalhistory.uni-bremen.de/summerschool/wordpress/
Books by Mario Panico
Questo volume di semiotica delle culture vuole invece cogliere la soggettività delle isole e di chi le popola. Per farlo tesse connessioni fra mito e storia, utopia e distopia, metafora e modelli, immaginario e teoria; fra semiotica, nissologia, antropologia, filosofia, mediologia, studi culturali.
Parlare d’isolanità significa dunque contribuire ad emancipare lo studio delle isole da una concezione riduttivistica, facendo vedere tutta l’arcipelagica ricchezza di relazioni e identificazioni che queste custodiscono nella loro storia, nel loro presente, nelle loro aspirazioni.
***
Saying "island" seems to imply a sense of closure, objectification, naturalness, synthesized by the concept of insularity.
This volume of semiotics of cultures, on the other hand, seeks to capture the subjectivity of islands and of those who populate them. To do this, the volume weaves connections between myth and history, utopia and dystopia, metaphor and models, imagination and theory; between semiotics, nissology, anthropology, philosophy, mediology, cultural studies.
Speaking of islandness therefore means contributing to emancipating the study of islands from a reductivistic conception, showing all the archipelagic richness of relationships and identifications that they preserve in their history, in their present, in their aspirations.
Articles in Scientific Journals by Mario Panico
Parole-chiave: longevità; capacità di memoria; filtraggio; dimenticanza; Juri M. Lotman.
In the first case we will examine the object towards which the violent action is directed, in the second the rhetoric justifications that the violent subject adopts in relation to his/her own action. Among the different forms of private violence we will consider those hurled against an individual object. Examples of this include the case of domestic violence, where a husband killing a wife activates a system of passions specifically directed towards the object; violence towards a generic object, which can be instantiated by an individual, as in the case of actions against a person that is intended as token of a general type (minority groups, the lgbtqi community, etc.); and violence per se, that does not have an object defined a priori. In the second instance, we will address the modality in which collective violence is rhetorically explained by the perpetrators. Here we look at the various enunciative strategies that are used for the semantic transformation of the violent action into a form of justifiable behaviour.
The aim of this paper is to consider the actions of street art and urban recolouring on the monuments of communist dictatorship, which have not been demolished after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Such rewriting actions have converted these monuments in spaces of artistic disputes in stark contrast with the memory conveyed by the communist regime. My goal is to understand the semiotic logic that characterizes the art of protest on the dictatorship monuments. In addition, with the analysis of three specific monuments I will investigate the relationship between imaginary and iconoclasm with the purpose of defining a new form of " attack on image " which is aimed not only at the destruction but also at the creation of new imaginaries.
It was our guiding principle to start this summer school in the so-called “periphery of Europe”, and try to export some of the lessons learned there into the much more theorized context of Western Europe. The German leg of the school was therefore to take place only after we had explored the Lithuanian-Belarusian borderlands.
See our blog and the documentation of our findings on our website: http://www.digitalhistory.uni-bremen.de/summerschool/wordpress/
Questo volume di semiotica delle culture vuole invece cogliere la soggettività delle isole e di chi le popola. Per farlo tesse connessioni fra mito e storia, utopia e distopia, metafora e modelli, immaginario e teoria; fra semiotica, nissologia, antropologia, filosofia, mediologia, studi culturali.
Parlare d’isolanità significa dunque contribuire ad emancipare lo studio delle isole da una concezione riduttivistica, facendo vedere tutta l’arcipelagica ricchezza di relazioni e identificazioni che queste custodiscono nella loro storia, nel loro presente, nelle loro aspirazioni.
***
Saying "island" seems to imply a sense of closure, objectification, naturalness, synthesized by the concept of insularity.
This volume of semiotics of cultures, on the other hand, seeks to capture the subjectivity of islands and of those who populate them. To do this, the volume weaves connections between myth and history, utopia and dystopia, metaphor and models, imagination and theory; between semiotics, nissology, anthropology, philosophy, mediology, cultural studies.
Speaking of islandness therefore means contributing to emancipating the study of islands from a reductivistic conception, showing all the archipelagic richness of relationships and identifications that they preserve in their history, in their present, in their aspirations.