08846 - Comparative Literatures (A-L)

Course contents

Course programme/Contents

Shadows, traces, the Panopticon: literature and photography

Starting from the birth of Daguerre’s invention, there have been very few writers capable of resisting the enticement of the photographic sign, its mysterious nature of trace, testament to a presence. In the texts chosen for the course – belonging to what Nicolas Mirzoeff calls the «age of photography», moreover considering it over – the multiple strategies used by some novelists to talk about photography in their tales. In the texts by Hawthorne, Nabokov, Cortázar, Perec, Auster and Sebald, some common motifs emerge: together with the ambiguous charm connected to the possibility of duplicating the world, shadows, obscurity and darkness invade the pages and the obsessive threat of an eye capable of an all embracing vision nothing can elude seems more or less declaredly to take shape.

 

Readings/Bibliography

Readings/Bibliography

Literary Texts

· N. Hawthorne, The House of he Seven Gables

· V. Nabokov, Invitation to a Beheading

· J. Cortázar, Las babas del diablo; Los pasos en las huellas; Apocalipsis de Solentiname; Algunos aspectos del cuento

· G. Perec, W ou le souvenir d'enfance

· P. Auster, The Invention of Solitude

. G. Celati, Quattro novelle sulle apparenze (e una scelta di alcuni scritti di Luigi Ghirri) 

· G.W. Sebald, Austerlitz

. M. Mari, Leggenda privata

. G. Falco / S. Ragucci, Condominio Oltremare

 

Critical Texts

· W. Benjamin, Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit (The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility)

· R. Barthes, La chambre claire. Note sur la photographie (Camera Lucida) or S. Sontag, On Photography

. M. Foucault, Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison. Part. III. Chap. III. Le panoptisme

· N. Mirzoeff, An Introduction to Visual Culture (Introduction, Chapter II, Chapter III)

Film

- M. Antonioni, Blow-up

- W. Wenders, Alice in den Städten (Alice in the Cities)

- G. Celati, The World of Luigi Ghirri

- M. Romanek, One hour photo

Students planning to take 12 credit exam will have to read the texts of six authors chosen amongst the seven listed with extreme attention, as well as, obviously, the critical essays listed.

Students planning to take 6 credit exam will have to read the texts of three authors chosen amongst the seven listed with extreme attention, as well as, obviously, the critical essays listed.

Non-attending students will have to read both the texts by Sontag and Barthes (in addition, obviously, to other texts listed).

Office hours

See the website of Ferdinando Amigoni