C9289 - IL PAESAGGIO TRA ARTE E SCIENZE NATURALI

Learning outcomes

The course focuses on the landscape as a model being able to overcome the outdated and cumbersome distinction between hard and soft sciences, following an approach which considers both the outcomes of the latest scientific debate and the complex nature that cultural and natural heritage’s territorial issues show. By the end of the course, students will be able to properly detect and make use of the structural and functional constituents of the landscape model and to apply such skills both in research and in project planning.

Course contents

The course will be developed around the following core conceptual themes:

1. The role of art in defining the boundary between society and the environment: particularly in the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe, swinging between the aesthetics of the picturesque and the Enlightenment dream of progress. Examples will be drawn from Emilio Sereni's observations of the Italian agrarian landscape, scientific forestry in 18th-century Germany, and works of art that illustrate the emergence of the idea of landscape in Europe and its relationship with territorial organization.
2. Starting from the distinction between "agrarian" and "rural," and between city and countryside, we will analyze the evolution of the term itself and the landscape model from the late Middle Ages to the modern era, investigating how the very idea of the relationship with nature has changed.
3. We will examine the role of landscape as a scientific model on the boundary between science and art, focusing on the comparison between landscape spatiality and contemporary cognitive models.
4. With the explicit aim of overcoming the nineteenth-century division between natural sciences and humanities, particular attention will be paid to highlighting, in the examples discussed, the peculiar intertwining of temporality and spatiality in landscape. Landscape thus becomes a geo-aesthetic model, perhaps the only one capable of effectively interpreting, in a holistic manner, the complexity of the relationship between community and environment.

Readings/Bibliography

T. Brook, Il cappello di Vermeer. Il Seicento e la nascita del mondo globalizzato, Torino: Einaudi, 2015, cap. 1.

Ch. Bonneuil, J.-B. Fressoz, La Terra, la storia e noi. L'evento Antropocene, Roma: Treccani, capp. 2-4.

E. Castelnuovo e C. Ginzburg, Centro e periferia nella storia dell'arte italiana, Roma: Officina Libraria, 2019.

G. Didi-Huberman, Storia dell'arte e anacronismo delle immagini, Torino: Bollati Boringhieri, 2007, pp. 11-56.

S. Tagliagambe, Il paesaggio: glossario, Melfi: Libria, 2021.

Teaching methods

Course will be taught through a mixture of formal lectures and discussion in classroom. Its aim will be to facilitate interaction between the lecturer and students and to stimulate debate among students.
Class attendance is critical to take advantage of a way of learning not feasible through homework, and it turns out to be crucial in order for the student to adequately satisfy exam requirements.

Assessment methods

The exam consists of an oral examination on the entire syllabus. The aim of the interview is to assess the methodological and critical skills acquired by the student. Given the importance of class attendance for an appropriate training process two grading scales are employed: for attending and non-attending students.

Attending students

Attendance and participation count for 15% of the final grade.

In particular, it will be assessed the ability of the student to participate actively in class, also using multimedia and collaborative tools provided within the course; such capacity, if combined with the achievement of a coherent framework of the topics developed during the lessons , the application of critical sense and suitable means of expression will be considered and evaluated with the maximum grading = A (27-30 con lode).

Attendance, if joint to a predominantly mnemonic acquisition of course's contents and discontinuous language and logical skills will be assessed in a grading range from good (B = 24-26) to satisfactory (C = 21-23).

Attendance, with a minimum level of knowledge of the course contents, combined with training gaps or inadequate language and logical skills, it will get as grade ‘barely passing' (D = 18-20).

The absence of a minimum level of knowledge of the course contents, combined with inadequate language and logical skills and training gaps, it will produce a fail (E) grading, even in spite of an assiduous attendance.

Non-attending students

Non-attending students will be assessed primarily on the ability to use literature made available, in order to properly expose the contents of the course. This ability, when combined with the achievement of a coherent framework of the course's themes, the application of critical sense, and suitable means of expression will be considered and evaluated with the maximum grading = A (27-30 con lode).

A predominantly mnemonic acquisition of course's contents along with discontinuous language and logical skills will be assessed in a grading range from good (B = 24-26) to satisfactory (C = 21-23).

A minimum level of knowledge of the course contents, combined with training gaps or inadequate language and logical skills, it will get as grade ‘barely passing' (D = 18-20).

The absence of a minimum level of knowledge of the course contents, combined with inadequate language and logical skills and training gaps, it will produce a fail (E) grading.

 

Regarding learning assessments, the use of AI is prohibited. Any use constitutes a violation of academic integrity.

Teaching tools

Multimedia tools.

SLD / different abilities info:

Students with SLD or different abilities (temporary or permanent) are kindly required to timely contact the administrative staff in charge (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en/for-students). The staff will define possible adaptations to be submitted for evaluation (at least 15 days before the exam) to the program director and course instructor. Students are warmly encouraged to contact the program director early on, ideally at the start of the term, to co-design effective strategies for engaging with class activities and course materials.

Office hours

See the website of Mario Angelo Neve