70076 - Geography and Visual Communication (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

The course introduces the main subjects of visual geography and the main critical theories of cartography, especially focusing on the representation of European political space. At the end of the course students acquire analytical knowledge of the relationship between cartographic image, communication and circulation of geographical thought in our times.

Course contents

Speaking of geography and visual communication means speaking of the primary role which geography has played in the tradition of Western culture, as culture founded on image, and continues to play – can and must play – in the contemporary culture of representation: this is the idea on which this year’s course is founded. Hence, the course intends to demonstrate how geography has written and can continue to write today, by means of its models, some fundamental chapters of the culture of image and representation, culture based on visual communication.

The first aim of the course is to explain how, in the modern age, geography – through its models: the first wall atlases, globes, the landscape –, became visual communication, and, as such, was able to convey and create not only strategies but also phantasy, theatre, wonder, even scandals. The course will show that, also through scandals and wonder, geography played a primary role in building a thought on image and a kind of imagination which are still part of our contemporary culture.

The second aim is to explain and discuss how today’s geography becomes visual communication and what this visual communication should convey to show itself to be incisive, and influence today’s imagination, also through phantasy, wonder, etc. The lectures will propose the analysis of some texts taken from contemporary languages: above all, those of movies, advertising, visual art, and newspapers/infographics. This analysis/interpretation of the geographic side of these texts will be discussed, and also built, with students, during several lectures focused on geographic imagination and creativity.

These two aims, and the relationship between them, will involve some reflections on the way in which today’s geographers may be interpreters of the culture of representation, i.e., more generally, on what being a geographer means today, within the current culture of image.

It is clear that the interpretative approach proposed here may be grasped only in virtue of constant attendance of the course.

Readings/Bibliography

Non-attending students can choose two among the texts proposed below, no matter if taken from the same thematic group or from two different thematic groups. On the alternative programme for attending students, see below (“Assessment methods”).

 

1) On geography and image/representation, between modern and postmodern age:

• Bonfiglioli S., La geografia di Egnazio Danti. Il sapere corografico a Bologna nell’età della Controriforma, Bologna, Pàtron, 2012.

• Farinelli F., I segni del mondo. Immagine cartografica e discorso geografico in età moderna, Firenze, la Nuova Italia, 1992 (or Acqui Terme, Academia Universa, 2009).

2) On cartography:

• Boria E., Cartografia e potere. Segni e rappresentazioni negli atlanti italiani del Novecento, Torino, Utet Università, 2007.

• Casti E., Cartografia critica: dal topos alla chora, Milano, Guerini scientifica, 2013.

• Neve M., Il disegno dell’Europa. Costruzioni cartografiche dell’identità europea, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2016.

3) On movies, photography, and videos:

• dell’Agnese E., Paesaggi ed eroi. Cinema, nazione, geopolitica, Torino, Utet Università, 2009.

• Bignante E., Geografia e ricerca visuale. Strumenti e metodi, Roma-Bari, Laterza, 2011.
  

Teaching methods

Some lectures, mainly the introductory ones, will be traditional lectures giving room for discussion.

Concerning the first aim described above (see “Course contents”), the teacher plans to give some “travelling" lectures (which will be established during the course, on the basis of the availability of students), i.e. lectures given while going to visit some places where, at the beginning of the modern age, geography became visual communication, in order to show its communicative effects by letting students assume the role of interpreters in those precise spatial and temporal contexts.

Concerning the second aim described above, several lectures will aim at involving students in the analysis and interpretation of some geographic texts, especially taken from contemporary languages.

Assessment methods

NON-ATTENDING STUDENTS

Written examination consisting of open-ended questions on the contents of the two books chosen among those listed above (one question for each book). Non-attending students may choose to study two books taken from the same thematic group of from two different thematic groups.

 

ATTENDING STUDENTS

Attending students may choose the same programme and take the same exam as non-attending students; alternatively, they may choose the following programme reserved for attending students.

Attending students may alternatively take an oral exam, preparing for it an oral analysis/interpretation of a geographical text, or a text of geographical interest, chosen by them, and taken from advertising, movies, newspapers/infographics, cartography, art, etc., i.e., from one of the languages deepened during the course. Choosing the text will not be difficult at all for attending students; on the contrary, this choice will be perfectly in line with attendance of the course, given that several examples of texts and analyses/interpretations will be proposed and discussed during the lectures. To sum up, attending students may take an oral exam for which they have to prepare the analysis of a geographical text, adding to it, and basing it on:

         a) the knowledge of the topics tackled by the teacher  during the course;

         b) the reading of three articles or book chapters (N.B.: not three books, but three articles or book chapters) among those indicated by the teacher during her lectures, essays connected with each of the topics or languages tackled. The list of these essays (articles or book chapters) will be made available by the teacher online, as part of the teaching material. The book chapters will be taken both from the texts listed above (entry “Readings/Bibliography”) and from other texts.

Attending students who choose the oral exam have to tell the teacher which geographical text they want to analyse before the exam, so that they can establish together with her also the three essays (articles or book chapters) to study, selecting them from the essays which are most strictly linked to the kind of geographic text they have chosen.

 

EVALUATION CRITERIA (applying both to oral and written exam)

The evaluation will take into account:

1) the level of knowledge of the contents: how well they have been deepened and critically understood;

2) how rich and correct the discursive articulation of the contents is;

3) the use of appropriate terminology.

The evaluation of each of the three criteria will contribute to determine the final grade, which will be assigned according to the following evaluation scale:

. 18-21, if the performance is, on the whole, sufficient;

. 22-24, if the performance is, on the whole, satisfactory;

. 25-27, if the performance is, on the whole, good;

. 28-30, if the performance is, on the whole, very good;

. 30 cum laude, if the performance is, on the whole, excellent.

Teaching tools

Slides, images, videos, “travelling” lectures besides the traditional ones.

Office hours

See the website of Stefania Bonfiglioli