Claudio Bisoni is Professor in the Department of Arts, University of Bologna, in the disciplinary group L-Art/06 (cinema, photography and television). At present, he lectures on the courses in Film History (undergraduate/triennale module for the DAMS degree) and Gender Studies in the Media (masters/magistrale module for the Cinema, Television and Multimedia Production/CITEM degree). Previously, on the DAMS programme, he taught History and Methods of Film Criticism (from 2010-11 to 2016-17), and, on the CITEM degree, Reception and Consumption of the Media (from 2010-11 to 2016-17).
Over the past ten years, Bisoni’s research has evolved along three principal trajectories.
The first regards the history of film culture. In this area, Bisoni has studied the history of criticism and Italian cinema culture, particularly from the 1970s to the present, producing two monographs (Gli anni affollati. La cultura cinematografica italiana (1970-1979), Carocci, 2009 and La critica cinematografica. Un'introduzione, Archetipolibri, 2013), as well as various articles (including La storia della critica, in Storia del cinema italiano, Vol. XII–1970/1976, Marsilio/Bianco & Nero, 2008; Il carrello di Kapò visto da qui. Il film di Pontecorvo e la sua ricezione critica letti in prospettiva, “Cinema e Storia”, year II, n. 2, 2013; Critica, in Il cinema. Percorsi storici e questioni teoriche, Carocci, 2015).
Bisoni co-edited an issue of “Bianco & Nero” on Italian media culture in the 1970s (with G. Pescatore and P. Noto, Passato prossimo. Cinema e media in Italia negli anni Settanta, “Bianco & Nero”, n. 572, 2012). In the same area, he has also published articles on Italian film theory throughout the twentieth century (with A. Costa, Teorie del cinema ed estetica delle arti, in Storia del cinema italiano. Uno sguardo d’insieme, Marsilio/Bianco & Nero, 2011), on the links between reception theory and cinema aesthetics (Cinema Within the Aesthetic Relation: Film Studies and Gérard Genette’s Art Theory, “Cinéma & Cie”, n. 18, 2012), and on the notion of the cinematic canon from the perspective of reception studies (The Canon and the Aesthetic Norm: From Realism to the “Canon of Realism” in Italian Film Culture of the Forties and Fifties, in Il canone cinematografico/The Film Canon, Forum, 2011).
The second area of study has focused on Italian cinema during the second half of the twentieth century. In this context, Bisoni has focused his analyses on political cinema, in a volume dedicated to Investigation of a Citizen above Suspicion (Elio Petri. Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto, Lindau, 2011), in articles on the cinema of Elio Petri and its connections with 1970s literature (Il potere e l’impegno: le traiettorie del cinema civile di Elio Petri, in Elio Petri, uomo di cinema. Impegno, spettacolo, industria culturale, Bonanno Editore, 2015; Ognuno a proprio modo: Sciascia, Petri, l’impegno, il cinema, “Todo Modo. Rivista internazionale di studi sciasciani”, 2017) and in an article devoted to Paolo Sorrentino, in an international volume on contemporary Italian political film (Paolo Sorrentino: Between Engagement and savoir faire, in Italian Political Cinema. Public Life, Imaginary, and Identity in Contemporary Italian Film, Peter Lang, 2016).
He has also worked on popular Italian cinema, studying the representation of masculinity in 1950s melodrama (“Io posso offrirle soltanto l’immenso calore del mio affetto”: Masculinity in Italian Cinematic Melodrama, “The Italianist”, Issue 2, 2015) as well as generational and gender dynamics in musical cinema from the sixties (“Il problema più importante per noi/è di avere una ragazza di sera”. Percorsi della sessualità e identità di gender nel cinema musicale italiano degli anni sessanta, “Cinergie”, n. 5, 2014). He is the author of a book on the italian musical of the Sixties (Cinema, sorrisi e canzoni. Il film musicale italiano degli anni Sessanta, Rubbettino, Soveria Mannelli, 2020). He has also worked on tourism and the media (on this question he has published a substantial, collaborative article: with R. Bonadei, L. Flabbi, F Fedriani, S. Pivato, Il turismo, in, La cultura italiana, Vol. VI, Utet, 2010).
Furthermore, he has studied Italian “cultural interest” cinema, co-editing a special issue of the journal “Comunicazioni Sociali” on the topic (D. Hipkins e P. Noto, Italian Quality Cinema: Istitutions, Tastes, Cultural Legitimation, “Comunicazioni Sociali”, 3, 2016), and analysing the role of actors in the State’s funding system of national cinema (“Non faccio questo mestiere mettendomi sul mercato come una merce”: note sull'attore cinematografico italiano e il suo contributo al cinema di interesse culturale, “Comunicazioni sociali”, n. 3, 2016).
The third area of Bisoni’s research relates to the media and digital culture. In this area, he has published articles on the circulation of film culture through the new media (La critica cinematografica. Tra la sopravvivenza dell’expertise e la logica di Google, in Le nuove forme della cultura cinematografica. Critica e cinefilia nell’epoca del web, Mimesis, 2012), on the impact of digital media on consumption practices and audience studies (Pubblici, utenti, spettatori: il ruolo dell’audience nell’ecosistema dei media, in G. Pescatore, a cura di, Ecosistemi narrativi. Dal fumetto alle serie tv, Carocci, 2018), and on the narrative organization of new TV seriality (The TV Recap: Knowledge, Memory, and Complex Narrative Orientation, in The Politics of Ephemeral Digital Media. Permancence and Obsolescence in Paratexts, Routledge, 2016). With regard to the latter question, he also participated in a broad study of Italian “premium” TV series (Famiglie sotto spirito: Non pensarci. La serie, Tutta un’altra fiction. La serialità pay in Italia e nel mondo. Il modello Sky, Carocci, 2013). He has moreover investigated the figure of the expert in lifestyle TV (La sopravvivenza dell'esperto: autorità e scelta nella tv lifestyle, in Factual, reality, makeover. Lo spettacolo della trasformazione nella televisione contemporanea, Bulzoni, 2013). Finally, with Veronica Innocenti, he co-edited a volume that analyses the critical model of the “narrative ecosystem”: Media Mutations. Gli ecosistemi narrativi nello scenario mediale contemporaneo: spazi, modelli, usi sociali (Mucchi, 2013).
Claudio Bisoni has organized many research events. He is one of the promoters of the international, annual conference Media Mutations, and has co-organized several editions: Media Mutations 2, Le frontiere del “popolare” tra vecchi e nuovi media, 2010; (with Veronica Innocenti) Media Mutations 4, Ecosistemi narrativi, flussi, trasformazioni, usi sociali, 2012, University of Bologna. Among several further initiatives, he was the co-organizer (with Roy Menarini) of the international conference Critica 2.0. Industria culturale, consumi, forme di influenza, CIMES, Department of Arts, 2014; organizer of a series of seminars entitled La vita in gioco – Incontri sull’esperienza ludica nello scenario dei media contemporanei, at the School of Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Bologna 2014; co-organizer (with Dalila Missero and Dom Holdaway) of the International Conference Il sistema dell’impegno nel cinema italiano contemporaneo. Finanziamento, produzione, gusto, La Soffitta, Dipartment of the Arts, 2016.
Bisoni has also presented his own research at many national and international conferences. This includes: the international conference Retòricas do poder, Arte e propaganda nos fascismos da Europa do Sul, IHC – Lisbon, 2007; the XVII international conference on cinema studies, Il canone cinematografico/The Film Canon, Udine, 2010; the international conference Post-testualità. Percorsi tra cinema e media, DAMS, Turin, 2009; a seminar as part of the university’s strategic project Governare la paura. Dal moderno dominio delle passioni alla gestione del rischio, alle politiche di sicurezza nell'era globale, University of Bologna, 2010; the XVIII intnerational conference Cinema & Rete, University of Rome “Roma Tre”, 2010; “En sortant du cinéma”: gli studi di cinema oltre il cinema, conference of the Consulta Universitaria del Cinema, University of Rome “Roma Tre”, 2012; the international conference Marcello Mastroianni. Stile Italiano/icona internazionale. Italian Style/International Icon, University of Turin, 2014; the international conference Intorno al Neorealismo. Voci, contesti, linguaggi e culture dell’Italia del dopoguerra, University of Turin, 2015; the conference Body Politics. Representing Masculinity in Media and Performing Arts, University of Turin, 2017; the one-day symposium, To Each Their Own Pop. Music, Cinema and Television in Italy in the period of the Youth Movements (1960-1979), Catholic University of Milan, 2017.
Claudio Bisoni has convened the Corso di Studi Magistrale (Master’s degree) in Cinema, Television and Multimedia Production (CITEM, 2014-2017). He is a member of the College of Doctoral Lecturers in Visual, Performative and Media Arts (from 2013). He is also a member of the advisory board of the journal “L’avventura. International Journal of Italian Film and Media Landscapes” (2015-); on the editorial staff of the journal “Storicamente” (2010-); and a managing editor of “La valle dell’Eden” (2016-).
Bisoni was moreover awarded competitive funding from the Institute of Advanced Studies (University of Bologna) for the ISA Topic project “Contemporary Italian Cinema, between Politics, Identity and Memory” (2011). In 2017 he was awarded competitive funding from the Italian Ministry of Research (Miur) for the grant Progetto di Ricerca di Interesse Nazionale (PRIN) entitled Italian Na(rra)tives: la circolazione internazionale del brand-Italia attraverso i media. He is the PI (Principal Investigator) of the project.
