Rizoma versus micelio: Il reticolo postmoderno nel Nome della rosa e nel Pendolo di Foucault di Umberto Eco

Nel 1983 Umberto Eco pubblica il saggio “L’antiporfirio”, all’interno del volume curato da Gianni Vattimo e Pier Aldo Rovatti intitolato Il pensiero debole. Il testo echiano segna uno spartiacque teorico tra i primi due romanzi dell’autore, Il nome della rosa (1980) e Il pendolo di Foucault (1988), permettendo di capire come la narrazione enciclopedica che caratterizza entrambe le opere costituisca una strategia interpretativa della realtà. Non solo: quello che qui preme mettere in evidenza è la modalità differente con cui Eco si accosta alla complessità del mondo attraverso l’impianto tematico e strutturale del racconto. Se le avventure parigine del Pendolo risultano un’applicazione dell’idea diffusiva del rizoma, la matrice del Nome della rosa corrisponde piuttosto all’organizzazione del micelio, la filigrana sotterranea dei funghi che si arresta là dove l’organismo ha sufficienti sostanze nutritive e possibilità di farsi coltivare dalle altre specie viventi, mettendo un argine al disordine dei fenomeniIn 1983, Umberto Eco published the essay “L’antiporfirio”, in the volume edited by Gianni Vattimo and Pier Aldo Rovatti entitled Il pensiero debole. This text marks a theoretical watershed between the author’s first two novels, Il nome della rosa (1980) and Il pendolo di Foucault (1988), allowing us to understand how the encyclopedic narrative that characterizes both works constitutes an interpretative strategy of reality. Not only that: what we want to highlight here is the different way in which Eco approaches the complexity of the world through the themes and the structure of the story. In Il pendolo di Foucault the Parisian adventures are an application of the diffusive idea of the rhizome, the matrix of Il nome della rosa corresponds rather to the organization of the mycelium, the underground filigree of fungi that stops where the organism has sufficient nutrients and the possibility of being cultivated by other living species, putting a barrier to the disorder of reality

Article 9 of the E.C.H.R. in light of newer findings of the case law of the E.C.H.R. during the years 2018-2023

L’art. 9 della Convenzione E.D.U. secondo la giurisprudenza recente della Corte E.D.U. (2018-2023) ABSTRACT: The right to religious freedom is constantly changing, following the contemporary treatment of the religious phenomenon within the public sphere of the states. This finding is also evident in the ECHR's jurisprudence, which since the Kokkinakis case seems to have made great progress in the development of the more specific manifestations of religious freedom, such as religious autonomy. In this context, an attempt is made to draw conclusions regarding the right of religious freedom under the related ECHR’s case law. SOMMARIO: 1. Introduction - 2. Freedom of Assembly and Association - 3. Respect for family and private life - 4. Religious freedom in prison - 5. Religious Minorities: the example of Jehovah's Witnesses - 6. The example of Greece - 7. Conclusion

Il ruolo dell’abitudine nella costruzione dell’identità morale in The Mill on the Floss e Middlemarch di George Eliot

What is the boundary between unconscious habits and conscious actions? This is the question that drives all of George Eliot’s poetics centered on the importance of habit in the construction of her characters’ moral identity. The aim of this article is to analyze the author’s answers in this regard through two of her formidable novels: The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch. In the first work, recovering the image, of philosophical- psychological origin, of the mind as a channel and making use of the analogies between animal and human behavior, Eliot proposes imaginative experience as a means of developing new cognitive capacities. But it is in Middlemarch that Eliot adds a further piece: unhinging the misogynistic prejudices attached to the concept of habit typical of the strongly patriarchal culture of the Victorian age. Pointing her satirical pen at the habits of her characters, Eliot invites readers to a critical attitude toward their own habits. Reading thus becomes an opportunity to reflect on our pervasive habits and achieve that gradual change towards the construction of a more mature and conscious moral identity.What is the boundary between unconscious habits and conscious actions? This is the question that drives all of George Eliot’s poetics centered on the importance of habit in the construction of her characters’ moral identity. The aim of this article is to analyze the author’s answers in this regard through two of her formidable novels: The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch. In the first work, recovering the image, of philosophical- psychological origin, of the mind as a channel and making use of the analogies between animal and human behavior, Eliot proposes imaginative experience as a means of developing new cognitive capacities. But it is in Middlemarch that Eliot adds a further piece: unhinging the misogynistic prejudices attached to the concept of habit typical of the strongly patriarchal culture of the Victorian age. Pointing her satirical pen at the habits of her characters, Eliot invites readers to a critical attitude toward their own habits. Reading thus becomes an opportunity to reflect on our pervasive habits and achieve that gradual change towards the construction of a more mature and conscious moral identity

A Minor Subject: Habit and Subjectivity in Modernist Literature and Philosophy

In this essay, I intend to investigate some of the aspects of the resurgence of habit at the dawn of the twentieth century by touching upon a series of paradigmatic texts of the modernist canon and by investigating their debts to and consonances with the contemporary philosophies of habit. My thesis is that during those decades – seen as a mere chapter in the longer history of modernity – the philosophical and literary theme of habit served not only as a way to understand and represent the ordinary dimension of life, but also as a means to develop an idea of human subjectivity that could mediate between the centrifugal and the centripetal tendencies that permeated the competing ideologies of the time. The crisis of subjectivity that characterized modernism and which has often been simplistically represented as a disintegration of the subject into irredeemably broken fragments, should rather be seen as the development of a dialectical idea of a “minor subject”, that is, an open, dynamic, multilayered subjectivity still endowed by a certain malleable consistency. Both modernist literature and its philosophical counterparts found in the “minor subject” (here in the sense of “subject matter”) of habit, the opportunity to investigate and represent the porosity between activity and passivity, volition and determinism, individual identity and social structures, that characterize this idea of subjectivity. I focus on three different representative – though not exhaustive – facets of the issue. In the first section, relying on Virginia Woolf's work, I highlight how some of the narrative techniques developed by Modernist writers can be seen as an attempt to give a plastic representation to the blurred boundaries of subjectivity as captured in the everyday existence of their characters. I then connect these innovations to the theory of habit of Samuel Butler, whom Woolf identified as one of the harbingers of modernity. In the second section I focus on Marcel Proust to discuss how modernist writers proved to be able to combine two opposed views of habit: on the one hand, the view of habit as purely mechanical and leading to inauthentic life; on the other, the idea of habit as essential to the human being's potential for self-perfecting and creativity. The third section is dedicated to addiction, seen as a form of habit in which the subject is radically torn between opposite forces. Following insights from Sigmund Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle, I interpret Italo Svevo's Zeno's Conscience as a meditation on how such a torn subjectivity manifests the essential incompleteness of the human subject and life's insuppressible nostalgia for the inorganic. Virginia Woolf’s blurred boundaries, Marcel Proust’s ambiguous authenticity, and Italo Svevo’s split selfhood are three interconnected facets of the modernists’ interest in the “minor subject” of habit. Investigating the interaction between the philosophical and the literary discourses on habit at the dawn of the twentieth century can contribute to a more nuanced reconstruction of a pivotal moment in the history of thought but also to the contemporary philosophical debate. Almost exactly one century later, the renewed interest in the theme of habit mirrors a situation in part similar to what characterized the ideological landscape of the time, as now too it is concerned with the attempt to reimagine a “minor subject” that mediates between the postmodern pulverization of identity and the temptation of reaffirming anachronistic forms of strong subjectivities.In this essay, I intend to investigate some of the aspects of the resurgence of habit at the dawn of the twentieth century by touching upon a series of paradigmatic texts of the modernist canon and by investigating their debts to and consonances with the contemporary philosophies of habit. My thesis is that during those decades – seen as a mere chapter in the longer history of modernity – the philosophical and literary theme of habit served not only as a way to understand and represent the ordinary dimension of life, but also as a means to develop an idea of human subjectivity that could mediate between the centrifugal and the centripetal tendencies that permeated the competing ideologies of the time. The crisis of subjectivity that characterized modernism and which has often been simplistically represented as a disintegration of the subject into irredeemably broken fragments, should rather be seen as the development of a dialectical idea of a “minor subject”, that is, an open, dynamic, multilayered subjectivity still endowed by a certain malleable consistency. Both modernist literature and its philosophical counterparts found in the “minor subject” (here in the sense of “subject matter”) of habit, the opportunity to investigate and represent the porosity between activity and passivity, volition and determinism, individual identity and social structures, that characterize this idea of subjectivity. I focus on three different representative – though not exhaustive – facets of the issue. In the first section, relying on Virginia Woolf's work, I highlight how some of the narrative techniques developed by Modernist writers can be seen as an attempt to give a plastic representation to the blurred boundaries of subjectivity as captured in the everyday existence of their characters. I then connect these innovations to the theory of habit of Samuel Butler, whom Woolf identified as one of the harbingers of modernity. In the second section I focus on Marcel Proust to discuss how modernist writers proved to be able to combine two opposed views of habit: on the one hand, the view of habit as purely mechanical and leading to inauthentic life; on the other, the idea of habit as essential to the human being's potential for self-perfecting and creativity. The third section is dedicated to addiction, seen as a form of habit in which the subject is radically torn between opposite forces. Following insights from Sigmund Freud's Beyond the Pleasure Principle, I interpret Italo Svevo's Zeno's Conscience as a meditation on how such a torn subjectivity manifests the essential incompleteness of the human subject and life's insuppressible nostalgia for the inorganic. Virginia Woolf’s blurred boundaries, Marcel Proust’s ambiguous authenticity, and Italo Svevo’s split selfhood are three interconnected facets of the modernists’ interest in the “minor subject” of habit. Investigating the interaction between the philosophical and the literary discourses on habit at the dawn of the twentieth century can contribute to a more nuanced reconstruction of a pivotal moment in the history of thought but also to the contemporary philosophical debate. Almost exactly one century later, the renewed interest in the theme of habit mirrors a situation in part similar to what characterized the ideological landscape of the time, as now too it is concerned with the attempt to reimagine a “minor subject” that mediates between the postmodern pulverization of identity and the temptation of reaffirming anachronistic forms of strong subjectivities

Neapolitan discourse in the narrative diary Mistero Napoletano

Referring to ‘Discourse on the Cape of Good Hope’ by John Maxwell Coetzee, the definition ‘Neapolitan Discourse’ refers to the city of Naples and its socio-cultural environment, on one hand, and to certain themes and authors of Neapolitan Literature, on the other. Towards this Literature the position taken by the author is as much one of comparison as of confrontation. Firstly, I analyse the question about the existence of a proper Neapolitan Literature and its circumscription on the criterion of Neapolitanness. I define Neapolitan Literature as a literary production in which the author’s response to Neapolitanness as a whole becomes relevant (‘Neapolitan Discourse’). Secondly, the themes and authors addressed in Mistero napoletano will be circumscribed for the definiton of its ‘Neapolitan Discourse’. Specifically, the absence of dialect and linguistic mix between Italian and Neapolitan will be discussed, while Anna Maria Ortese and Raffaele La Capria will be identified as writers considered by Rea for his ‘Neapolitan Discourse’. Finally, I will discuss how Rea’s ‘Neapolitan Discourse’ can be seen as of interest to both a local and a national reader of Italian.Usando come modello il ‘discorso sul Capo di Buona Speranza’ di John Maxwell Coetzee, con la definizione di ‘discorso napoletano’ si intendono i riferimenti dell’autore alla città di Napoli e al suo ambiente socioculturale e il richiamo a temi e autori della letteratura napoletana, nei confronti dei quali la posizione assunta è di confronto/scontro. Preliminarmente verranno affrontate la questione dell’esistenza di una letteratura napoletana e la circoscrizione di quest’ultima sulla base del criterio della napoletanità e della risposta dell’autore ad essa. In secondo luogo, verranno circoscritti i temi e gli autori affrontati in Mistero napoletano per la definizione del suo ‘discorso napoletano’. Nello specifico si discuterà dell’assenza del dialetto e dell’impasto linguistico tra italiano e napoletano e verranno individuati gli autori di riferimento del suo ‘discorso napoletano’ (Anna Maria Ortese e Raffaele La Capria). Verranno discusse sia similarità e divergenze nei confronti di questi autori, dal punto di vista dell’arte scrittoria praticata e dal punto di vista delle posizioni assunte nei rispettivi discorsi napoletani (naturalistica, umanistica, materialistica). Infine, si discuterà di come il ‘discorso napoletano’ di Mistero napoletano sia ‘munizionale’, ovvero di interesse tanto per un lettore municipale quanto per un lettore nazionale

Diorama, infanzia, scrittura in Durs Grünbein

 Starting from Childhood in the diorama, this paper investigates the connection between the fascination of dioramas presenting animals in their reconstructed habitat and writing as the active pivot around which Grünbein’s poetics of childhood revolves in relation to the disenchantment of the adult world. Parallels between the disillusioned grandparents – one of whom had worked at the Dresden slaughterhouse — and their not yet literate grandson are analysed in the light of the identification with the animal. Through poetic writing the child redeems an idea of truth and reality, already expressed by Baudelaire, as a representation of the internal experiences of the subject trying to repair all the senseless pain inflicted by man on animals. The way Grünbein addresses the child in the reader, capable of compassion and identification with those creatures, which had no voice and still have no voice, captures one of the most distinctive and structuring features of Grünbein's poetics.A partire dallo scritto poetico Infanzia nel diorama, il presente lavoro indaga il nesso tra fascinazione dello spettacolo, che presenta gli animali nel loro habitat ricostruito, e scrittura quale perno attivo intorno al quale ruota la poetica dell'infanzia di Grünbein rispetto al disincanto del mondo adulto. Alla luce dell'immedesimazione con l’animale del fanciullo non ancora alfabetizzato, si evidenziano paralleli tra il bambino e l’adulto disincantato – uno dei nonni aveva lavorato per anni al mattatoio di Dresda. La scoperta della scrittura, dovuta in parte al nonno paterno, porta il bambino a riscattare una idea del vero già espressa da Baudelaire: una rappresentazione dei vissuti interni del soggetto atta a riparare tutto quel dolore animale causato dall’uomo scrivendone e rivolgendosi al bambino nel lettore capace di compassione e identificazione verso quelle creature che non hanno e non ebbero voce

Περὶ τῶν συμβολῶν. La question de l’isopoliteia chez Philippe Gauthier

Dopo alcune osservazioni preliminari sulla concezione di Philippe Gauthier del rapporto tra diritto e storia, ci rivolgiamo più specificamente al capitolo 7 dei Symbola, dedicato all’isopoliteia, per valutare l’attualità delle ipotesi dell’autore su questa concessione e talvolta scambio di cittadinanza tra città e/o koina. Poiché l’obiettivo del libro è quello di studiare tutte le forme di tutela giudiziaria degli stranieri di passaggio, ci si chiede se l’isopoliteia sia una di queste. L’autore procede, come anche altrove, all’analisi di casi, in particolare dell’accordo tra Olbia pontica e Mileto (Milet I.3, 136) e dell’intero dossier che lega il cretese Epicle diWaxos agli Etoli (Syll.3, 622A e B). Tre sono le linee guida seguite, che permettono di collocare il lavoro in una prospettiva storiografica con riferimento ai successivi libri di W. Gawantka (1975) e S. Saba (2020): l’uso del termine isopoliteia in greco e i contorni dell’isopolitia così come sono stati costruiti dagli storici moderni; la definizione del termine e il contenuto che deve essere ad esso attribuito; infine, la questione della portata giuridica e giudiziaria dell’isopoliteia. Su quest’ultimo punto, la conclusione di Gauthier appare ancora convincente, poiché i decreti e gli accordi di isopoliteia forniscono ai loro beneficiari una protezione reale. D’altra parte, in linea con i lavori più recenti, l’articolo è più critico sulla questione della doppia cittadinanza: questa è stata ampiamente respinta da Gauthier sulla base del fatto che una cittadinanza ne escluderebbe un’altra, cosa che non è dimostrata néper il periodo classico né per quello ellenistico. Infine, in relazione alla doppia o multipla cittadinanza, viene messa in dubbio la pertinenza della nozione di “cittadinanza potenziale” utilizzata da Gauthier nella tradizione di Szánto, in relazione alla politeia concessa su base individuale o collettiva: questa, infatti, rende poco conto dell’uso effettivo dei privilegi che conteneva.After a few preliminary remarks on Philippe Gauthier’s conception of the relationship between law and history, we turn more specifically to chapter 7 of the Symbola, devoted to isopoliteia, to assess the current relevance of the author’s hypotheses on this granting and sometimes exchange of citizenship between cities and/or koina. Since the aim of the book is to study all forms of judicial protection for passing foreigners, the question is whether isopoliteia is one of them. The author proceeds, as he does elsewhere, by analysing cases, in particular the agreement between Pontic Olbia and Miletus (Miletus I.3, 136) as well as the whole dossier linking the Cretan Epikles of Waxos with the Aetolians (Syll3, 622A and B). Three guidelines are followed here, allowing the work to be placed in a historiographical perspective with reference to the later books by W. Gawantka (1975) and S. Saba (2020): the use of the term isopoliteia in Greek and the contours of isopolity as constructed by modern historians; the definition of the term and the content to be given to it; finally, the question of the legal and judicial scope of isopoliteia. On this last point, Gauthier’s conclusion still seems convincing, since the decrees and agreements of isopoliteia provide their beneficiaries with real protection. On the other hand, in line with recent work, the present article is more critical on the question of dual citizenship: this was largely rejected by Gauthier on the grounds that one citizenship would exclude another, which is not proven for either the Classical or Hellenistic periods. Finally, in relation to dual or multiple citizenship, I question the relevance of the notion of “potential citizenship” used by Gauthier who follows the tradition of Szánto, in relation to the politeia granted on an individual or collective basis: this, in fact, poorly accounts for the actual use of the privileges it contained.After a few preliminary remarks on Philippe Gauthier’s conception of the relationship between law and history, we turn more specifically to chapter 7 of the Symbola, devoted to isopoliteia, to assess the current relevance of the author’s hypotheses on this granting and sometimes exchange of citizenship between cities and/or koina. Since the aim of the book is to study all forms of judicial protection for passing foreigners, the question is whether isopoliteia is one of them. The author proceeds, as he does elsewhere, by analysing cases, in particular the agreement between Pontic Olbia and Miletus (Miletus I.3, 136) as well as the whole dossier linking the Cretan Epikles of Waxos with the Aetolians (Syll3, 622A and B). Three guidelines are followed here, allowing the work to be placed in a historiographical perspective with reference to the later books by W. Gawantka (1975) and S. Saba (2020): the use of the term isopoliteia in Greek and the contours of isopolity as constructed by modern historians; the definition of the term and the content to be given to it; finally, the question of the legal and judicial scope of isopoliteia. On this last point, Gauthier’s conclusion still seems convincing, since the decrees and agreements of isopoliteia provide their beneficiaries with real protection. On the other hand, in line with recent work, the present article is more critical on the question of dual citizenship: this was largely rejected by Gauthier on the grounds that one citizenship would exclude another, which is not proven for either the Classical or Hellenistic periods. Finally, in relation to dual or multiple citizenship, I question the relevance of the notion of “potential citizenship” used by Gauthier who follows the tradition of Szánto, in relation to the politeia granted on an individual or collective basis: this, in fact, poorly accounts for the actual use of the privileges it contained