Suono e Spettacolo. Athanasius Kircher, un percorso nelle Immagini sonore.

The Society of Jesus made great propaganda efforts throughout the seventeenth century and chose the images and the play as a privileged means to communicate and persuade. Athanasius Kircher, a key figure of the seventeenth century, he decided to dominate the wild nature of sound through Phonurgia Nova, which includes a gallery of powerful symbolic images for Baroque aesthetics. The essay, through the grant of the images from the Library of the Department of Mathematics "Guido Castelnuovo" Sapienza University of Rome, aims to understand, through the pictures offered by Kircher, the sound phenomenon and the spectacle that this produces. In Phonurgia Nova a process of dramatization sound effects takes place, often through machines and "visions" applied to the theatrical reality, as experimental and astonishing environment beloved in baroque. Kircher illustrates the sound through explanatory figures, so to dominate the sound through the eyes. Sound is seen, admired and represented: its spectacle not only takes place through the implementation of sound machines or the "wonders" applied to the theater, but even through images, creating create a sense of wonder in in the erudite person of the seventeenth century

Social Media, Gender and the Mediatisation of War: Exploring the German Armed Forces’ Visual Representation of the Afghanistan Operation on Facebook

Studies on the mediatisation of war point to attempts of governments to regulate the visual perspective of their involvements in armed conflict – the most notable example being the practice of ‘embedded reporting’ in Iraq and Afghanistan. This paper focuses on a different strategy of visual meaning-making, namely, the publication of images on social media by armed forces themselves. Specifically, we argue that the mediatisation of war literature could profit from an increased engagement with feminist research, both within Critical Security/Critical Military Studies and within Science and Technology Studies that highlight the close connection between masculinity, technology and control. The article examines the German military mission in Afghanistan as represented on the German armed forces’ official Facebook page. Germany constitutes an interesting, and largely neglected, case for the growing literature on the mediatisation of war: its strong antimilitarist political culture makes the representation of war particularly delicate. The paper examines specific representational patterns of Germany’s involvement in Afghanistan and discusses the implications which arise from what is placed inside the frame of visibility and what remains out of its view

Belgium anno 2018: State of disunion

I have the challenging task of summing up the current institutional debates of the Belgian federal State in relationship with the Catalan crisis. The link between the two contexts is not very hard to establish because as you know Belgium imported the Catalan crisis when Carles Puidgemont exiled himself to Belgium. He was warmly welcomed by officials of the main Flemish nationalist party (N-VA). These very particular circumstances generated a delicate situation for the federal Government. The governing coalition took office in 2014 and brings together the French-speaking liberal party and three Flemish parties: the liberals, the conservatives and the N-VA. The federal level is ruled by a government only supported by a minority of the French-speaking representatives, a third of the seats in the "French linguistic group” (which gathers francophone MPs). A minority government from the perspective of the minority population of Belgium and a coalition in which the main leading party’s statutes pursue the independence of Flanders. To ensure the viability of this unprecedented assemblage the N-VA has accepted to put its institutional agenda on hold until the next general elections in 2019. This commitment has led the Government to declare that Puidgemont’s arrival was a private matter. Therefore, the institutional truce during the current parliamentary term is not breached. Let me add a second, more personal and anecdotal link between Belgium and Spain. In the midst of the Catalan crisis, I was – like other constitutional experts – invited to comment the events. A radio programme organised a debate on the question “Is Belgium a model for Catalonia?”, and I must admit I was amused and surprised to find the words “Belgium” and “model” in the same sentence. Even though it is true that Belgium has peacefully transformed into a federal State, it seems a little hasty to think of it as a model just because we are experiencing a period of mitigation in the linguistic conflict. No one believes Belgium has suddenly reached a balance between conflicting institutional demands and become a stable State. It seems important in this talk to set the current institutional truce in a broader context. First, I will summarize the important features of the constitutional architecture of the Belgian state, especially the changes made by what we call the sixth State reform. Secondly, I will attempt to outline the various scenarios of what could occur after the 2019 general elections

Revisiting the “Technichal” European Green Deal and the Agri-Food system through the relational approach. An Ontological, Epistemological, and Legal Exploration

In the context of the technological revolution in food systems, this paper argues that this "technicization" of agricultural practices also extends to a "technicization" of their political justifications. Embedded within a "technical/scientific narrative," the European Green Deal (EGD), its Farm to Fork (F2F), and Biodiversity Strategy present new technologies as part of promises for the efficient and sustainable use of food systems, particularly in the face of climate change challenges. While agricultural policies have traditionally been analyzed through the lens of exceptionalist and post-exceptionalist justifications, we identify the use of technical/scientific narratives to justify and even depoliticize agricultural policies. With this scientific/technical narrative, these new technologies are presented as promises for a sustainable world, even as the only rational solutions, or the objective and universal continuity of agricultural practices. However, these justifications and scientific approaches rationalize and objectify a Western vision of the world and of science (where nature is put at a distance, as functional objects to be valorized), which is specific to and not shared by the agricultural environment. In response, various scientific, civic, and decolonial movements have contested the technical and dualist hegemony of agricultural approaches. These answers are analyzed within the framework of Relational theories, which investigate legal constructs that safeguard our virtuous relations with the environment without predefining these connections, and support epistemic openness, encompassing traditional, relational, experimental, and citizen knowledge on agriculture. Using an interdisciplinary methodology, incorporating the narrative policy framework and political philosophy, this article analyzes the technical/scientific narratives of EU Agrifood and climate policies (particularly EGD, F2F). Criticism of the epistocratic effects of these technical/scientific narratives on the political sphere, a “relational” redefinition of the political will be presented, primarily drawing on the works of Latour and Castoriadis

INVITED PAPER Special Issue on New Generation Database Technologies

this paper, we develop a framework for a modern hierarchical data model, substantially improved from the original version by taking advantage of the lessons learned in the relational database context. We argue that this new hierarchical data model has many benefits with respect to the ubiquitous flat relational data mode