«Humourism» in European Literature

What is Tradition? We usually (and wrongly) think it coincides with History. It would be better to think of Traditions, that is various experiences that co-exist in history and can be picked up to build on one’s system of values to be passed on to future generations. Our knowledge is actually based on traditions, and literature makes no exception. In this paper the author shows how one tradition, i.e. the comic-humoristic one, has marked European culture and literature. Its extraordinary genealogy has been written down by Gerard de Nerval: from Apuleius through Petronius, Swift, Diderot, Voltaire, up to Lawrence Sterne. Nevertheless, in the course of time, the comic-humoristic tradition has been able to attract many other novelists, poets and artists who have brilliantly enriched our cultural experience. It is possible to go back to the nineteenth century and track down many lines of the comic-humoristic tradition acting in European cultures, in order to show their dynamics, their interactions and their influence even at the outset of children’s literature

Identidad, Tradición/tradiciones en la literatura y el arte de Europa

Scholars often confuse the terms tradition and literary history by thinking that the first one equals the second one. By means of the confrontation of anthropology, literature and other modern fields of scientific knowledge, this paper attempts to answer the following questions: 1 – What is identity, what is tradition and what is literary tradition in particular? 2 – What is the relationship between literary tradition/traditions and canon, within a vision of literary history faced with the theory of relativity proposed by Albert Einstein? Identity is a dynamic process and a field of intersections in which knowledges, experiences, various past cultural activities or traditions meet and interconnect in the shape of a continuous spectrum of interacting meanings. A literary tradition establishes a relationship with the past and a nexus of vitality and continuity with the present and the future within the conflict between innovations and duration. On the basis of some examples, starting from Cervantes' Don Quijote, this paper attempts to show how several traditions form literary or artistic systems in which literary experiences/memories of the past and the ways of perceiving and re-elaborating them flow into one another. Therefore, tradition involves interpretation and interpretation involves critique of all traditions founding a specific culture

A spiritual journey in Bill Viola's art

A critical and historical analysis of Bill Viola's exposition at the Grand Palais, Paris, in 201

Substance Use And Life-Course Narratives For Criminally Involved Veterans

Criminal justice involvement stemming from substance use is a common issue with whichmilitary veterans struggle. Research on substance use has indicated that a multitude of negative life-course outcomes can result for individuals who abuse substances. While prior research has studied the relationships between substance use and military veterans, there is little empirical analysis that focuses on the narrative accounts of veterans and their experiences with substance use. The goal of the current thesis is to expand on this topic by exploring how criminally involved veterans experience substance use and the perceived impact substance use has on the life-course according to their own narrative accounts. This thesis analyzed the interview content of a sample of 90 criminally involved veterans, utilizing qualitative secondary data analysis to explore the narrative accounts of substance use, before, during, and after military service. Overall, by applying an inductive approach, results from this sample of criminally involved veterans revealed three key findings: (1) Substance use throughout the life-course was prevalent within this sample. Almost the entire sample of veterans reported a significant relationship with substances at some point throughout the life-course. veterans further discussed how their substance use typically increased during and/or after their military service. (2) Criminally involved veterans in the current sample considered how their substance use was closely associated with their criminal involvement, indicating they were involved in the criminal justice system for various reasons stemming from their relationships with substance use. (3) Substance use was described by veterans interviewed as a behavior that led to negative emotional and socio-behavioral outcomes, with several veterans even indicating that substance use altered their life-course trajectories. Narrative accounts of substance use revealed that criminally involved veterans thought their substance use impacted important life-course areas like general health and well-being over time, employment, romantic relationships, homelessness, and even suicidal ideation/behavior. Given these findings, policy recommendations are considered on how to best assist criminally involved veterans with substance use issues

The Experimental Women: An Introduction

Experimental cinema, as well as experimental video practices, have always been art forms in which women have excelled. Yet, if cinema studies have devoted research – although only recently – to women involved in narrative and commercial films, as directors, actresses, screenwriters, as well in other roles of cinema industry, the history of women’s Western experimental audio-visual production is still little explored and would benefit from being retraced and framed in a wider historical and theoretical perspective. This special issue of Cinéma&Cie is therefore aimed at tracing experiences of women’s practices at the intersection of cinema and the arts by intertwining a theoretical and historical approach through the analysis of cases of studies from the mid-century up to the present time

Interdisciplinary approach to evaluate environmental users’ perceived restoration in hospital public spaces

Objective – The study aims to: 1) assess the relationship between the quality of hospital's public spaces expressed in terms of accessibility and visibility of art and greenery and users' restorative experiences; 2) highlight how physical environment may promote health and wellbeing of patients and staff/user. Background – The issue of public spaces in hospitals is very debated today: the direction taken by a few decades is to implement these spaces giving them a humanization feature to promote the well-being of patients and staff. Architectural trends have developed around the creation of halls, mostly glazed, with more volumes appearing, and large dimensions. The importance of restorative spaces as a mediator factor for health outcomes among the users is increasingly recognized. Research questions – 1) Which public spaces are perceived to be more restorative? 2) Does familiarity with a place affect the users’ perception of restoration in hospital public spaces? 3) To what extent does the perception of restoration vary across settings that support similar functions but present varying levels of art and greenery? 4) How does the combined use of Technical Environmental Analysis (TEA) and Observed Based Environmental Assessments (OBEA) measures support our understanding of perceived restoration across different public spaces in hospital settings? Methods – A cross-sectional investigation was performed in seven public spaces of the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital (IT) by adopting TEA and OBEA tools. Technical Environmental Analysis: • Visits on site to evaluate the quality of the space, to assess the presence of artworks and/or greenery and to describe the historicity of the space • Spatial analysis: Space Syntax evaluation parameters (Hillier, 2007) to evaluate the integration of the space (e.g., visibility, accessibility) and to quantify the presence of artworks and green view (% isovist area from key points), performed by Visibility Graph Analysis (VGA) and Isovist Analysis. Observed Based Environmental Assessments: • This type of assessments implies an evaluation of public spaces done by the users (n = 327) (i.e., outpatient, staff, relative, volunteer and social services). Their recruitment was done in place. • Adapted version of the Perceived Restoration Scale (PRS) (1-5 Likert scale). Results – Overall the results seem to suggest that the public spaces had relatively high restorative qualities. However, significant higher perceived restoration was also found for the Medicherie cloister, suggesting that some architectural and natural features affected the result. In order to gain a better understanding of what aspects of the physical environment of hospital public spaces might have had an impact on users’ perception of restoration TEA and OBEA, data were merged together and their interaction was discussed. Conclusion – New insights about the concept of restoration and its interaction with physical characteristics of hospital’s public spaces is put forward. Furthermore, the methodology proposed by linking TEA and OBEA data contributes to a more reliable understanding of the influence that existing buildings might have on users’ well-being.publishedVersio

GIUSEPPE BARETTI: UN CLASSICO RITROVATO

Giuseppe Baretti è uno scrittore di straordinaria modernità. Il primo scrittore europeo di lingua e cultura italiana: consapevole di esserlo e, pertanto, capace di rapportarsi da pari a pari con la letteratura internazionale del proprio tempo. La risposta italiana di Baretti ai dibattiti della cultura del suo secolo acquista sempre più importanza, ogni volta che si esamini il suo pensiero e la sua opera nella complessità dei problemi teorico-formali che egli cercò di affrontare. Tutte le letterature europee di cui conobbe le lingue ne nutrirono le opere, in un bisogno di analisi e comparazione e di interpretazione responsabile, che proietta Baretti nell’oggi. Il suo sguardo coglie la realtà con una attenzione nuova; e, nella urgenza di ampliare gli orizzonti della letteratura, una nuova soggettività si impone con forza nei generi che più gli sono congeniali: la critica letteraria e la letteratura di viaggio, solo per citarne due. E si esplica, soprattutto, nella commistione dei generi letterari, in un variegato insieme di scritture. Anche nella critica si intrecciano autobiografia e narrativa, comico ed ironia, parodia e invenzione, teatro e racconto, ecc., in modo tale che La Frusta letteraria appare molto originale nelle sue dimensioni multi-prospettiche e nella ricchezza delle fonti internazionali; da Baretti sempre discusse e ricreate in maniera personalissima, mai imitate pedissequamente: italiane (come Sforza Pallavicino, Salvator Rosa, Giovanni Lami) inglesi (ad es., Bacone e Butler), francesi (Boileau, Montaigne), spagnole (Cervantes). In particolare, nuova è l’idea che la critica letteraria non è solo esercizio di lingua e stile o “eloquenza”, ma anche e soprattutto di scelta eticamente orientata: da ciò deriva l’asserzione dell’importanza della metafisica e della lettura di Antonio Genovesi. E, per noi, anche la necessità di una nuova edizione della Frusta Letteraria, che tenga conto dell’uso barettiano delle maiuscole e delle minuscole, dei corsivi e simili, tesi a sottolineare la direzione e i significati di un discorso che vuole basare la critica su un metodo analogo a quello scientifico di Galileo, a partire dalla certa dimostrazione della lingua nei suoi valori denotativi e connotativi e dalla sensata esperienza dei referenti a cui essa rimanda e con la cui «sustanza» il soggetto deve sempre confrontarsi.   Giuseppe Baretti: a recovered classic Giuseppe Baretti is a writer of extraordinary modernity. The first European writer of Italian language and culture: aware of it and, therefore, able to relate as equal with the international literature of his time time. Baretti’s Italian response to the cultural debates of his century becomes more and more important, every time we examine his thought and work, in the complexity of the theoretical and formal problems he tried to face. All the European literatures of which he knew the languages nourished his works, in a need for analysis, comparison and responsible interpretation, which projects Baretti into our present. He looks at reality with new attention; and, in the urgency of widening the literary horizons, a new Subjectivity imposes itself with force in its most congenial genres: literary criticism and travel literature, to name but two. And this Subjectivity is expressed, above all, in the mixture of literary genres, in a great variety of styles. Baretti’s autobiography and fiction, comedy and irony, parody and invention, theatre and narrative, etc., are also intertwined in his criticism, in such a manner that La Frusta Letteraria appears very original in its multi-perspective dimensions and richness of international sources: by Baretti always discussed and recreated in a very personal way, never imitated slavishly: Italian (as Sforza Pallavicino, Salvator Rosa, Giovanni Lami), english (as Bacone and Butler), french (Boileau, Montaigne), and spanish sources (Cervantes). In particular, new is the idea that literary criticism is not only an exercise of language and style, or “Eloquence”, but also and above all of ethically oriented choice. Hence the assertion of the importance of Metaphysics and the reading of Antonio Genovesi’s work. And, to us, even the need for a new edition of La Frusta Letteraria, able to take account of Baretti’s use of upper and lower letters, italics and so on. All this meant emphasizing the direction and meanings of a literary discourse aimed to base criticism on a critical method similar to the scientific one of Galileo, starting from the necessary demonstration of language with its denotative and connotative values and from the sensible experience of the points of reference to which it is connected and whose «substance» is always concerned with

The space of ragoûts. Diderot, the dressing gown and Penelope in a beer hall

My article aims to interrogate the tension between space and time in Diderot’s philosophy starting from the tableau of the imagination and its specific functioning.By examining the category of ragoût – a culinary preparation that, during the 18th century, became an expression of an aesthetic of the relationship and harmony between the parts and the whole – I will show how it plays, between the Lettres sur les souds et muets, the Essais sur la peinture, the Salons and the Regrets sur ma vieille robe de chambre, its central role in defining an idea of dynamic spatiality, within which reality and representation coexist in relationships of mutual tension and correspondence. In fact, the ragoût reveals a conception of convenience which, by interweaving space and time, recalls the processes of human reason and interrogates them in pictorial and real space, making it habitable and comprehensible: if a detail always reveals a totality, activating a process of orientation in reality, when the relationship between the parts and the whole breaks down, the world itself falls apart. It is the law of convenience and ragoût that regulates the world: to change one’s dressing gown is to redefine one's life entirely. If this does not happen, if the relationship between the fragment and the whole is broken, as in La Grenée painting exhibited at the Salon 1767, Penelope appears more suited to a beer hall than to the majestic but sober palace of Ithaca.My article aims to interrogate the tension between space and time in Diderot’s philosophy starting from the tableau of the imagination and its specific functioning.By examining the category of ragoût – a culinary preparation that, during the 18th century, became an expression of an aesthetic of the relationship and harmony between the parts and the whole – I will show how it plays, between the Lettres sur les souds et muets, the Essais sur la peinture, the Salons and the Regrets sur ma vieille robe de chambre, its central role in defining an idea of dynamic spatiality, within which reality and representation coexist in relationships of mutual tension and correspondence. In fact, the ragoût reveals a conception of convenience which, by interweaving space and time, recalls the processes of human reason and interrogates them in pictorial and real space, making it habitable and comprehensible: if a detail always reveals a totality, activating a process of orientation in reality, when the relationship between the parts and the whole breaks down, the world itself falls apart. It is the law of convenience and ragoût that regulates the world: to change one’s dressing gown is to redefine one's life entirely. If this does not happen, if the relationship between the fragment and the whole is broken, as in La Grenée painting exhibited at the Salon 1767, Penelope appears more suited to a beer hall than to the majestic but sober palace of Ithaca

Haptic Hand Exoskeleton for Precision Grasp Simulation

This paper outlines the design and the development of a novel robotic hand exoskeleton (HE) conceived for haptic interaction in the context of virtual reality (VR) and teleoperation (TO) applications. The device allows exerting controlled forces on fingertips of the index and thumb of the operator. The new exoskeleton features several design solutions adopted with the aim of optimizing force accuracy and resolution. The use of remote centers of motion mechanisms allows achieving a compact and lightweight design. An improved stiffness of the transmission and reduced requirements for the electromechanical actuators are obtained thanks to a novel principle for integrating speed reduction into torque transmission systems. A custom designed force sensor and integrated electronics are employed to further improve performances. The electromechanical design of the device and the experimental characterization are presented

Algoritmi e strutture di dati per la rappresentazione compatta di cammini minimi in grafi

La tesi si propone di enumerare con un costo output-sensitive i cammini tra due vertici di un grafo. In particolare una fase di pre-elaborazione costruisce una struttura di dati che permette di raggiungere efficientemente lo scopo