(De)Polarized Bodies: Technological Innovation, Semiosis and the Ethical Conundrum
FBK-ISR International Seminar 2022
The corporeal dimension is highly polarized: the countless practices through which we model our body (see Volli 1998), as well as the languages we adopt to describe it (see Butler 1993) and the contexts within which it can be inscribed (see Violi 2005), establish oppositions that provide it with multiple meanings and values, both on the intra- and the inter-corporeal level. What is more, such oppositions affect the way the “corposphere” (Finol 2015[2021]) experiences and gives meaning to the world that surrounds it—and of which it forms part (see Violi 2008; Fuenmayor 2015; Stano 2019). These crucial dynamics have been profoundly affected by technological innovation and body enhancement, which in recent decades have reached unprecedented levels. While contributing to overcoming a conception of corporeality as a given, “natural” datum, the merging of the body with technology on a material and also operational level seems to challenge such a process of polarization, favouring forms of hybridization that entail relevant consequences in terms of meaning-making, as well as regards the ethical dimension. The seminar reflects upon these issues by combining a thorough literature review with the analysis of relevant case studies.
Scientific coordination
Massimo Leone, Director FBK-ISR
Cycle of seminars: “De-Polarization in Religion and Ethics”
The event will be held in Italian
The event will be online
To participate in the event, you must register by 12 noon on Wednesday, 13 July 2022
***
Image:
Fresco by Schweitzer
Speakers
-
University of TurinSimona Stano is Tenure-Track Assistant Professor and vice-Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Communication (CIRCe) at the University of Turin (UniTo, Italy). In 2018 she was awarded a Marie Curie Global Fellowship for a research project (COMFECTION, 2019-2021) on the semiotic analysis of food communication. She worked as Senior Researcher at the International Semiotics Institute (2015-2018) and as Visiting Researcher at the University of Toronto (2013), the University of Barcelona (2015-2016), Observatorio de la Alimentación (2015-2016) and New York University (2019-2021). Dr. Stano deals mainly with semiotics of culture, food semiotics, body semiotics, and communication studies, and has published several papers, edited volumes (including special issues of top semiotic journals such as Semiotica and Lexia), and monographs ("I sensi del cibo", 2018; "Eating the Other. Translations of the Culinary Code", 2015) on these topics. She has presented many papers at national and international conferences, also organising and directing a number of scientific events and research projects.
Registration
Registration to this event is mandatory.
Registration closed on 13/07/2022.