Nature, culture, figure: from Claude Lévi-Strauss (Ordinario)

Filippo Adussi, Emanuele Capozziello, Stefano Carlini

<p>Oral examination; Seminar presentation</p>

<p>For first-year students enrolled in the ordinario, assessment consists of an oral exam on a date to be agreed upon with the professor. From the second year onwards, assessment will take the form of a seminar presentation. The seminar presentation will address a topic related to the course theme agreed upon with the professor approximately two months in advance of the set date. Further details will be provided during class. The oral presentation will last approximately 30 minutes, followed by a discussion. A handout must be sent to the professor (by email) at least one week before the seminar and made available to the entire class on the appropriate Teams page at least two days before the seminar.</p><p>Attendance is mandatory and will be taken into account in the final assessment. Participation in the discussion and keeping up to date with the readings for each lesson will also be assessed, as indicated in the learning objectives</p>

The course is aimed at students enrolled in both the ordinario course and the PhD course. No prerequisites are required.

According to Claude Lévi-Strauss, the main issue in anthropology is the shift from nature to culture and the whole structuralist project is an ambitious attempt to overcome the classic Western philosophical opposition between the sensible and the intelligible. As we will see in the course, it is to aesthetic perception and the experience of art that Lévi-Strauss assigns the fundamental task of reconciliation between opposites. In the first module, we will read and discuss a selection of texts by Lévi-Strauss (see bibliographical references) dedicated to the conceptual pair Nature/Culture and outline the main features of a ‘wild aesthetic’ developed throughout Lévi-Strauss’s work. In the second module, we will follow the legacy of this perspective in contemporary debate, reading some texts by anthropologist Philippe Descola who, starting from a questioning of the conceptual couple Nature/Culture, offers today an innovative and original theory of art and human figuration.

During the first lesson, a bibliography of the works discussed during the course will be provided. Here are some useful studies to help you understand the content:

C. Lévi-Strauss, Le strutture elementari della parentela, Feltrinelli 2003 (capitoli 1-2)

C. Lévi-Strauss, Tristi tropici, il Saggiatore 2004

C. Lévi-Strauss, Lo sdoppiarsi della rappresentazione nelle arti dell’Asia e dell’America, in Id., Antropologia strutturale, Il Saggiatore 2015

C. Lévi-Strauss, Il pensiero selvaggio, il Saggiatore 2015

C. Lévi-Strauss, Ecologia et strutturalismo, in Id., Lo sguardo da lontano, Einaudi 1984

P. Descola, Oltre natura e cultura, Cortina 2021

P. Descola, Les formes du visible: Une anthropologie de la figuration, Seuil 2021

P. Descola, L’arte prima dell’arte, Marsilio 2023