italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studiesDear John, and dear list,here's another volume that might be of interest to you:VERBA TREMULA. Letteratura, Erotismo, Pornografia a cura di Nicola Catelli, Giulio Iacoli, Paolo Rinoldi – (Bononia University Press, 2011)
My best,Antonio********************************************************************** To join the list, send the message: subscribe italian-studies YOUR NAME to: [log in to unmask] To send a message to the list, address it to: [log in to unmask] To leave the list, send the message: unsubscribe italian-studies to: [log in to unmask] In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to: [log in to unmask] For further information, visit our web site: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/italian-studies2013/10/10 Charlotte Ross <[log in to unmask]>
italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studiesDear John,
There have been some interesting publications in Italian on porn in recent years, although they do tend to focus on the Anglophone world, in particular on the States. You might want to have a look at the following:
Enrico Biasin, Giovanna Maina, Federico Zecca (a cura di), Il porno espanso. Dal cinema ai nuovi media
Mimesis, 2011
Like John, I’d be interested to know if colleagues are aware of other researchers working in this area at the moment.
Best wishes,
Charlotte
Dr Charlotte Ross
Department of Modern Languages
Tel: +44 (0)121 4147505
Sexuality and Gender Studies at Birmingham:
Research blog: http://charlotterossresearch.wordpress.com/
From: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Champagne
Sent: 09 October 2013 23:29
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [I-S] FW: [I-S] FW: The Ethics and Politics of Pornography
italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
Gentili colleghi,
I do not want to bore the whole list serve with a discussion that seems to have veered off-topic, but I will say that Dr. Rose is being disingenuous; I could hardly have listed the many feminist scholars omitted from his study without having looked at it.
To change the terms of the discussion a bit: I feel scandalously under-informed concerning Italian feminist work on porn. If anyone could post a list of relevant authors and works, whether those works be in Italian or translated into English, I would be most appreciative. I am particularly interested in interdisciplinary works. I would also be curious as to whether there is, as there is in the Anglophone world, a polemic between anti-porn and anti-censorship feminists.
Buon lavoro,
John
On 10/09/2013 05:19 PM, Laura Leonardo wrote:italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
Gentili colleghi,
vi inoltro un messaggio da parte di David che non essendo iscritto a questa lista non puo' scriverci direttamente,
saluti
Laura
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Cari amici,
Se mi posso permettere, scrivo in inglese siccome i commenti originali erano in inglese e cosi’, speriamo, faccio meno errori.
This is the first time I contribute to your list and do so because I thought one or two comments may actually clear up a few of the misconceptions raised by the discussion that followed the announcement of the publication of my book.
Comments are most welcome to animate the debate and initiate discussion, but perhaps forming a judgment on the book from a quick perusal of the contents (without looking at the index at least) could be a little rash. The thesis is engaged with what may or may not be the wrongness (moral, political) of sexual representation. The value of the book resides, if I may for once shrug of my natural humility, in the discussion of objectification and how this concept has not been properly conceived. The feminist argument against pornography, which is by far the most pertinent, is the claim that pornography’s existence “harms” the lives/interests/freedom of women as both individuals and as a group through the construction of identities and expectations by objectification. There is a crucial difference between alienation and objectification which is present in most of the literature although silent and Chapter 5 explores this in some detail. I thank Matt, the second commentator, who notices the possible lines of evolution from Hegel to Butler which does occupy a very important place in the argument as a whole.
This is not a work in aesthetics, sociology or cultural theory. The overarching aim of the book dictates the content and the theses with which to engage. That I deal with the three “loud” writers is hardly surprising since, they are “de facto loud” and hence their absence would have been impossible in such a work and they are “de jure loud” in that their voices have set the agenda in the discussion of the ethics and politics of pornography for good reason. Being more or less of a Hegelian leaning, I have faith in the process of history and “stayers” are often the thinkers to discuss. I hope I have engaged with them subtly and in a novel manner that justifies their inclusion as catalysts of the argument as a whole. There have to be, as John Champagne concedes, decisions about who deserves page time in such an argument and that is dictated by the nature and structure of the argument. Similarly so with the discussion of specific cultural objects. In an argument such as my own, precision is often required and to use Wertmuller or Pasolini as examples would have opened me up to the claim that they are not instances of pornography in a way that a short mpeg off “youporn.com” does not. The latter example is non-controversially “pornography” and hence if there is something wrong with pornography, then there is something necessarily wrong with it.
It seems to be me that the main brunt of criticism from the original post was that my book is “philosopher speaking to other philosophers”. I suppose I ought to hold my hands up here and say that what I wanted to do was write a book (and not an article in order to be more comprehensive) about the wrongness or not of sexual representation. (I also had a secondary aim to offer a Hegelian form of ethics as an alternative to Kantianism and utilitarianism.) I didn’t intend to be interdisciplinary, nor mono-disciplinary (?), I was merely asking a question and following through some answers to it. Given that I was trained in and still teach philosophy and that the question itself seems to be best embedded in a discourse broadly understood as moral philosophy, it probably is first and foremost a book for philosophers. The book has been brought to the attention of Italianists because of its discussion of Italian cultural items (Crepax, Manara, specific directors and writers) and possibly because of my research, here in this book and elsewhere in greater depth, on Vico and Vattimo as philosophical thinkers.
I think the key term here is that the work is being “marketed” as interdisciplinary as John puts it. I would find it odd to set out to write an interdisciplinary book as some sort of regulative aim, even if I do attempt to write in a way that will be accessible across disciplines if the reader has an interest in the subject but does not share my theoretical background. And I use facts, information and styles of argument that are not necessarily philosophical at times. The question of discipline (which here seems to translate as interest) must be one that comes from the reader and not the author. For someone who seems interested in the constructivist nature of Butler, it is odd to hear about disciplines with such robust borders when they are conventional and traditional social distinctions elevated from original material justifications. It strikes me that there should just be thinking: we can then let the managers of HE institutions or the publishers and vendors of books worry about the fragmentation into disciplines driven by market economics. I am a philosopher because, as a matter of fact, I teach on a programme which bears the title philosophy as dictated by the institution; what I actually teach is, within reason, rather fluid.
The nature of interdisciplinary is perhaps beings thought about the wrong way round. One might want to think through first and foremost what a discipline is before asking what interdisciplinarity is, a bottom-up rather than a forced top-down approach.
I do hope these comments have been useful and appropriate to your list and please do not hesitate to contact me directly off list,
David
Dr David Edward Rose
Lecturer in Philosophy
Philosophical Studies, Newcastle University
6th Floor, Herschel Bldg
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU
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+44 191 222 3864
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