13717 - Communication Geography (R-Z)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course students will have acquired a historico-critical knowledge of the spatial concepts and models through which modern geography has built and organized the production and communication of the knowledge of the earth.

 

Course contents

This course is divided into two interconnected parts.

The title of the first part is: The earth and languages: what communication geography is.

The main aim of the first part consists of explaining what is meant by communication geography in this course: communication geography is human geography and thus, as such, cannot be dissociated from signification, i.e. from languages and their evolution. The very term of geography implies language, rather several languages. Indeed, geography, i.e. the -graphia of the earth, means the representation or description of the earth, or rather the many ways in which the earth has been described and represented. Concerning this, the main concepts and tools through which geography has described and/or represented the world will be analysed in this course: the sphere and globe, the chora and landscape, the map – each of these concepts and tools being bearer of a different interpretation of the world. By -graphia of the earth one might also intend the set of signs by means of which human beings mark the earth’s surface with their presence, telling about their identity through their relationship to the world. With regard to this, some concepts concerning human identity, both individual and collective – such as feminine-masculine (and beyond), subjectivity and the nature of image, the very concept of culture – will be interpreted, in this course, according to the way in which they have been outlined through the language inscribed on the earth or through the different perspectives on the earth of which the main geographical concepts are bearers.

The title of the second part is: Landscape and image: the same third nature

The second part of the course will be dedicated to deepen the nature of a geographical concept, the landscape, and the nature of a kind of language, that of image. This part of the course aims at demonstrating the reasons of an identity/sameness, that between the nature of landscape and the nature of image, by interpreting both ones in the light of a logic of third ways. The course will explain why such an identity/sameness lets understand both the contemporary success of the concept of landscape and the crucial role played by image in Western culture.

 

Readings/Bibliography

1. Farinelli F., L’invenzione della Terra, Palermo, Sellerio, 2007 or 2016.

2. Bonfiglioli S., La geografia di Egnazio Danti. Il sapere corografico a Bologna nell’età della Controriforma, Bologna, Pàtron, 2012.

3. Farinelli F., Geografia. Un’introduzione ai modelli del mondo, Torino, Einaudi, 2003 (only chapters 0-59, i.e. pp. 1-123).

4. Turri E., Il paesaggio come teatro, Venezia, Marsilio, 2006.

 

Constantly attending students will have to study for the exam the texts 1, 2, 3, together with the topics of the lectures delivered by the teacher. Please consider that constant attendance also includes the participation in the interactive section Telling about today’s earth through today’s languages (about which see below).

Non-attending students, as well as students who will have sporadically attended and/or will not have participated in the section Telling about today’s earth through today’s languages, will have to study for the exam the texts 1, 2, 3, 4.

 

Teaching methods

Formal lectures integrated with several hours devoted to the discussion of the topics linked to the lectures or the texts.

The hours devoted to discussion include the interactive section Telling about today’s earth through today’s languages, aimed at involving students in a collective work, coordinated by the teacher, on the topic indicated by the section title. All information about this section will be given at the beginning of the course.

 

Assessment methods

Oral examination, aimed at ascertaining the acquisition of critical knowledge of the course contents. More precisely: a) constantly attending students have to study the above-mentioned texts 1, 2, 3, together with the topics of the lectures delivered by the teacher; b) non-attending as well as sporadically attending students have to study the above-mentioned texts 1, 2, 3, 4 (please see “Readings/Bibliography”).

In both cases, the evaluation will take into account:

a) the level of knowledge of the contents: how well they have been deepened and understood;

b) how rich and correct the discursive articulation of the contents is;

c) the use of appropriate terminology.

 

Teaching tools

Tales, images, videos, websites, slides.

 

Office hours

See the website of Stefania Bonfiglioli