Corso di laurea magistrale in
Comunicazione e Culture dei media

The exams of "Incontri sul Senso A" e "B" should be passed before taking that of "Incontri sul Senso C"

THE FACE IN THE RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE. The module, which will be structured as a seminar, is meant as the prosecution of the modules of "Meetings on Meaning A" (Prof. Ugo Volli) and "Meetings on Meaning B" (Prof.sa Lara Gaffuti). It aims at transmitting knowledge, skills, and abilities that are central for whoever wishes to work in a highly professional field concerning the comprehension, management, and planning of religious phenomena and artifacts, with particular attention to the construction of their meaning and their circulation through media and within cultures. Specifically, the course seeks to familiarize participants with the most advanced theories and methods of the semiotics of religion, and to transmit interpretive sensibility and skills to those who mean to work in contact with religious cultures that vary both chronologically and geographically. The 2017-2018 course has as a monographic theme “the face”, and bears on the ways in which religious cultures imagine the the face of the sacred in relation to the human one.

At the end of the module, students a) will know the essential rudiments of the semiotics of religion and will be able to understand the communicative and media characteristics of complex religious phenomena and artifacts; b) will be capable of applying the methods of the semiotics of religion to their research and professional domains, with particular reference to the world of present-day communication and media; c) will develop the ability to autonomously interpret the cultural context of a religious phenomenon; d) will be put in contact with a new discipline, thus bettering their comprehension skills both in Italian and in English (on the occasion of lectures delivered by foreign speakers).

Lectures (for a total of 12 hours, that is, 2 CFU), with Powerpoint presentations, projection of images and videos and listening to audio files, as well as discussion with the lecturer on the presented materials; conferences of internationally renown Italian and foreign speakers (the latter in English) on the monographic theme of the course. Lectures will aim at transmitting the essentials of the semiotics of religion; conferences, organized also in partnership with experts, will offer an overview of the discipline.

The examination program consists in reading one of the theoretical texts listed in the bibliography; the materials of the module will be uploaded in the module's website. Conferences by external speakers will be video-recorded and uploaded in a specific Youtube channel, available to students. During the examination, students will be addressed a series of three-four questions about the contents of the module, the external conferences, and the book chosen and read for the preparation of the exam. The examination is meant to verify that students have improved their knowledge, skills, critical sensibility, autonomy of judgment, and capacity of expression in the domain of the semiotic analysis of religious phenomena.

N.B.: Those who do not attend the course will be required to study a second book from the bibliography.

N.B.: Papers can be written also in English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. Upon the student's request, the examination can also take place in these languages.

Office hours; laboratories. The lecturer will receive students by appointment during two hours per week and might also recommend them to seek further advice by other collaborators and specialists, depending on the specific needs of learning and preparing examination papers (or even MA dissertations). Laboratories will take place within the module and aim at testing the students’ knowledge, skills, and critical abilities through pilot-semiotic analyses, to be carried on under the guidance of the lecturer.

Students will learn the fundaments and the most recent developments of semiotics of religion, with particular reference to the study of the materiality of religious phenomena in relation the the subject of "the face".

Leone, Massimo. 2014. Annunciazioni: percorsi di semiotica della religione. Roma: Aracne [accesso libero in rete presso www.unito.academia.edu/MassimoLeone].

The course presupposes a certain knowledge of general semiotics. Those who have never taken any course of semiotics are invited to read Ugo Volli's Manuale di semiotica, or, if they are not fluent in Italian, another handbook of semiotics in their own language, to be chosen with the agreement of the teacher. Good knowledge of English is recommended to all participants.

ATTENTION: the professor will be absent for research at the Internationales Forschungszentrum Kultuwissenschaften, in Vienna, during the period October 2017-January 2018.