P.I. Matteo Al Kalak

Participants: Laura Turchi, Maria Chiara Rioli, Elena Fumagalli, Isabella Ferron

External collaboration: Technische Universität Dresden - Institut für Romanistik.

Sept. 2023-Sept. 2024

The project intends to promote the analysis of L. A. Muratori's works and correspondence through the Lodovico medialibrary promoted by the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. A major European personality, L. A. Muratori is considered one of the intellectuals who most contributed to the renewal of Italian culture through a profound innovation of the historical method and a rediscovery of the Middle Ages. The project aims to develop a work of valorisation and scientific investigation on the following points:

• Enrichment of the existing metadata of the Muratorian Archive, with a view to making the documentation more usable for research purposes (e.g. indication of the consistencies of the files containing the individual correspondence; topical and chronological dating of the letters; possible descriptive elements functional to specific projects conducted on portions of the Muratorian correspondence, etc.).
• Creation of navigation and utilisation tools for the Muratorian archive such as interactive maps, network visualisations for network analysis, timelines, etc.
• First possible experiments in text/linguistic analysis of Muratorian correspondence and/or works, from a historical and historical-linguistic perspective (in particular with reference to translations of Muratorian works).
• Publications and initiatives for the valorisation and dissemination of results.

P.I. Lorenzo Bertucelli

2023-

The digital turn at the beginning of the 21st century has raised the need for reflection on the methodology for the interpretation of historical sources. Dematerialisation entails a re-ontologising process of sources which, regardless of their format (audio, video, text, images), all become composed of bits. This opens up interesting research perspectives and poses completely new problems. Access to documents requires that these in their digital form be accompanied by both administrative and descriptive metadata, in order to be able to sort, search and verify the reliability of a digital source. Researchers are inevitably confronted with searching, analysing and criticising digital sources. It is presumable that the set of sources produced is hybrid, i.e. composed of a part of material documentation and a part of digital documentation, and after the 2000s it is very likely that material sources have almost completely disappeared. In particular, to investigate a political subject (also in relation to the social and cultural context) it is necessary to study its public interface, first of all the website and other digital 'products', using, for example, tools such as Way Back Machine-Internet archive, and to work on the data collected by a software that collects data from the Internet, taking all the content from the website, all the internal and external links, stored in a database. For sources produced through social networks, it is also necessary to work on a quantitative level using software such as LancsBox, which is capable of analysing large corpora of data through computational linguistic analysis. It is also necessary to consider the multimedia level of the source set, digitisation and ontological homologation processes of sources, which have made it much easier to produce and share audiovisual sources (e.g. YouTube). The aim of the research is a wide-ranging methodological reflection on these issues and the identification of a case study: an investigation into one of the two major Italian parties that emerged during the digital era, the Partito Democratico, and the evolution of its political culture.

P.I. Marina Bondi

Participants: Franca Poppi, Giuliana Diani. Judith Turnbull, Donatella Malavasi. Jessica Jane Nocella (PhD student), Federico Zaupa (PhD student), Marisophia Falcone(PhD student), Ilaria Iori (PhD student), Noemi Grasso (PhD student)

2023-2025

In a socio-economic context of increasing uncertainty, transparency and clarity become two fundamental pillars of corporate communication. In the aftermath of the pandemic and in the context of the environmental disasters caused by climate change, the transport sector has been severely affected. Railway, airline, cruise and coach companies have found themselves needing to develop communication strategies capable of reassuring travellers.  After analysing the reconstruction of trust in the post-pandemic context (FAR, 2021), the research team intends to examine three aspects of transparent communication in the transport sector: accessibility of information, forward-looking statements and statements of purpose in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) genres.  The study is based on a case study of railway companies. The focus is on the linguistic expressions related to CSR communication, forward-looking statements and statements of purpose in various genres, taking into consideration factors such as intention, uncertainty, reality. The two micro-diachronic (2018-2021) corpora created for the FAR 2021 project will be extended and updated to include the 2022 and 2023 CSR communication budgets of railway companies from different European and non-European countries. Each corpus will include the (integrated and/or CSR) reports published in the years 2018-2023 and the current CSR section on railway company websites. A further aim of the project will be to annotate the corpus on the basis of different categories of future and (in)certainty, identified following a preliminary study. The diachronic composition of the corpus will make it possible to analyse the rhetorical and linguistic changes that have characterised CSR communication. The modularity of the corpora will also allow for a comparative analysis of different socio-cultural contexts and different forms of web communication.  Through a linguistic analysis of genres, the CSR reports and website sections will be explored on a textual, rhetorical, lexical and phraseological level. The study of variation across the different railway companies will make it possible to analyse the use of English as a language of dissemination of factors of future (un)certainty in times of international crisis in English-speaking and non-English-speaking countries. The study of variation across media will allow a study of the strategies adopted by the companies in the different forms of communication, with the verbal instruments most suited to their different audiences. The micro-diachronic study will highlight the most significant changes in the 2022 and 2023 reports. The results of this study will make it possible to identify new cultural and linguistic trends in communicating corporate identity, with special reference to the role of discourse about the future; they will also lead to the development of effective guidelines for stakeholders and operators in the rail transport sector.

Departmental project financed with university funds (research grant)

P.I. Elisa Rossi

Participant: Piera Margutti

2023-

The literature on doctor-patient communication has long described and promoted patient-centred interaction and patient care needs. Qualitative studies conducted on audio/video-recordings of medical visits and quantitative surveys based on questionnaires and interviews show that the expression of the patient's needs and their acknowledgement by the physician promote understanding and acceptance of the treatment, improving the patient's experience of care and quality of life. The unexpressed needs of the patients, however, are still a poorly investigated aspect of medical communication. In the oncological context, in particular, patients often tend not to express their feelings as to the choice and acceptance of treatment, the management of anxiety following the uncertainty of treatment outcomes, the consequences of treatment that may impact their lifestyle and social relationships. The research project adopts an ethnographic observational approach, including a gender perspective, to investigate the unexpressed needs of cancer patients, identifying forms of communication and interactive practices that facilitate the expression of narratives. The object of the investigation is the interaction that develops within the self-help groups active in the oncology wards of hospital units in Emilia-Romagna. Starting from the video-recordings of spontaneous interaction taking place in these groups, and through the tools of conversation analysis, the project investigates the narratives of the participants (patients, healed patients, caregivers, nurses, doctors and psycho-oncologists) identifying their perception of communication both during medical visits and the course of treatment. Video footage of support group meetings will serve to capture recurring themes, needs and concerns related to illness and treatment and it will also allow for the identification of discursive forms aimed at expressing agreement, support, empathy, inclusion and related or opposing social actions. The identification of discursive practices favoring the expression of patients' experiences and empathic communication will allow for the development of guidelines and training materials for medical staff.

P.I. Daniela Capra
2023-
Venetia was a leading player in publishing from the very onset of printing, in the second half of the fifteenth century. Spanish texts and their translations are found in libraries quite early intime: the Carcer d'amore was published, in Italian translation, in 1514 and reprinted six times by mid-century,  the Tragicomedia de Calisto e Melibea enjoyed similar success in the same years. In the vast field of investigation of Spanish books printed in Venice between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the research project aims to study the choices of the main Venetian publishers. Publishing in the 16th century depended largely on political patronage, as well as patronage with more liberal intentions. In the period of Counter-Reformation, a change is observed in the type of texts and authors offered to the public. After an initial phase in which Italian translations of most successful Spanish narrative works predominated, in the mid-sixteenth century more and more types of texts appeared in printing, even less successful ones. One of the major publishers of Spanish works, Giolito, collaborated lengthily with Alfonso de Ulloa, who described Giolito’s activity as a service to the Spanish nation. Giolito will thus be one of the targets of our investigation, but the printed production of other texts written in Spanish will also be investigated, as well as the translation of works both from Spanish into Italian and the opposite way round. This publication industry is examined particularly in the role it had of mediating across cultures in those centuries.

P.I. Michele Lodone

Participant: Filomena Viviana Tagliaferri

External collaborators: Lorenzo Geri (La Sapienza University, Rome) and Antonio Montefusco (Ca' Foscari University, Venice).

2023-

In 1466, a lively debate was opened in Rome on the role of Christian poverty, in which prominent humanists and men of the curia close to Pope Paul II participated. What provoked the debate was a spectacular trial against the last group of heretical 'fraticelli', proponents of a radical conception of Franciscan poverty. The texts produced by the debate have yet to be studied. This is the overall aim of the project, which unites in a new perspective three research traditions which have yet to be analyzed together: the Renaissance papacy, medieval ideals of Christian poverty and humanist theories of magnificence. The first objective of the research is to understand the enduring significance of the religious ideology of poverty, and in particular the continuities and ruptures between the discussions of 1466 and those of the 14th century. The second objective is to understand the criticism of Paul II's ostentation of wealth by comparing his way of exercising power with that of his predecessors and successors. After the end of the Western Schism (1378-1417), the Papacy needed renewed ideological support: it is in this political and ecclesiological context that one understands the theories aimed at promoting the magnificence of Rome as the centre of the Christian world. The third objective of the project is to investigate in a comparative framework the impact of humanistic culture in the discourse on wealth and poverty by answering a series of questions that have not been adequately answered: what strategies were used to enhance the secular or religious dimension of magnificence? Which of them were applied to or by the popes? How were they reconciled with the values of Christian poverty? Historiography on poverty has long emphasised the appearance of a new, more severe attitude towards the poor, starting from the early modern age. But when did this change occur? How did it affect religious donations and their destination? Starting in the 13th century, criticism of the Mendicant Orders and their practice of voluntary poverty was joined by accusations of social inactivity: what was the relationship between religious and social considerations in this regard?

P.I. Alessandra Gribaldo

2023-

The project promotes the initiation of a line of research concerning the anthropologically marked reflection on home movies that has the capacity to dialogue with sociological and historical disciplines and with visuality studies. Family films can be read as forms of autoethnography and re-inscriptions of the social self, which cross gender boundaries. The family and intimacy are well-known objects in anthropology, yet the visual document, with its bearing on memory and trace of historical time, proves to be an original field. We therefore intend to initiate work on the meanings, functions and uses of audiovisual material filmed in the pre-digital era in a non-professional and family context, starting with its archiving/digitisation. Through the collaboration with the Home Movies archive, which carries out research and collects family and amateur film material throughout Italy, the skills already acquired and the Department's existing structures such as the LAMA will be employed. In particular, digitised 8, Super 8 and VHS formats of the 1950s-1990s will be considered: an initial systematisation of family funds concerning Modena and Reggio Emilia will make it possible to investigate the visual logics adopted in the exposure of everyday life, intimacy and family relationships. The socio-anthropological and audiovisual knowledge present in the Department will be valorised, trying to open new interdisciplinary collaboration at a national and international level.

P.I. Francesca Lorandini

Participants: Angela Albanese, Franco Nasi

2023-2024

The question of authorship has become a topic of interest within a number of academic disciplines, including the sociology of literature and the arts, the history of publishing, literary theory and criticism, translation studies, adaptation studies, the history of law and marketing, communication and management. In reflecting on authorship in the present era, it is necessary to consider a number of new variables that have come to shape its epistemological redefinition. These include the entertainment industry, the processes by which authors are consecrated by academic and cultural institutions, and the relationship between authors and new technologies. This also implies proposing the hypothesis that the material and human conditions of literary and artistic life exert an influence on the evolution of aesthetic practices, modifying both the production and the reception of the artistic fact. In light of these considerations, the objective of this project is to examine the various manifestations of authorship in the literary, theatrical, and artistic domains, and to analyse the emergence of a novel conceptualisation of the author. The concept of authorship will therefore be investigated in relation to the following areas: 1. Authorship and Translation (authorship and literary and theatrical translation, authorship and re-translation, translation ethics and reflections on the genre, collaborative translations) 2. Narratives of Authorship (authorship and autobiographies, biographies and pathographies) 3. Authorship and Publishing Strategies (authorial postures, poetics of groups (movements, schools) and literary magazines)

P.I. Vallori Rasini

Participants: Giacomo Scarpelli, Adil Bellafqih (PhD student), Gianni De Nittis (PhD student), Alessandro Mecarocci (PhD student)

spring 2023-autumn 2024

Although the project has an autonomous theoretical direction, it is linked both to the Departmental projects Far 2021 Mission Oriented The Library of Life and Far 2021 The Evolutionary Hypotheses between Misunderstandings and Intuitions, which investigated the specifically biological theorisations of the evolution of the animal and the human being, to the Departmental Far 2017 Psyche techne et physis, which instead focused on the vocation of the human being to technology, and to the Departmental Far 2018 Human Action and Creativity. Issues related to contemporary technological development are addressed. Technologies and new forms of socio-existential organisation progressively enrich the life and history of human beings, but the processes triggered by new technologies tend to heavily modify or replace their ‘natural’ dispositions and skills. Considered as a biological organism, the human being increasingly appears as a ‘residual entity’, while nature as a whole is afflicted by the difficulty of preserving or modifying its equilibrium in a ‘sustainable’ manner. The impressive technological development is linked to the idea that the nature of the human being is that of a constructor authorised to make even devastating interventions on the reality that surrounds him and on himself. Mythology, fiction, philosophy, but also economics, law and politics, offer abundant examples of this belief. The project ‘Technological Evolution and Moral Sustainability’ takes its cue from this evidence and the resulting conflicts, to conduct both a historical-philosophical and historical-literary analysis of the socio-cultural framework, focusing on the significance of technology and its relationship to human nature, and an investigation into the moral upheavals that the current condition entails.

Protecting Religious Freedom, the Neutrality of Public Space, and Confessional Pluralism Between Corporate Policies and Workers' Rights from the Perspective of Article 2 TEU 

P.I. Vincenzo Pacillo

External collaborators: Fabio Franceschi (La Sapienza University, Rome), Maria Chiara Ruscazio (University of Turin), Piotr Stanisz (Catholic University of Lublin, PL) Paolo Vargiu (University of Leicester, UK)

2023-

This project will be structured as a single action divided chronologically into three parts. The first part aims to improve understanding of the European constitutional tradition related to the principle of secularism (including its historical development) and the relationship between secularism and respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and human rights (including the rights of people belonging to minorities – Article 2 TEU). Confessional impartiality—which, according to the Strasbourg Court, characterizes a "democratic society" and must be based on dialogue and a spirit of compromise among the various religious groups within the same territory—requires public authorities to maintain a position of equidistance and impartiality toward all religious beliefs, avoiding identity-based tendencies that favor established confessions or unreasonably disadvantage newly settled groups. The obligation imposed by confessional impartiality prevents the state from expressing judgments of merit or disapproval concerning the principles professed by a religious group but also imposes a duty on public bodies and officials to fully protect religious minorities and promote the exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms under equal conditions. The second part will focus on a comparative analysis, examining the implementation of the principle of secularism in the legislation and jurisprudence of some EU member states, particularly France (Western Europe), Hungary, and Poland (Central and Eastern Europe). It will explore the historical development of this principle and the impact that national interpretations may have on the idea of secularism as a "common constitutional tradition" and logical prerequisite for Article 2 TEU. The third part will reflect on the relationship between individual religious freedom, secularism, and freedom of enterprise in the context of subordinate employment, specifically addressing the potential for new labor policies that allow a balance, based on proportionality and reasonableness, between the expression of individual religious identity in the workplace and the need to ensure the employer's confessional neutrality. From here, the investigation will consider the potential need for "corrective" legislative instruments to address the discretionary power of employers (e.g., codes of conduct, dress-code policies, demotion of employees for religious reasons) that, without legislative intervention, could weaken the guarantees afforded to individuals and their human dignity.

P.I. Cesare Giacobazzi

2023-2025

The aim of this research is to describe forms of post-factuality making specific reference to the poetics of realism. A fundamental characteristic in the poetics of realism is that of attributing a symbolic or metaphorical value to factual descriptions and events. Despite being allusive, such symbolic attributions give the pure factual datum extra meaning. Thus the staging of concrete elements of the real world, with each constituent element of the reality depicted in a realist work, takes on a mimetic character and becomes the expression of a meaning going much beyond the empirical datum. While the post-factual is mostly considered as a lying narrative to be unmasked of its falsehood, the intention of this study is to recognise a more hidden and more insidious form of post-factuality: a form that manifests itself in being understood as an objective perspective only in order to conceal a subjective position and interest. Post-factuality is understood in this sense as a narrative that, while presenting itself as a simple objective representation of reality, conveys a subjective position constructed through the stylistic devices of literary realism. In this way, the appeal to share ideal, ethical or ideological positions is articulated through a feigned objectivity in order to make them unassailable. The critical-interpretive confrontation with the hidden truth of interpretation presupposes a revision of the relationship between facts and their interpretation because in the exposition of the former, interpretation is already present. Starting from the hermeneutic premise that facts and their commentary are circularly interconnected, the research will explore how not only an interpretation is immanent to the narrated facts, but also how the latter can be constructed in order to express opinions. In this sense, a conception of truth that relies on an assumed correspondence between the content of a discourse and 'factual' reality is questioned. In a different way, the experience with the truth of a text is articulated as an awareness of the rhetorical and pragmatic-functional properties of the linguistic representation of facts. With reference to the consideration that 'poetic fiction' is the 'systematic locus of all deconstruction work', Robert Menasse's Die Hauptstadt (2017) will be taken as a paradigmatic example of the realist staging of post-factual truths. The features of the narrative practice of realism that characterise a 'hidden' post-factual will be highlighted, while identifying the subjective, ideological and ethical position of the narrator or characters in the narrative. The deconstruction of the post-factual operated through the poetics of realism has the function of developing a critical consciousness towards the deception practised through 'objective' forms of representation.

As part of the project, on 28 May 2024 a study day was held on the theme ‘The fake between realism and postfactuality’ in which our PhD student Riccardo Bettini participated with a speech entitled ‘The fiction of rationality. The subversion of the concept of fake in Max Frisch's Homo Faber’. It is our intention to publish the proceedings of the study day by the end of 2024. The cost is expected to be around 2000 euros.

P.I. Elisabetta Menetti

2023-

The research project, held in collaboration with two more universities (University of Ferrara and University of Venice) and under the patronage of the Boiardo Study Centre of Scandiano (Reggio Emilia), concerns the study of the chivalric poem by Matteo Maria Boiardo, Orlando innamorato, in the context of the enhancement of the literary tradition of the Este territory and of research on the chivalric genre between tradition and contemporaneity, especially with regard to rewritings, transpositions and adaptations of ancient iconography and contemporary visual remodelling. The study began in 2017 and has nowadays brought the following results:

a. the discovery of a lost print of Orlando innamorato, on which a new edition is currently being produced (here the description of the discovery, which took place in Modena: https://site.unibo.it/griseldaonline/it/dibattiti-e-questioni/fabrizio-govi-breve-fortunata-storia-ritrovamento)

b. two conferences (https://www.dslc.unimore.it/site/home/ricerca/progetti-conclusi.html)

c. a comic strip on Orlando innamorato with the intention of promoting Boiardo's work to a wider public (https://segnidautore.it/product/orlando-innamorato-il-giardino-di-dragontina-e-rocca-crudele/ ), but which has also attracted strong international scientific interest (https://fisieronline.wordpress.com/)