Carlo Testa / Forschung - Profile on Academia.edu (original) (raw)
BOOKS by Carlo Testa / Forschung
Quaderni di Studi Indomediterranei 5, 2013
File contains Table of Contents and my Introduction: Il silenzio delle parole
Ital Cinema: Politics & Economy by Carlo Testa / Forschung
This article proposes a synthetic analysis and contextualization of the most significant,
The 2005 Cornell Entralogos Conference has provided me with the welcome opportunity to develop so... more The 2005 Cornell Entralogos Conference has provided me with the welcome opportunity to develop some theoretical reflections on the ways in which, on the one hand, literature, and more in general arts and the humanities, contribute to shaping the world -but, also on the other hand, on how different "worlds" (different historical and cultural realities, that is) bring about a correspondingly diverse gamut of artistic creations. This paper of mine, then, arises within the context of an overarching theoretical exploration inspired by the theme of the Conference: "Art Makes a Difference / Difference Makes Art." In my intention, the symmetry of this proposition aims not for a selfreferential form of witticism but for an almost mimetic reproduction of the endless circulation -in some sense, indeed, the circularity -of the exchanges that obtain between culture and society. Which of the two comes first? Neither, it goes without saying. Which of the two comes second? Both, of course.
Cinema & Literature by Carlo Testa / Forschung
Quaderni di Studi Indomediterranei 5, 2013
File contains Table of Contents and my Introduction: Il silenzio delle parole
This article proposes a synthetic analysis and contextualization of the most significant,
The 2005 Cornell Entralogos Conference has provided me with the welcome opportunity to develop so... more The 2005 Cornell Entralogos Conference has provided me with the welcome opportunity to develop some theoretical reflections on the ways in which, on the one hand, literature, and more in general arts and the humanities, contribute to shaping the world -but, also on the other hand, on how different "worlds" (different historical and cultural realities, that is) bring about a correspondingly diverse gamut of artistic creations. This paper of mine, then, arises within the context of an overarching theoretical exploration inspired by the theme of the Conference: "Art Makes a Difference / Difference Makes Art." In my intention, the symmetry of this proposition aims not for a selfreferential form of witticism but for an almost mimetic reproduction of the endless circulation -in some sense, indeed, the circularity -of the exchanges that obtain between culture and society. Which of the two comes first? Neither, it goes without saying. Which of the two comes second? Both, of course.
We have a yearning for Revelation. Wir sehnen uns nach Offenbarung. Goethe, Faust, v. 1,217 Hopes... more We have a yearning for Revelation. Wir sehnen uns nach Offenbarung. Goethe, Faust, v. 1,217 Hopes and dreams: "rising" to cosmic joy Everywhere and at all times imperfect, yet everywhere and at all times able to suppose, imagine and desire perfection, humanity can be said to have harbored in its relatively short history few emotions more universal and archetypal than the pain experienced from witnessing the gap between our own finite, mortal, conflicted condition and the infinite, immortal and harmonious condition which appears to us to characterize, as a whole, the universe that hosts us. Whether we opt to describe such a polarity as the dualism between the individual and the Cosmos, or between the beings and Being, or between the creatures and their Creator, the unfathomable enigma that separates the two opposite concepts seems to work in functionally equivalent ways. It is the polarity that matters, not its labels. Accordingly, few hopes can be said to have been nourished by humanity in a more universal and archetypal manner than the attempt to reverse the pain of that separation into the corresponding joy of an achieved unity. Most such efforts produced by the most visionary minds, both East and West, throughout the documents we find scattered since the invention of recorded time, can be described as experiments in intuition for the purpose of bridging that particular gap; and dissension among human beings' visionary perceptions can be put down to dissension about the ways and forms to be taken by the gap-bridging dream, not about the unitary goal in itself. Since the distance between infinity and finitude is in itself, by definition, infinite, human language has described in metaphorical terms both its own innate inadequacy and the condition of its own overcoming -using, in the process, images drawn from vastly diverse spheres of experience. The bliss of an achieved unity of the finite within infinity has thus been prefigured in a number of manners -by geometrical, or spatial, or musical metaphors -; and in a number of areas of human endeavor -philosophy, reli-«Quaderni di Studi Indo-Mediterranei», V (2012), pp. 311-343. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man. (King James Bible / Interlinear Greek New Testament -Online) ᅊµᆱν ᅊµᆱν λέγω ᆓµሏν, ᆊψεσθε τᆵν οᆒρανᆵν ᅊνεሩγότα καᆳ τοᆷς ᅊγγέλους τοሞ θεοሞ ᅊναβαίνοντας καᆳ καταβαίνοντας ᅚπᆳ τᆵν υᅷᆵν τοሞ ᅊνθρώπου. (IGNT -Online)
I, Pinocchio, the Real and Only One: Confessions of a Former Puppet who Converted from Matter to Soul, 2022
Translation into English (Vancouver, Canada: Finisterrae, 2022) of the main autobiographical work... more Translation into English (Vancouver, Canada: Finisterrae, 2022) of the main autobiographical work in Italian by Giuseppino “Pinocchio” Collodi «Confessioni di un burattino».
Abstract from the Preface:
«At the by no means tender age of 140, I, Pinocchio, the real and only one, am extremely upset that a foolish and debased version of my life experience should circulate so widely in the world, especially in the English-speaking part of it. How such a demeaning process of banalization could take place is simply beyond my comprehension. True, when I was a puppet I was indeed very foolish and did foolish things. But that’s no reason, today, to deny the significant and important lessons that my vicissitudes contain for the benefit of those who wish to understand the world’s brutal mechanisms: mechanisms that used to rule the world 140 years ago and still do today.
Sure, these Confessions of mine are at some level about me — but, more to the point, they are about capitalism, about work vs. play, about the entertainment industry and all other industries, about self-reliance, about the justice system, about the twinned nature of our self (Animus and Anima), abouth death, about selfishness vs. love and compassion, about the World Soul, about creation and the Creation … In short, they are “about me” but they also are about everything else: everything that still matters in our lives.»
Oikosophia: dall'intelligenza del cuore all'ecofilosofia / From the Intelligence of the Heart to Ecophilosophy — Quaderni di Studi Indomediterranei 10, 2017
Gerardo (Dino) Fraccari (1909-1999), di formazione filosofo, per naturale predisposizione spirito... more Gerardo (Dino) Fraccari (1909-1999), di formazione filosofo, per naturale predisposizione spirito visionario e comparatista, fu professore di filosofia nei licei milanesi, e al contempo saggista, conferenziere, traduttore. Debuttò con una monografia su Giordano Bruno e la traduzione dei racconti di Hoffmann (entrambi 1951), dedicandosi poi alla traduzione di Adler (1954) e allo studio di Jacob Böhme e dei mistici protestanti tedeschi (1964). Negli anni successivi seppe coniugare la sua audace lettura della filosofia presocratica con quella, ugualmente inusitata all'epoca, della sapienza cinese antica, taoista in particolare. Coronamento del suo lavoro in quest'ambito fu la monografia Eraclito e la civiltà mediterranea (1981). Una parte importante dei suoi scritti rimase inedita e per circostanze familiari sfortunate molti dei suoi lavori devono considerarsi dispersi. Il testo che qui pubblichiamo, non datato ma ascrivibile agli anni '80, fu forse redatto per una conferenza; è parte degli inediti superstiti.
Abstract: In questo scritto databile agli anni '80 del secolo scorso, e rimasto fino a oggi inedito, Gerardo Fraccari getta un aereo quanto solido ponte tra la sapienza di Eraclito e quella di Lao Tsu, portandoci così a comprendere il "naturalismo", che questi antichi filosofi accomuna, attraverso una prospettiva diversa da quella verso cui le nostre categorie epistemologiche tradizionali ci hanno abituati. Il pensiero di Fraccari annuncia e prepara quello delle generazioni a noi più vicine nell'individuazione di una sapienza eterna iscritta nel mondo vivente — nel mondo "più che umano", secondo la felice espressione coniata da David Abram — del quale l'umano torna a far parte nella misura in cui si dedica a (ri)apprenderne il ritmo, la presenza, gli eloquenti silenzi.
Oikosophia: dall'intelligenza del cuore all'ecofilosofia / From the Intelligenge of the Heart to Ecophilosophy — Quaderni di Studi Indomedierranei 10, 2017
For anyone studying Fascism with a critical eye, the mere existence of historical characters li... more For anyone studying Fascism with a critical eye, the mere existence of historical characters like Galeazzo Ciano feels like little less than manna from heaven. Why? Because Galeazzo Ciano was situated exactly at the juncture of the lines of force (or ... fragility) that made Italian Fascism both so characteristically strong and so fatally weak, accounting for the wobbly resilience through the decades – and the uncanny resonance across the globe – of a regime which, in a now classic essay on «Ur-Fascism», Umberto Eco a quarter of a century ago tartly characterized as a deliberately organized kind of chaos, «a structured confusion» («una confusione strutturata»).
Galeazzo was the son of Costanzo Ciano, a war hero from the first World War ... (continues in essay)
