L-FIL-LET/14 LITERATURE AND VISUAL ARTS (12 credits, Bachelor's Degree)
The module aims to analyze the functions and the pertinence of literary writing, considered in the span of relationships that binds it to the most meaningful visual languages of the twentieth century and the first years of the new millennium: such as, above all, cinema and entire system of the figurative arts. These relationships will be established from time to time with respect to a range of social and anthropological themes considered to be of greater importance today, so as to contribute to an intellectual formation capable of being critically oriented in the complexity of our present. Above all, following a path of this type, the continuous intersection that is established today between expressive languages of different origin and function will be privileged, so that the student, at the end of the course, will be able to independently recognize the intermediate intertwining proposed continuously from the current communication system. To this end, specific previous knowledge is not required.
The module aims to analyze the functions and the pertinence of literary writing, considered in the span of relationships that binds it to the most meaningful visual languages of the twentieth century and the first years of the new millennium: such as, above all, cinema and entire system of the figurative arts. These relationships will be established from time to time with respect to a range of social and anthropological themes considered to be of greater importance today, so as to contribute to an intellectual formation capable of being critically oriented in the complexity of our present. Above all, following a path of this type, the continuous intersection that is established today between expressive languages of different origin and function will be privileged, so that the student, at the end of the course, will be able to independently recognize the intermediate intertwining proposed continuously from the current communication system. To this end, specific previous knowledge is not required.
teacher profile teaching materials
This course sets out from a deceptively simple question: what happens to both art and life when their “natural” condition is to be copied, streamed and endlessly circulated. Taking its title from Benjamin but extending the argument into the digital present through Groys and Pincio, the course suggests that mechanical and digital reproducibility are not just technical matters but forms of social organization, ways of disciplining perception, memory and desire.
Bottiroli’s theory of literature and Pinotti–Somaini’s visual culture provide the basic tools: texts and images are treated not as innocent bearers of meaning but as devices shaped by conflict, ideology and institutional power. Finelli’s work on philosophy and technology reminds us that behind the apparent lightness of digital culture stands the heavy machinery of capital, which turns bodies, affects and time into abstract value.
Against this theoretical background, novels such as Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, together with films like Blade Runner, the film adaptation of Never Let me Go and The Square, are read as laboratories in which new human types are fabricated: clones, replicants, curators and consumers whose very lives are formatted by reproducible images and technical systems. The course asks whether, under these conditions, aesthetic experience can still resist becoming merely another commodity, or whether it might yet offer forms of critique, estrangement and solidarity.
Bottiroli, Giovanni. Che cos’è la teoria della letteratura. Fondamenti e problemi. Torino: Einaudi, 2006.
Pinotti, Andrea, and Antonio Somaini. Cultura visuale. Immagini, sguardi, media, dispositivi. Torino: Einaudi, 2016.
Finelli, Roberto. Filosofia e tecnologia. Una via di uscita dalla mente digitale. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier, 2022.
2. Theory
Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media. Edited by Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty, and Thomas Y. Levin. Translated by Edmund Jephcott et al. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.
Groys, Boris. In the Flow. London–New York: Verso, 2016.
Pincio, Tommaso. L’evento nell’epoca della sua riproducibilità tecnica. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2023.
3. Narrative and Films
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968.
Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go. London: Faber & Faber, 2005.
Scott, Ridley, dir. Blade Runner. USA: The Ladd Company/Warner Bros., 1982. Feature film, 117 min.
Romanek, Mark, dir. Never Let Me Go. Screenplay by Alex Garland. Los Angeles: Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2010.
Östlund, Ruben, dir. The Square. Sweden–Germany–France–Denmark: Plattform Produktion et al., 2017. Feature film, 142 min
Programme
ACADEMIC PROGRAMME FOR 2026/2027This course sets out from a deceptively simple question: what happens to both art and life when their “natural” condition is to be copied, streamed and endlessly circulated. Taking its title from Benjamin but extending the argument into the digital present through Groys and Pincio, the course suggests that mechanical and digital reproducibility are not just technical matters but forms of social organization, ways of disciplining perception, memory and desire.
Bottiroli’s theory of literature and Pinotti–Somaini’s visual culture provide the basic tools: texts and images are treated not as innocent bearers of meaning but as devices shaped by conflict, ideology and institutional power. Finelli’s work on philosophy and technology reminds us that behind the apparent lightness of digital culture stands the heavy machinery of capital, which turns bodies, affects and time into abstract value.
Against this theoretical background, novels such as Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, together with films like Blade Runner, the film adaptation of Never Let me Go and The Square, are read as laboratories in which new human types are fabricated: clones, replicants, curators and consumers whose very lives are formatted by reproducible images and technical systems. The course asks whether, under these conditions, aesthetic experience can still resist becoming merely another commodity, or whether it might yet offer forms of critique, estrangement and solidarity.
Core Documentation
1. Introductory HandbooksBottiroli, Giovanni. Che cos’è la teoria della letteratura. Fondamenti e problemi. Torino: Einaudi, 2006.
Pinotti, Andrea, and Antonio Somaini. Cultura visuale. Immagini, sguardi, media, dispositivi. Torino: Einaudi, 2016.
Finelli, Roberto. Filosofia e tecnologia. Una via di uscita dalla mente digitale. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier, 2022.
2. Theory
Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media. Edited by Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty, and Thomas Y. Levin. Translated by Edmund Jephcott et al. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.
Groys, Boris. In the Flow. London–New York: Verso, 2016.
Pincio, Tommaso. L’evento nell’epoca della sua riproducibilità tecnica. Bologna: Il Mulino, 2023.
3. Narrative and Films
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1968.
Ishiguro, Kazuo. Never Let Me Go. London: Faber & Faber, 2005.
Scott, Ridley, dir. Blade Runner. USA: The Ladd Company/Warner Bros., 1982. Feature film, 117 min.
Romanek, Mark, dir. Never Let Me Go. Screenplay by Alex Garland. Los Angeles: Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2010.
Östlund, Ruben, dir. The Square. Sweden–Germany–France–Denmark: Plattform Produktion et al., 2017. Feature film, 142 min
Reference Bibliography
Carrère, Emmanuel. Je suis vivant et vous êtes morts: Philip K. Dick, 1928–1982. Paris: Seuil, 1993. Eagleton, Terry. The Ideology of the Aesthetic. Oxford: Blackwell, 1990. Eiland, Howard, and Michael W. Jennings. Walter Benjamin: A Critical Life. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014. Jameson, Fredric. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1991. Sloterdijk, Peter. Nicht gerettet. Versuche nach Heidegger. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2001. Anders, Günther. Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen. Band 1: Über die Seele im Zeitalter der zweiten industriellen Revolution. München: C.H. Beck, 1956. Anders, Günther. Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen. Band 2: Über die Zerstörung des Lebens im Zeitalter der dritten industriellen Revolution. München: C.H. Beck, 1980. Bukatman, Scott. Blade Runner. London: British Film Institute, 1997.Attendance
attendance not mandatory.Type of evaluation
Written exam Students with disabilities and Specific Learning Disorders (SLDs) may request the accommodations and support measures to be granted during examinations through the University’s dedicated online portal, available at the following link: https://www.uniroma3.it/roma-tre-inclusiva-studenti-con-disabilita-e-con-dsa/