Università Roma Tre

Educating your gaze. Toward a philosophy of images.

Course objective
Contemporary society has maximized the impact of images in our ordinary life, revealing their extraordinary communicative power. Images narrate our daily activities. Thanks to modern technologies, we can access photos of a happy family at the seaside and at the same moment the reportage of a terrorist attack. What is an image? Can we provide a definition of image? What is the link between images and reality? The aim of the course is to reflect on the notion of image, evidencing, on one side, the relevance of the concept of image throughout Western history and, on the other side, focusing on the possible impact that a “culture of images” has on the education of individuals.

Part A
Choose two among the following texts:
• P. Spinicci, Simili alle ombre e al sogno. La filosofia dell’immagine, Bollati Boringhieri, 2008.
• J.J. Wunenburger, Filosofia delle immagini, Einaudi, 1999
• D. Lopes, Understanding Picures, Oxford University press, 1996
• J. Hyman, The Objective Eye. Chicago, Chicago University Press, 2006
• J. Kulvicky, On images, Oxford University Press, 2006
• M. Newall, What is a Picture? Depiction, Realism, Abstraction, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011

Part B

Choose one of the following texts:

• M.J. Mondzain, L’immagine che uccide. La violenza come spettacolo dalle torri gemelle all’Isis, EDB, 2017
• L. Russo (a cura di), Vedere l’invisibile. Nicea e lo statuto dell’immagine. Aesthetica, Palermo, 1999
• M. Bettetini, Contro le immagini. Le radici dell’iconoclastia, Laterza, 2006.
• E. Franzini, Fenomenologia dell’invisibile. Al di là dell’immagine. Raffaello Cortina, 2001.
• F. Vercellone, Il futuro dell’immagine, Il Mulino, 2017
• E. Kitzinger, Il culto delle immagini, Meltemi, 2018