Barbara Carnevali | The Society of Appearances

Sconfinare Festival 2024

BEYOND THE WALL | SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12 | 5:00 PM

Is it true that appearances are deceiving? And does appearance oppose being as much as semblance opposes the pure reality of facts? Or is there perhaps something inescapable in the essentially phenomenological (and therefore conspicuous) nature of our social life? Barbara Carnevali, blending philosophical considerations with reflections inspired by the arts and social theory, offers us a countercurrent perspective on the "official" history of Western philosophy: she invites us to rediscover the social sphere as an object of aesthetic, and thereby political and moral, interest, and appearances as an essential foundation for our relationships with others, and even before that, with ourselves. In this sense, it is legitimate to question the role and value of phenomena such as fashion, advertising, prestige, and even selfies, social media, and political correctness within our society. The answers to these and other questions might suggest a new way to view the social world and live our time by making good use of appearances.

Barbara Carnevali is a Directrice d’études in Philosophy at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. She trained at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and has been invited to many foreign universities, including the University of Chicago, the Sorbonne, Columbia University, and the New School for Social Research in New York. She focuses particularly on the forms of modern subjectivity and the relationships between aesthetics and society, interpreting them through the study of the arts and those phenomena that are mediated or constituted by appearance, sensitivity, and taste. Her recent works include Le apparenze sociali. Una filosofia del prestigio (Il Mulino, 2012); La linea rossa. Milano e il design della modernità (forthcoming from Feltrinelli, 2024).

The event will be moderated by Manuel Camassa, philosopher and teacher at the Liceo cantonale di Lugano 2.