Images of Europe: The Union between Federation and Separation

ISBN-13: 9783030692421 / Angielski / Miękka / 2022

Mangiapane, Francesco

Opis

This book deals with the fundamental semantics of images of Europe, which consist of valences, mirror beliefs and affectivities. This is why it relaunches the importance of the European discourse in its symbolic dimension. As such, it explores the many images of Europe, or rather the many images through which European discourse is actually constituted in daily life, in search of their enunciative responsibility in today’s world for determining the current “State of the Union”. 

The identity of the European continent is based on a millenary tension between universalism and particularism: images of Europe have in fact been alternately inspired, over the centuries, by a model of homogeneity – Roman and Carolingian imperial disposition – on the one hand, and by a model of fragmentation – a Europe of city-states, municipalities, regions and small fatherlands – on the other. In the European Union, a political and economic organism, this issue has recently been amplified to the point that it has reentered public debate, and political parties that are only recognizable for being Europeanists or anti-Europeanists are now ubiquitous. In this regard, one major bone of contention is how to portray the quintessential aspects of the European territory, which are either interpreted as “thresholds” to be overcome in the name of a model of United Europe – “integral totality” – or are instead regarded as insurmountable obstacles for a Europe that is irreparably and perhaps, according to anti-Europeanists, fortunately fragmented – “partitive totality”. Further, this is to be done without excluding the possibility of contradictory and complementary solutions to these binary visions. 

In this context the book analyzes various texts in order to obtain a more precise picture of the clash, reveal its semiotic forms, and by doing so, identify a way out of the crisis.

Spis treści

Introduction by Francesco Mangiapane and Tiziana Migliore.- Part I - Perspectives and Destinies: The European Flag According to Paolo Fabbri by Francesco Mangiapane and Tiziana Migliore.- A Proper Name for a Proper Union. Europe’s Mythological Model by Tiziana Migliore.- European Identity and the Sexual Function of Erasmus Program. Nomadism, Bilingualism and “Swiss Language” by Claudio Paolucci.- Exercising the European Essence. From Epistemology to Ethics by Simona Chiodo.- Geopolitics and Images. From Images to Discourse by Giuseppe Bettoni.- The “Decline of the West” as a Semiotic Strategy Against a European Union by Frank Jacob.- The European Union and the Spirit of Family in the Vision of Pope Francis by Paolo Peverini.- Part II - Borders and Limits: National Self-Determination and the Limits of Europe by Franciscu Sedda.- Europe in the Balkans. Weak Normative Power Meets Pallid Legitimacy by Eric Gordy.- The Inner Border as the Construction Site to Build a Hybrid Europe. The Case of South Tyrol by Valeria Burgio.- "From an Uncertain Border". Double, Existential and Discursive, European Crisis: Changes of Glance, Between Migrants Crisis and Climate Change by Federico Montanari.- Part III - Narratives and Representations: “So disarmingly European”. Eurovision Song Contest and the European Identity by Lucio Spaziante.- Europe’s Cosmopolitan Identity. Images of Unity in Diversity in the Euro by Monica Sassatelli.- European Utopics. on the Interreg Central Europe Cooperation Programme by Maria Cristina Addis.- European Politics of Food Origin. A Semiotic Analysis of Geographical Indications by Davide Puca.

O autorze

Francesco Mangiapane deals with Socio-Semiotics of Culture and has investigated issues related to visual identity, branding, social media and internet culture, food and cultural identity. He has teached Communication of food at the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo and holds the course of Semiotics of Cultural Heritage at the Degree Course in Cultural Heritage Sciences of the University of Palermo and. Among his writings: Peppa Pig (2014), Retoriche social (2018). He is also editor of the special issue of International Journal for the Semiotics of Law dedicated to animality, entitled Animals in Law. He is a columnist on national and local newspapers and magazines.

Tiziana Migliore is adjunct professor of Semiotics at UniMercatorum University – Rome. She is the scientific secretary of the CiSS-International Center of Semiotic Sciences Umberto Eco, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, and the vice president of the International Association of Visual Semiotics. She has teached in several Universities, as IUAV Venice, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, University of Urbino Carlo Bo and University of Rome Tor Vergata. An expert of visual semiotics, rhetoric and aesthetics, her inquiry focuses on semiotic analysis of artworks. She has published Sensi del visibile: immagine, testo, opera (2018), Biennale di Venezia. Il catalogo è questo (2012), Miroglifici. Figura e scrittura in Joan Miró (2011), and more than 60 scientific articles in Italian and international journals.

Blurb

This book deals with the fundamental semantics of images of Europe, which consist of valences, mirror beliefs and affectivities. This is why it relaunches the importance of the European discourse in its symbolic dimension. As such, it explores the many images of Europe, or rather the many images through which European discourse is actually constituted in daily life, in search of their enunciative responsibility in today’s world for determining the current “State of the Union”. 

The identity of the European continent is based on a millenary tension between universalism and particularism: images of Europe have in fact been alternately inspired, over the centuries, by a model of homogeneity – Roman and Carolingian imperial disposition – on the one hand, and by a model of fragmentation – a Europe of city-states, municipalities, regions and small fatherlands – on the other. In the European Union, a political and economic organism, this issue has recently been amplified to the point that it has reentered public debate, and political parties that are only recognizable for being Europeanists or anti-Europeanists are now ubiquitous. In this regard, one major bone of contention is how to portray the quintessential aspects of the European territory, which are either interpreted as “thresholds” to be overcome in the name of a model of United Europe – “integral totality” – or are instead regarded as insurmountable obstacles for a Europe that is irreparably and perhaps, according to anti-Europeanists, fortunately fragmented – “partitive totality”. Further, this is to be done without excluding the possibility of contradictory and complementary solutions to these binary visions. 

In this context the book analyzes various texts in order to obtain a more precise picture of the clash, reveal its semiotic forms, and by doing so, identify a way out of the crisis.

With contributions by Maria Cristina Addis, Giuseppe Bettoni, Valeria Burgio, Simona Chiodo, Erik Gordy, Frank Jacob, Francesco Mangiapane, Tiziana Migliore, Federico Montanari, Claudio Paolucci, Paolo Peverini, Davide Puca, Monica Sassatelli, Franciscu Sedda, and Lucio Spaziante.