https://www.cynthiavialle.com/talks daily 0.75 2022-09-20 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/talks/fictional-memoirs-and-the-embodiment-of-young-womens-voices monthly 0.5 2022-09-20 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/talks/divergent-portraits-from-pedagogy-to-transgression monthly 0.5 2022-09-20 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/talks/new-18th-century-narrative-genres-and-the-creation-of-the-fictional-category-of-youth monthly 0.5 2022-09-20 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/talks/therightagetospeak monthly 0.5 2022-09-20 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/talks/eighteenth-century-literary-portraits-the-repurposing-of-a-seventeenth-century-socialite-practice monthly 0.5 2021-11-14 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/talks/le-portrait-au-xviie-sicle-entre-reprsentation-de-soi-et-jeu-des-apparences monthly 0.5 2022-09-20 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/talks/subterranean-incest-in-lewiss-the-monk monthly 0.5 2021-03-22 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/talks/representations-of-masculine-ageing-in-neorealist-movies-an-analysis-of-umberto-d monthly 0.5 2021-03-22 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/talks/framing-portraits-in-18th-c-novels monthly 0.5 2021-03-22 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/talks/enlightenmentguidebookother monthly 0.5 2022-09-20 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/talks/caribbeanwitcheszombiesempires monthly 0.5 2022-09-20 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/home daily 1.0 2023-03-05 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6046c3caf147cd625c7b845d/43e82dbd-bbd6-4a0b-adb5-69ea63449e7e/Vialle-Giancotti%2C+Cynthia+6_092721.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6046c3caf147cd625c7b845d/e25f73f3-68c5-4667-a9e3-2dd3e6cf07eb/vertical+tree.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6046c3caf147cd625c7b845d/1615441599900-12OGWGSJ26KG6I91ZZU8/mondrian+red.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6046c3caf147cd625c7b845d/1615477441475-QRUW6ZPRNNE0WRR01OC0/the+horizontal+tree.jpg https://www.cynthiavialle.com/favorite-quotes-1 daily 0.75 2022-10-16 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/get-started daily 0.75 2025-05-12 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/get-started/p/relationship-with-youothers-da5ff monthly 0.5 2024-04-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ced8e1d5fd4c700018dd761/1560190004400-XTA0DF0S9WOZJUG994C8/Stocksy_txp824ffa5crXt000_Original_845035.jpg Get Started - Relationship with You+Others https://www.cynthiavialle.com/get-started/p/relationship-with-others-92xw5 monthly 0.5 2024-04-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ced8e1d5fd4c700018dd761/1560189982811-KFAJF1TCUH1SXZ827UMC/Stocksy_txp824ffa5crXt000_Large_844923.jpg Get Started - Relationship with Others https://www.cynthiavialle.com/get-started/p/relationship-with-you-zn3e2 monthly 0.5 2024-04-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ced8e1d5fd4c700018dd761/1560189874730-3B0TSLDUHTQ93497V3L8/Stocksy_txp824ffa5crXt000_Large_844934A.jpg Get Started - Relationship with You https://www.cynthiavialle.com/teaching daily 0.75 2022-09-20 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/teaching/napoleon monthly 0.5 2021-03-22 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/teaching/baroqueappearances monthly 0.5 2021-03-22 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/teaching/frenchsupernaturalliterature monthly 0.5 2021-03-24 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/teaching/francophone-literature monthly 0.5 2021-03-24 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/teaching/masculine-ageing monthly 0.5 2021-03-24 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/teaching/ageingliterature monthly 0.5 2021-03-24 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/teaching/frenchenlightenmentideals monthly 0.5 2022-09-20 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/teaching/selfportraits monthly 0.5 2022-09-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6046c3caf147cd625c7b845d/1b975ef7-6db3-4afb-aea4-f01701729315/5-picasso-self-portrait.jpeg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6046c3caf147cd625c7b845d/9dd43c3b-f52f-49c8-9ce7-b15ded8d2028/self-portrait-with-bonito-1941.jpg%21Large.jpg https://www.cynthiavialle.com/teaching/fictionalfamilies monthly 0.5 2022-09-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6046c3caf147cd625c7b845d/25d5e2f0-9d89-4ea5-b7ef-040477907e80/ADDAMS+FAMILY-title-small+copy.jpg https://www.cynthiavialle.com/teaching/the-gothic monthly 0.5 2021-03-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6046c3caf147cd625c7b845d/1616194473617-UU2JOW8IPY8CZVPCE37M/the-fall-of-the-damned-dieric-bouts-detail.jpeg Teaching - The Gothic - Calendar Week 1-Introduction Section1 Introduction. Gothic Themes, Horror, Terror, Sublime Section2 Johann Heinrich Fuessli (1741-1825), Nightmare (1781); Francisco Goya (1746-1828), The sleep of reason produces monsters (1797-1799) Week 2: Gothic Mansions Section1 Horace Walpole (1717-1797), The Castle of Otranto (1764) (I-II) Section2 Horace Walpole (1717-1797), The Castle of Otranto (1764) (III-IV) Week 3: Damsels in Distress Section1 Jane Austen (1775-1817), Northanger Abbey (1817) (ch. 1-10) Section2 Jane Austen (1775-1817), Northanger Abbey (1817) (ch. 11-end) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6046c3caf147cd625c7b845d/1616220365425-CIAMMQGN3D5ZPQ8I0ITG/Victor_Hugo-Hunchback.jpg Teaching - The Gothic - Week 4: Gothic Kinship Section1 Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818), The Monk (1796) (ch. 1-7) Section2 Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775-1818), The Monk (1796) (ch. 8-12) Week 5: Jailers and Prisoners Section 1 William Godwin (1756-1836), Caleb Williams (1794) (Selections) Section2 William Godwin (1756-1836), Caleb Williams (1794) (Selections) Week 6: Who is the Monster? Section 1 Mary Shelley (1797-1851), Frankenstein (1818) (Letter 1-ch. 10) Section2 Mary Shelley (1797-1851), Frankenstein (1818) (ch. 11-24) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6046c3caf147cd625c7b845d/1616220454070-W72TUJ9KNJGFJIFHXF9F/dracula.jpg Teaching - The Gothic - “Others” Week 7: The Exotic Other Section1 Victor Hugo (1802-1885), The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) Section2 Victor Hugo (1802-1885), The Hunchback of Notre-Dame(1831) Week 8: The Exotic Other Section1 Bram Stoker (1847-1912), Dracula (1897), (ch. 1-13) Section2 Bram Stoker (1847-1912), Dracula (1897), (ch. 1-13) Week 9: The Spectral Others Section1 Henry James (1843-1916), The Turn of the Screw (1898), (ch. 1-12) Section2 Henry James (1843-1916), The Turn of the Screw (1898), (ch. 13-24) Week 10: Conclusions+Posters Section 1 Conclusions Section2 Poster Presentations https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6046c3caf147cd625c7b845d/1616222494663-NT8FCT91CEVP5BTT7PVD/the+rhyme+of+the+ancient+mariner.jpg Teaching - The Gothic - Additional Readings Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish Michael Camille, The Gargoyles of Notre-Dame Terry Castle, “The Spectralization of the Other in The Mysteries of Udolpho” Kate Ellis, The Contested Castle Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime Ruth Perry, Novel Relations Ann Williams, The Art of Darkness Agnes Andeweg & Sue Zlosnik, Gothic Kinship Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny Matthew Gibson, “Dracula and the East” Ann Radcliffe, “On the Supernatural in Poetry” https://www.cynthiavialle.com/teaching/italianmodernculture monthly 0.5 2021-03-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6046c3caf147cd625c7b845d/1616269339045-VWW9S9XY0PZSNVGG59HY/Leopardi%2C_Giacomo_%281798-1837%29_-_ritr._A_Ferrazzi%2C_Recanati%2C_casa_Leopardi.jpg Teaching - Italian Modern Culture - Winds of Change Week 1-Introduction Section1 Introduction. Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798), Histoire de ma vie (1789-98) Section2 Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) La Cenerentola (1817) Week 2: Leopardi & European Romanticism Section1 Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837): L’infinito (1819); Canto notturno di un pastore errante dell’Asia (1831); Section2 Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837): “Dialogo della Natura e di un Islandese” (1827) Week 3: Ugo Foscolo & Napoleon in Italy Section1 Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827), Le Ultime Lettere di Jacopo Ortis, (1802) Section2 Ugo Foscolo (1778-1827), I Sepolcri (1807) (Selections) https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6046c3caf147cd625c7b845d/1616267119947-XTUDDC6SZNSRH5KCBZOO/Alessandro+Manzoni-Francesco+Hayez+copy.jpg Teaching - Italian Modern Culture - The Humbles Week 4: Humble People & the “Risorgimento” Section1 Alessandro Manzoni (1785-1873), I promessi sposi (1840), (ch.1) Section2 Francesco Hayez (1792-1882): Il Bacio (1859); La Meditazione (1848) Week 5: Humble Children Section1 Giovanni Verga (1840-1922), Rosso Malpelo (1873) Section2 Carlo Collodi (1826-1890), Pinocchio (1883) (Selections) Week 6: Humble Women Section1 Sibilla Aleramo (1876-1960), Una Donna (1905) (Selections) Section2 Grazia Deledda (1873-1936), Canne al Vento (1913) (Selections) Conclusive Reflections on the “Cycle of the Humble People” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6046c3caf147cd625c7b845d/1616606424909-GY6R86BZ3UMDCBS9FBY0/De+chirico-Le+muse+inquietanti+copy.jpg Teaching - Italian Modern Culture - The Human Question Week 7-Consciousness Matters Section1 Italo Svevo (1861-1928), La Coscienza di Zeno (1923) (Selections) Section2 Italo Svevo (1861-1928), La Coscienza di Zeno (1923) (Selections) Week 8: Identity Matters Section1 Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936), Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore (1921) Section2 Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936), Uno nessuno centomila (1925), (Selections) Week 9: Combat Matters Section1 Elio Vittorini (1908-1966), Uomini e no (1945) (Selections) Section2 Cesare Pavese (1908-1950), La casa in collina (1948) Week 10: Conclusion + Poster Section1 Conclusion Section2 Poster Presentations https://www.cynthiavialle.com/research daily 0.75 2021-03-23 https://www.cynthiavialle.com/research/literarydescription monthly 0.5 2021-03-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6046c3caf147cd625c7b845d/1616608395361-YDX09GE0E7GS5YT9W77V/Buffon%2C__Le_cachicame_%2C_in__Histoire_naturelle__Wellcome_L0012684.jpeg Research - Literary Description - Description and Portraits In my dissertation, titled “Framing Portraits in French 17th and 18th century novels”, I try to counter a general critical disengagement from the field of literary description, and go beyond the stereotyped image of description as a minor component of 18th century French novels. I do so by focusing on the study of literary portraits, a traditionally discarded genre and most often absorbed within the “character studies”. I offer a panoramic view of portraiture practices starting from a comparison between Madeleine de Scudéry’s portraits and Fénelon’s ekphrastic fragments, continuing with an analysis of Le Sage’s and Voltaire’s fictional portraits and conclude with libertine and Gothic portraits (Laclos, Sade, Potocki). Thanks to an approach that is both comparative (exploring multiple samples of literary portraits from different authors) and diachronic (observing literary portraits over a century), I was able to reach several conclusions. Firstly, 17th century practices and moral values set the pace for 18th century descriptive practices. Secondly, physical descriptions were provided only in so far as they offered inferences on a given character’s true morality and for this reason portraits consistently held a proleptic function, i.e., only characters who would eventually affect the hero’s destiny systematically received a portrait. It is only with libertine and Gothic novels that this practice changed: the authors broke from the traditional kalokagathia, ascribing to beautiful characters a good morality, and endowed their morally corrupt characters with alluring descriptions so as to confuse the reader and create a new sense of suspense. https://www.cynthiavialle.com/research/thegothic monthly 0.5 2021-03-23 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6046c3caf147cd625c7b845d/1616607772117-3KTVUTOOX9JDBGRMXGH2/the+monk.jpeg Research - The Gothic - The Gothic Research Unit In the last decade, an increasing number of handbooks and critical studies have been published on the Gothic genre. In 2010-2015, Routledge published over 40 studies focused on the Gothic; in the last 5 years, 183 titles have been added to this list. Although the increasing interest in the hitherto marginalized genre of the Gothic is in itself a remarkable cultural phenomenon, most of the published handbooks focus on the English-speaking world, leaving aside other cultural and linguistic traditions with rich and interesting Gothic materials. This group seeks to conduct research on the Gothic literary and cinematic genres from a transnational, cross-cultural, and interdisciplinary perspective. We consider the Gothic to have rich traditions that have been underexplored and have plenty to contribute to debates on Queer and LGBTQ+ studies, feminist studies, cultural theory, bio-politics, and the relation between fiction and techno-science, among others. By looking at the world from the peripheral standpoints of the “monstrous,” the abject, the dark, the uncanny, and the tumultuous, the Gothic offers a uniquely critical insight into modern societies. In integrating literary studies, interdisciplinary perspectives, and digital humanities, this project seeks to cover and systematize Gothic materials that include not only classics of the Gothic literary genre, but also artistic practices that make use and influence this aesthetic, such as cinema, photography, comics, and music. The group will also focus on expanding scholarly knowledge of geographical and linguistic areas generally ignored by Anglophone critics, such as Latin America, The Caribbean, Asia, and Africa. In doing so, we expect to portray the Gothic as a complex phenomenon, and one that has the potential to offer critical multi-cultural portrayals of modern society and history. Our goal is to study these societal portrayals carefully, to organize a multi-cultural Gothic corpus that is respectful of the different linguistic, social, and geo-historical traditions, and to make this comprehensive knowledge available to the academic community and beyond. For more information and to stay updated with our events, visit this page. https://www.cynthiavialle.com/research/baroquevision monthly 0.5 2021-03-22 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6046c3caf147cd625c7b845d/1616606982160-FCHUT3HKD8OB5KAK7EUL/piranesi.jpeg Research - Baroque Vision - Baroque Vision How did perception differ in the 17th century? Why couldn’t one trust one’s own eyes? Why were authors teaching their readers how to “read”, “observe”, “discern” the “other”? Who was this “other”? My research on literary portraits, medical and artistic treatises of the time answers to some of these questions. https://www.cynthiavialle.com/research/old-age monthly 0.5 2021-03-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6046c3caf147cd625c7b845d/1616608145237-06TX9MCGDYCN7LMEYZ7N/rembrandt+detail.jpeg Research - Old Age - Old Age in Early Modern TImes Old age is less the result of a biological reality, than the by-product of a cultural and social construction. Each culture and society determines its age and rites of passage relative to specific life stages, but more importantly, this social construction influences and dictates how old people experience aging and are supposed to live it. Modern society is plagued by a fear of old age, an experience which lingers in the dark corners of our horizons and haunts us, and by a widespread, overwhelming ageism. Ageism is a very unusual and disquieting form of social: it is not directed against a different “other”, but against our future self, while also being one of the most socially condoned and institutionalized forms of prejudice. We also have a tendency to believe that different eras treated old age in different ways, but is this actually the case? Or aren’t we falling into the trap of believing that “nowadays the youth does not respect their elders anymore”, an idea as ancient as Plato’s Republic. My aim, in my next book project, is to focus on literary, artistic and theatrical representations of old age in the 17th and 18th century. Very few works exist on the subject: with the exception of David Troyanski’s and Philippe Ariès’s works on old age and death respectively, only sparse chapters or articles actually address this issue. My goal is twofold: 1) to map representations of old age or aging from a gendered perspective and their use in different genres and 2) following Edward Said’s Late Style and the exceptional longevity of certain authors such as Madeleine de Scudéry, Fontenelle, Le Sage, Voltaire and others, to explore how their old age affected their writing and their representations of characters. In Voltaire’s case, I have already identified, along with a growing focus on physical suffering, a shift in the choice of characters, proposing more and more, as he ages, positive images of old men mentoring and guiding the youth.