Traditions, Poetics, and Geographies of the Gaze: Photography Between Italy and the United States



Adopting a comparative approach, the course explores the major trajectories of Italian and American photography through the lens of landscape, conceived not merely as decorative backdrop or visual setting, but as a cultural construction of vision, a means of organizing what is seen, and a historically situated relationship between subject, space, and society. Juxtaposing Italy and the United States allows for the identification of distinct modes of representing landscape, revealing how photography in both contexts has not only documented environmental and social change but also actively shaped ways of perceiving and interpreting reality.

The course foregrounds points of convergence and divergence, as well as the specificities of each tradition, by examining natural, urban, social, and interior landscapes as sites of memory, arenas of political meaning, forms of habitation, and stages for identity formation. This inquiry unfolds through the comparison and dialogue between photographers such as Luigi Ghirri and Ansel Adams, Gabriele Basilico and Walker Evans, Letizia Battaglia and Dorothea Lange, Mimmo Jodice and Robert Frank, Franco Fontana and William Eggleston, and Lisetta Carmi and Diane Arbus.