Teaching Workshop: Philosophy Workshop 5

The workshop aims to introduce students to key concepts for analyzing the rhetorical constructions that shape the visualization and narration of the hybrid body. Building on the foundations of rhetoric, it will intersect perspectives from disability studies, embodied cognitive science, and media archaeology.
Two main lines of inquiry will be pursued. First, the workshop will trace the genealogy of bodily stigmatization in the late nineteenth century. Particular attention will be given to the rise of criminal and identification photography, the popularity of cartes de visite and freak shows, and the patenting of prosthetic limbs designed to normalize the mutilated body. Second, the workshop will examine the persistence of this stigmatizing paradigm in the present. It will consider both the difficulties faced by non-normative bodies in articulating their needs and desires, and the rhetorical and visual strategies through which hybrid bodies reclaim identity and agency.

The workshop aims to develop the following skills:

Critical thinking skills:
By the end of the workshop, students will display a sufficiently independent critical approach in selecting and interpreting the notions that are most relevant their area of study and to the broader socio-cultural context in which they operate

Communication skills:
By the end of the workshop:
- students will be able to effectively communicate the acquired knowledge and disseminate it to the general public;
- student will have developed basic IT skills concerning knowledge preservation and transfer.

Learning skills:
By the end of the workshop, students will have developed the learning skills required to continue their studies in keeping with their own research interests. In order to meet this objective, students will also develop relevant skills in the independent interpretation of sources and in the use of basic IT tool for bibliographic research.