Italo Calvino: the Dark Side

Undergraduate / Graduate

An intense reading of Italo Calvino's later works: we will contemplate the orbital debris of "Cosmicomics" and "t zero," and we will follow the labyrinthine threads of "The Castle of Crossed Destinies" and the "Invisible Cities." After stumbling upon the suspended multiple beginnings of "If On a Winter's Night a Traveler," we will probe the possibilities of literature with the essays collected in "Una pietra sopra." Finally, we will encounter "Mr Palomar," who will provide us with a set of instructions on how to neutralize the self and "learn how to be dead." The approach will be both philosophical and historical, focusing on Calvino's ambiguous fascination with science, his critique of the aporias of reason and the "dementia" of the intellectual, and his engagement with the nuclear threat of total annihilation.